NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 2093, 21 February 1920, Page 4

NEWS IN BRIEF.

At the Church of the Sacred Henri in Paris, a 22-ton hell is lolled by electricity. A choir boy now does the work which formerly required the services of tive men. A prize-bred game hen belonging to Mr R. 11. Dolphin, a local fancier, of. Attercliffc, Sheffield, recently hatched a,,freak chicken with six legs, two heads, and four Avings. ■ The fattest child on record Avas a Worcestershire girl who died in 1810, and who,"at the age of five years, -was 4ft. in height, -Ift. 2in. round the chest, and Aveighed nearly. Hist. A strange custom is practised ainong the Eskimos, When a doctor is called in he receives his fee as soon as he arrives. If the patient recovers it is'kept ;'it not, it is returned. After Waterloo, the chief engrar ver of the Mint Avas commissioned to prepare a lifting medal...for presentation to the leaders of the victorious armies. He did so,'but took thirty years toeomplete the Avork. The Avcttdst toAvn in the Avorld. is in India. This toAvn, Avhere there is an almost constant rainfall, is called Chora pun ji. Its average rainfall is 600 inches, or 50 feet, a year, or nearly a foot a Aveek. Writing a song that catches on is one of the shortest cuts to Avealtli. Sullivan received £IO,OOO in royalties for “The Lost Chord,'’ and “My Pretty Jane” remunerated, its composer to the tune of £2,000 a line! A letter posted in London fifteen years ago has just been delivered to a Portsmouth tradesman, avlio, failing to observe the date, proceeded to execute the order contained therein before lie discovered the belated character of the commission. Birds cannot open the foot Avhen, the .leg is bent; that is the reason they do not call oftv their perches when asleep. If you Avatcli a hen walking, you will notice that it closes its toes as it raises the foot, and opens them Avhen it toadies the ground. ' During last year the gold output of the Klondyke was some.£-100.000. Since this goldfield was first worked about £40,000,000 of the precious metal has been secured, and it is belieA’cd that there is still an equal amount waiting to lie Avorked out. A curiosity of Nicaragua is a soapy lake. This sheet of water, the Lake of: Nejpa, contains a strong solution of bicarbonate of potash, bicarbonate of soda, and sulphate of magnesia. The water, when rubbed against any greasy object, a! once forms a good lather, It is used as hair-Avash, and enjoys a local reputation as a cure for external and'internal complaints. The Roman aqueducts Avcro marvels of architecture. The Anio was 43 miles long; the .Martio 41, of which 38 miles Avere on 7,000 arcades 70 feet high; and the Claudia was 47 ntilesdong, the arches being--100 foot high. The aqueducts brought 40,000,000 cubic feet of water daily into Romo, and the 'Various sections of the metropolis wore supplied Avitli water by moans of 13,a04 pipes. Hervia is especially the country of centenarians, One man in every 2,260 has seen 100 years, and, in all, Hervia boa,sis 575 men of. 100 years or over. Ireland ranks next, with one centenarian in-every 8.130 of the populAtion, or 578 in all. At the lower end of the scale is Denmark, aaTucli only (4a inis two, or less than one to 1,000,000 of its population; and Switzerland, Avitli all its reputed healthiness, seems not to possess a single centenarian'. The mushroom town of Kamloops, in, British Avliieh has a population of about six. thousand souls, prpudly boasts that it possesses “the longest street-car system in' the Avorld.” The Canadian Pacific railway runs through the main street of the toAvn, and as this famous ro’ad extends from the Pacific to the Atlantic, Kamloops may he safd to have made out a fair case for its boast. It will only possess this distinction a few months longer, hoAvever, for the C.P.R. engineers are rapidly moving and sidetracking the line aAvay from the main street, which is hardly an ideal track for a modern railway.. Within a fortnight, four attempts have been made at Belfast by masked men, one dressed as a Avoman, to hold up Avomen and Tob them Avitli

violence. In at least two eases they have been successful. One lady in Shank hill Road, however, discovered a marauder trying- to, force an entrance into her house by pushing his hand into the letter-box, and she promptly struck him with a red-hot poker. The police are, now seeking for the branded man. When the appendix'of a patient operated on for appendicitis at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, London, was opened, twenty-five hairs, corresponding with the man’s drooping moustache, were found in a clump, forming a small brush. Questioned later, the patient said his moustache had been falling out, and there is not the slightest doubt, the doctor adds, “that the moustache hairs adhered to food, and had found their way to his appendix.” Military excavations, trench-mak-ing, etc., carried on in the ‘Greek parts of Macedonia during-the war by the allied armies have brought to light a large number of antiquities, such as ancient, instruments, vases of geometrical design,- and jewellery of iron, silver, and gold of great archaeological value. Further discoveries were made during investigations carried on during the war by the Greek archaeological service, and tombs of the fifth and sixth centuries before Christ hod also been discovered. These antique articles, which have been taken possession of by M. Felekides. dir-

ccinr of antiquities, prove that -the civilisation Avhich existed a; that ancient time in Macedonia was iden.teal Avitli that in Greece. An old lady of liickmansAvoith has had her photograph taken for the first time on her hundredth birthday, .She still crochets Avithouf spectacles. In the Rue Paris, al-Tlavre, a thoroughfare particularly well lighted and much frequented, an individual threw a.stone rhrough the window of a jcAvellery establishment and made oif with articles Audited at £1,600. . The R.M.S.P. liner, Aimanzora, of 16.034 tons, Avill shortly take up Imposition in The company’s mail and ’jlassonger service to Brazil and the River Plate. She will be the largest liner on the South American route, and her special features include a gymnasium, a children’s playrodtn, a lofty social-hall,- alul a winter garden;