NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 1999, 5 July 1919, Page 4

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Tiger skins are valued at ■from £8 to £l6 a-pieee, Croix de Guerre awarded during the war numbered 1,849,800. ‘ Fifty cinemas have been sent to Siberia by the American Y.M.C.A. One pound of wheat is of greater value as food than a pound of meat. Paris is to have a fleet of its own for the purpose of supplying the capital with coal; Colonies are to be organised in Russia to accommodate 300,000 starving children. . Scientific and industrial research is to cost Great Britain this year just under £250. Amerongen Municipal Council intend to tax the ex-Kaiser on an income- of about £3,900,000. Great Britain lent the Allies £l,568,447,000 during the war, and to the Dominions £170,896,000. The British Air Force began with 272 machines. At the date of the armistice there were 22,171 machines. Eight of the olive trees in the historic Garden of Olivos, near^ Jerusalem, are believed to be over 1,000 years old. A recent police court case called attention to a street in Shadwell rejoicing the the name of Labour-in-vain Street.

Mile Gaby Dosiys, who is starring in a new Paris revue, announces that one of the. hats she wears on the stage cost £320. Half the inhabitants of Northern Labrador have died during this winter through epidemics of influenza, smallpox, and measles.

A Bedfordshire smallholder is growing 24 varieties of onions; it is

seldom that more than four varieties are grown in’ the Home counties. More than 56,000 acres have beeii added to the total crop acreage of the United Slates —namely, 367,738,000 acres —in the last 10 years.

There arc 15 Socialist schools in Now York, where the 1,500 boys and girl pupils are taught hero-worship of Lenin alul Trotsky and political

prisoners. While the aero-engine industry scarcely had an existence in England in 11)14, by 1918 wo created the largest and most efficient aircraft industry in the Avorld. The funeral car, which may still be seen in the crypt of St. Paul’s Cathedral, and which carried Wellington to his tomb, is made entirely of the enemy’s guns. Owing to the absence of such an obstruction as the atmosphere, it is probable that every message dispatched from a wireless station on the earth reaches the moon, Mr Herman Stitch, an American court reporter, is the latest Pitman writer to create a world’s record for live consecutive minutes. Vast lakes, tilled with the highest grade of commercial potash, have been discovered in Nebraska and Colorado (U.S.A.), and no time has been lost in installing equipment at these places and obtaining a maximum production. A strike of labourers under the Bolton Corporation resulted in the postponement of funerals. At the Heaton Cemetery two men were digging graves, and orders were dealt with as they came in, without guarantee as to date. The smallest cheque on record was that drawn I>y the United States Treasury, payable to President Cleveland, in whose salary a discrepancy had been discovered. This draft was for one cent —a halfpenny. Mr Cleveland had the cheque framed as a curiosity, France is to have the most powerful wireless station in the world. It is in course of construction near Bordeaux. Four masts carrying aerials will be almost as high as Eiffel Tower, Direct communication with China or the United States will be possible. The story is related of a lemon tree, supposedly of the ordinary Italian lemon variety, which was transplanted to Egypt. When it bore fruit it was noticed that the lemons were more spherical than lemons usually are, and bore an orange-coloured stripe. On branch bore a large fruit which-was unmistakably an orange. The largest bell in the world has never sounded a clear note. It is the famous hell of Moscow, cast in 1735, and weighing 200 tons. It was not taken'from its mould until two years after it was cast, and in the meantime a tire cracked it. A fragment which is on public view in Moscow is worn smooth by the touch of the hands of thousands of tourists. In England it is people with “encumbrances” who are barred. In America they have another way. Detroit is going to spend £120,000 on building a block of flats with a fully equipped playground on the roof. In these flats people without' children will be barred. The City of Paris, a few years before the war, presented the late Czar of Russia; with an Easter egg containing jewels to the value of £2,000. The same year, one of his revolutionary subjects sent him an egg stuffed with dynamite, timed to explode at a certain hour. The weight of the egg aroused suspicion, and a tragedy was averted by the secret police opening the egg and discovering its contents.