NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 2063, 4 December 1919, Page 4

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Matchc.- are turned out in huge quantities by machinery.. The macliines now in use cut up great plank* of Avood into match splinters 1 at lightning sj>eed. The ends of Ihe splints are then',passed through.m paraffin bath, and receive their heads.

From Perignan, France, comes the story of an infant four years of age, Avho is supposed to have been carried off by an eagle and devoured in the. mountains. The child disappeared three months ago from the Aullage of Marangcs,.near the Spanish frontier. An active search failed to reveal any trace of the child. At last a group of villagers who ascended the mountain of Caneardus, looking for some horses Avhich had escaped, found the lames of an infant, some scraps of linen, and a pair, of tiny sabots. The unhappy parents were called and recognised the sabots as those of their infant. Near the bones Avas discovered a nest of eagles. It is thought that Avhile the child Avas playing in a field an eagle SAVOoped doAvn and Iransjmrted the little fellow to its eyrie. Rumours are current that the Turkish Government, Avhich is'Steadily nearing bankruptcy and has been living lately on the jn'oeeeds of sales, proposes to sol! a number of State treasures, among them the famous Peacock Throne brought with the loot of Delhi to Persia by Nadir Shah, and afterwards captured by the Turks. Several newspapers aver that the Government had an offer of 2,500,000 liras, equivalent to about £750,000, tor this precious and historic relic. While the figure appears to be exaggerated, it m undoubted that in this and other antiquities Turkey still has some assets. The Peacock Throne of Delhi used to stand in (he magnificent DiAvan-i-Am, or Hall of Public Audience, in Delhi, it was described by a French traveller avlio saw it in 1005 as of the shajio of a bed, six feet by four feel, suj>j)orted by four golden feet from the bars, above which rose 12 columns to support the canopy. The bars Avere decorated with rubies and emeralds, and the columns with magnificent pearls.