NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 2101, 11 March 1920, Page 4

NEWS IN BRIEF.

The three rows of tape.on a British bluejacket's collar are in commemoration of Nelson’s three victories —the Nile, Trafalgar, and Copen li a gen. Probably the first attempts at defence consisted of fences or palisades of wood, intended to serve as an obstruction to the advance of an attacking force. Individual (able forks were first introduced into Venice in the eleventh century by a Byzantine princess. and from Venice spread ..through the rest of Italy. Because so few typewritten inks arc indelible or unalterable the Venezuelan Government has forbidden the official registration of typewritten documents. Prior to the discovery that cotton seed could be made to yield a plentiful supply of oil, millions of pounds ox seed were destroyed or left to

decay in heaps. ‘ Raw sienna is the natural earth from the neighbourhood of Sienna f Italy, and raw umber is also the earth round about Umbria, which is prepared after having been burnt. There are now'sßo,ooo licensed automobile owners and 182,000 licensed drivers in New York State. The total of license fees paid into the Secretary of State last year exceeded £1,200,000. The Amazon in South Amevica has the greatest volume of water of any river in the world. This is duo to the great number of the Amazon's tributaries, some of which are 1,000 miles in length. ''Thomas Longley, - proprietor of the Star Inn at Dover, who died fifteen years ago, attained enormous proportions. His height was Oft. Oj’in.; chest measurement. 70in.; girth, Ssin.; calf, 20in.: weight. -!(;sl. Thomas Jackson, Shoreditch coal porter, modestly confessed, at Ihe Bethna l Green Coroner's Court, .some , years ago, to ha ving saved nine! v-nine people from drowning on as many different occasions. An amusing incident has been told of an Indian elephant whose revenge on a new mahout whom he took a dislike to, was rather funny. He picked him up mid deposited him in the brandies of a thorn tree. Nothing is wasted in Japan. Uses to which straw is put are seemingly endless. It is converted into bags for grain, shoes for the feet, raincoats for the body, roofs for the houses, paper mats, screens, heals, and numerous other articles. The Soudan medal of 189(1-7 lias a, ribbon in which yellow and black are sparated by a narrow stripe of scarlet. These colours were chosen to symbolise (he driving out of the black Dervishes from the yellow desert by the “thin red line.” On one occasion a party ot soldiers were caught in a storm, and •.ought refuge under a I roe. All ot; I hem were struck by lightning and killed. Though dead, they maintained an erect position; but their bodies, when touched, crumbled to dust. * The art collection of the hale Mr Henry Frick, the Now York steel magnate, who died recently, is valued at £3,000,000. It will eventually .beepme the property of New York City, together with the millionaire’s mansion in Fifth Avenue, which cos! £1,000,000 to build and furnish. Krupp’s have startl'd the manufacture of locomotives, waggons, signals, and switches, agricultural machinery, kinematographs, oil engines,'mot or lorries, scavenger ears, fire implements, gear wheels, textile machinery, centrifiiQ-al machines, Isols, easli registers, and calculators. According In an ancient Irma superstition a vicious horse could be lamed by whispering the Creed in its right ear on Fridays,,and in its left ear on Wednesdays, till it was cured, which was merely a matter of lime, airless it had been born at \\ ml suntide, in which case it was incurable. The aspen leaf is said to quiver because the Gross of the Crucifixion was made of this wood. she fuel is that I lie leaf is broad, and placed on a long leaf-stock so flexible' as scarcely to he able to support it in an uprighf position, the upper part ot the stalk is flattened, and, being at right angles with the leaf, is peculiarly liable to be moved by the faintest breath of air.