NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 2013, 9 August 1919, Page 4

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Whales swim at a rate o£ ten or twelve miles an hour.

Eagles have been known to fly to a height of (5,000 ft. Ostriches are being hatched in incubators in South Africa.

Some of the ice-field* of Green land are half a mile in thickness.

Chelsea pensioners have 139 tin} gardens, less than an acre in all.

The chance of two finger prints being alike is figured as one in 54,000,000,

Hackney claims a larger number of war honours than any other London borough. It is proposed that bank robberies in Oklahoma shall henceforth be punishable by death. More than 80,000 hospital beds were provided by subscriptions in Britain dining the war. The jaw of the- shark furnishes the best watchmaker’s oil. In each shark is found about a half a pint. In many places in England it is customary to present each pallbearer at a funeral with a pair of gloves.

The most primitive material usei for strings for the stringed instruments was probably twisted grass.

The South Wales Clubs’ Union recently acquired a brewery costing £20,000 to ensure a supply of beer.

Chinese fathers cannot leave more property to one son than to another. All must have an equal share.

Shakespere had a vocabulary of .some 15,000 words. The average man has about 3,500, and some have but 1,000. Monte Carlo is in fall swing. Money is passing over the gambling tables at the rate of £300,000,000 per month. During the more strenuous days of the lighting in 1918 the allied armies in France used 2,000 tons of petrol a day. America proposes to supply £15,000,000 worth of machine tools to France and Belgium for the reequipment of factories. During the war 102,'801 men were naturalised in the American’'Army. The predominating nationality was Italian. An American house detective, who experienced difficulty in mounting heights, has discovered that he has two hearts. As a result of war industries, 22,000 persons in the United States succeeded in raising their fortunes to £200,000 or more. . It was staled in the Birmingham Police Court recently that a man was making a profit of 32s per day on the sale of onions.

It is estimated that it cost £7 to carry each, American soldier to France, while the transport of each ton of supplies cost £l2. The Province of Manitoba is bigger than England and Wales, and could by herself grow enough wheat to feed' 40,009,090 people.

The Phoenix was the first steamship to make a sea voyage. She sailed from Hoboken, in Few Jersey, to Philadelphia, in the year 1809. Among recent Swedish aeronautical inventions is an apparatus for determining the exact distance, altitude, direction, and speed of any object in the air.

Special itinerant, instructors have been appointed by the Hussion Soviet Government for the purpose of educating peasants in politics, and are touring the villages. Metis Academy, which, to avoid the presence of German authorities, has not mot since 1870, hold a formal session on June 12th, celebrating the centenary of its foundation. Surplus material valued at £17,400,000 has been disposed of by the American War Department. This includes 15,000,000 hand grenades for conversion into coin savings banks Jior children. The wild horses of Arabia will not admit a tame horse among them, while the wild horses of South America endeavour to decoy the domesticated horses from their masters, and seem eager to welcome them. Elaborate celebrations are being held in Denmark in honour of the 700th anniversary of the adoption of the Danish flag. The Hag of Denmark, a plain red banner bearing on it a white cross, is the oldest Hag now in existence.

Through the co-operation of the industrial power plants, which have thus far put into force the standard recommendations of the United States fuel administration to promote efficiency in the use of fuel in power plants, a saving of 7,000,000 tons annually has been effected.