NEWS AND NOTES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 2067, 13 December 1919, Page 4

NEWS AND NOTES.

The Financial' Secretary to the British Treasury stated in the House of -Commons 'recently that the number of members, excluding Sinn Reiners, who are refusing to accept their salaries is six.

There is, or used to be, a Persian carpet, covering the whole floor of the pavilion of the Ohehel Situn Palace at Ispahan, Persia, which has been in use since the sixteenth century reign of Shah Abbas. The deepest coal pit in England is the Pendleton Colliery, in-Lanca-shire, where the shaft, three-quar-ters of a mile in sheer depth, cuts through some 10 different seams, with an aggregate thickness of t Oft.

England has 2.571 miles of road to every square mile of area. France, 1.75 miles, and the United States .739. There are 108 French citizens to every mile of road, 239 Englishmen, and but 41.81 cans.For a period of 17 months, which was the time America was in the v:ar, railway accidents produced a 101 l of 2,088 killed and 9,980 wounded, which means that for every 24 United States soldiers killed during the war the United States railroads alone killed one citizen.

All the 35 public swimming baths in Manchester are now fitted with apparatus by which the water is exposed to the atmosphere to be reoxygonated, filtered, and used over ana over again, instead of fresh water being used. By this process nearly 2,000,000 gallons of water a voar are saved.

The Shantung 1 coalfield* of China arc v,--irked by most primitive methods. Must wasteful of all is the method of “unwalering” a mine. Skins, which cost .£lO each, are attached to iron rings to form buckets. One of (he skins lasts about 10 days. They are raised and lowered by hand, and it requires about seven men to operate one of the hoists. Steam or electric power and electric lights are taboo. The average daily 'circulation of the -100 newspapers in continuous publication in China is only about 0,000 copies apiece, but in actual practice is very much larger. This is due to the Chinese habit of never destroying a newspaper, but of selling it again and again after it has been read. One copy, indeed, does service to many readers, and only ceases to ho read when it falls to pieces. A fter .growing for ten years, the Japanese cypress, the Peter Pan of the horticultural world, reaches the si/.c of a golf ball. As if exhausted with tins tremendous effort, (he next ten years sec it increase only, by a fraction, when it practically stops growing altogether. It is evergreen ami lasting, and, so the story goes, was discovered by the world's laziest gardener, who produced it by crossing the two slowest-growing plants ho could find.

Very romantic is the story of the Braganze diamond, a stone of i(>80 carats, and “as large as a goose’s egg,” which, for more than a century, has boon (he proudest possession of the Portuguese Crown. This amazing stone, Avliich Mr Streeter, I lie great authority on gems, has valued at. £58,000,000. was picked up by three Brazilian outlaws in the half-dried bed of the Ahaite River, in the province of Alinas Genres, The outlaws took (he stone to the nearest village priest, who obtained acce-s for them to the Governor, into whose possession it was given. The diamond, the largest and lines!: hitherto found, was despatched to Lisbon, with the result that the three outlaws received the Koval pardon and a rich reward, whilce the padre to whose friendly offices they owed their good fortune, was given high preferment in the church.