NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 2024, 4 September 1919, Page 4

NEWS IN BRIEF.

The first women printers are said to have been nuns of the Dominican Order, who- ran a printing press in the convent at Mount Ripoli, Italy,' as early Vs 147(1.

The first notable long-distance balloon (light covered a distance of 500 miles, and was made in 18 hours. It was in 1830, from London to Wellburg, Germany. The biggest .salmon caught, for a quarter of !a century has been landed in the net fishings“off Beruefi on the const of Scotland. It'weighed 50Jb., and measured over 4ft.

It is estimated that the earth can maintain 0,000,000,000 people, or ahout four times to-day’s population. At the present rate of increase wfc shall reach that figure in some 200 years. •. -

According to statistics published in the United States, New- York is bigger in population than London by a quarter of a million, the figures for 1919 being 8,045,090 .in New York, against London’s 7,787,320. A .well-known sportsman .who possessed a small terrier calculated that if the 2,525 rats which the dog killed during its career as a “ratter” liad been allowed to live they would have produced 1,033,190,200 other rats.

A Cornishman once made-himself a complcte-suit of rat skins. It took him three years and a-hall; to collect the pelts, and the skins of 070 rats were used, an ornamental border round the tunic being composed of 000 tails.

Tarring a road lessens the cost of upkeep. It makes it more durable, especially under motor traffic, and, of course, there is far less dust. The yearly sweepings from a. tarred road averages 15 tons per mile less ihairihose from ordinary macadam. There is humour in the ways of desert .tortoises. When one meets smother —unless both are males, when a light invariably takes place —each nods its head raj)idly up and down as though in salutsflion, and some times noses are louehed as they pass.

The largest Bible in existence is in the Royal Library at Stockholm. The covers are made of solid planks, din. thick, and the pages each measure a yard in length. It is .estimated that a hundred asses’ skins must have been used to furnish-the 309 parchment leaves of this colossal book. It is considered priceless. Some curious home-made stamps were issued by Great Britain during (lie occupation of Long Island, in the Aegean Sea. At first Turkish fiscal stamps, overprinted, were used for postal purposes, and 'when these were exhausted a supply was produced on a typewriter. They were of all the colours of the rainbow.

The Egyptian hen, it- is curious to note, does not possess the sitting instinct. This is attributed to the practice of artificial incubation, which is generally followed in Egypt. It is contended by those who have investigated the subject that the art of hatching eggs by artificial heat originated in Egypt in verv remote times.

A story went round in the early days of tlie-war that in the Heligoland Bight “scrap” a sailor spat on a shell, and that shell sank a German ship. Nobody ever stopped to ask why the man did it. The custom was very ancient. Pliny mentioned it. The saliva was supposed to be part of a man’s soul, and this custom was a .sacrifice to the god of battles. Fishermen always spat in the trawl before lowering it into the sea.