NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 2097, 2 March 1920, Page 4

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Short-sightedness is quite common among monkeys. Canada exports over £50,000,000 worth of furs annually. Silver is the earliest currency mentioned in the Scriptures. As a result of war’s ravages there are ha!f-u-million orphans in Servia. Exports sa.y t hat Victoria, in Australia, has at least 30,000 million tons of coal. Great Britain has spent £140,000,000 on industrial housing since the war began. Mushrooms, a world-wide product, are as plentiful in Siberia as in tropical climes. Records made by Cicero and Pliny tell of the Romans using ink made of (ho liquor of cuttlefish. / Niue hundred and ninety-seven cutting tools alone are required, in manufacturing a modern rifle. The Marseillaise was so called because it was first sung in Haris by volunteers from Marseilles. In a single year as many as halfa- million eases of self-destnuTion have been recorded in China. During the war Hie Grand Elect consumed 11,000,000 tons of fuel in steaming ever the North Sea. The Eskimo language is so polysynlhetic that one word is able to express a whole sentence. For -illustration, the word “Uotivoq,” which means “The hairy side of the skin is gelling loose." A large number of Japanese obtain a livelihood by catching lirellies. These insects are used as ornaments at social festivities. Sometimes they are kept caged, sometimes released in swarms in the presence of (ho guests. It has been computed that Stradivaritis produced during his long industrious life more than violins, violas, ’cellos and oilier instruments of the fiddle tribe. No fewer than 5-10 of these have been located u)) lo the present time by an .English firm. As Stradivarius was horn ahout 1044, and died in 1737, many of; his instruments are over ‘2OO years old. It was once the custom in Korea, that a man was not allowed to attain to the dignity of t rousers until lie married. A bachelor was forced to wear skirts as one who possessed no definite position in society. Moreover, the law prohibited.marriage unless the man was able Vo support ;i wife in the station to winch she was list'd, so that the skirl also served as an index to income. Over a million "pounds’ worth ot. herrings were brought into 5 annuuth during the past season.