NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 2013, 9 August 1919, Page 1

NEWS IN BRIEF.

One of the treasures of the London Institute of Bankers is a cheque drawn by Thomas Foules, a London goldsmith, for £9 13s (Id, dated 1075, which is believed to be the oldest cheque in the country. It bears the name of no bank, has no stamp upon it, and there is no counterfoil. But it was duly honoured.

One the first day of the Somme battle in 1910 13,090 tons of ammunition were fired by the British; in 1917, on September 20th and 21st, 42,000 tons were expended; and in the three days when the British broke down the Hindenburg Line, September 27th to 29th, 1918, early 05,000 tons of shells were

fired by their artillery. It is not generally known . that Heligoland possesses the most powerful of the world’s lighthouses. The tower is 80 feet high, mounted by a lantern which throws beams of 00,000,090 candle-power. On a clear night Hashes can be seen from the coast, 35 miles away. During the war the tower was repeatedly struck by shells from our torpedo boats, but the lantern and its light escaped serious injury. The British Army during the war owned 500,000 cats. Some two years ago someone discovered that cats have a deep-rooted aversion to poison gas, and gave notice of its presence long before any human being had an inkling of the danger. So the Military Service Acts •were extended to cover the inhabitants of the animal kingdom, and pussy received her “calling-up” notices.

A live Dodo was exhibited in London in 1038. Sir Hamon Lestrunge says that, as he walked London streets, he saw a picture of a .strange fowl hung out on a cloth canvas, and on going in to see it, found a great bird kept in a chamber, somewhat bigger than the largest turkey cock, and so legged and footed, but shorter and thicker. The keeper called it a Dodo, and showed visitors how it would .wallow large pebble stones as big as nutmegs. A search fur a missing meteor, conducted by the United States Geological Survey, ended in the reservoir of the water company at Towanda, Fa., and incidentally enabled the company to account for the sudden disappearance, of its ice crop one night last January. On the afternoon of the meteor’s flight the water company ollicials visited the reservoir and decided to cut the eight-inch, crop of ice'the next morning. During the night the meteor landed in the reservoir. When the workmen went to harvest the ice it had dwindled to a scant three inches.