NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 2037, 4 October 1919, Page 1

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Lightning has been know to extinguish electric lights. A Chinese day is divided into 12 parts of two hours each. The first watches ever made were as big as soup-plates. , Common house sparrows fly at the rate of 72 miles an hour, French brides were by 5,000 Americans on active service. Real ultramarine is made from the lapislazuli stone, and is almost priceless. Out of 22 ambulance trains for use in England, only eight ale still employed. Kid gloves, with hand-painted backs, were once a great craze on the Continent, Pins were first used in England in 1543, before which time the ladies used “skewers!" The British Government is subsidising important: industries, etc.,- to the extent of £184,000,000. Indian ink is not Indian, but is made-by the Chinese from a secret process of burning camphor. The. native 'fishermen of Month Australia make ropes and fishing nets from local varieties of seaweed. From six to ten matches per head of the population arc daily used in the principal countries of Europe. When opals were first taken from the mine they are so soft that they can be picked to pieces with the finger-nail. The oldest firearms were used in China, and the Chinese were fighting with guns at a time when Europeans used bows and arrows. In 1875 there was a suggest inn made for the construction of a Channel bridge, at a cost which was then estimated'at £31,000,000. Before the recent wave of high prices struck Japan, hoard and lodging in thill country is said to have been obtainable for f 3 a year. It is the custom in Japan for parents to label (heir children with t-heir addresses, so that in case they wander any wayfarer may send them home.