NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 2034, 27 September 1919, Page 4

NEWS IN BRIEF.

The name of a ship counts a lot with, a sailor, for a great many sailors won’t sail on a ship whose name begins wilii “tf,” while the letter ‘‘C’’ is another initial which is disliked; and a female name is preferred to a male name.

Since the sale of vodka was prohibited in .Russia many illicit stills have been unearthed . which have been recovering tin; alcohol in shellac.’ The shellac is divested of its alcohol by distillation, and a crude beverage is then made. Inns were originally very few in number. In the time of Edward I. (here were only three “houses of call” in London; in 1552 forty only were legal! y permitted to the metropolis, hut just after 1(300 there were -100 inns in the City of London.

Teaching swimming strokes by moving pictures is a suggestion put before the English Board of Education. Expert swimmers are photographed,in action, and after studying the strokes, the pupils imitate them until the teacher is satisfied. Then the motions are practised in the water.

The geophone, invented during the war to determine the exact location of sounds above and beneath the surface of the earth, will soon be used extensively in mining operations in the United States, either for sounding purposes or in determining the loeation of men blocked from escape by eave-ins or explosions.