NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 2113, 10 April 1920, Page 4

NEWS IN BRIEF.

An odd and.highly remunerative employment is that of those men and women who make a business of inventing cable codes for large financial bouses and merchants dealing in overseas trade.

The Faculty of Medicine of Paris has just received the skeleton of a giant orang-outang killed in Gabon. It is 6ft, Tin. long from the top of the skull to the sole of the feet. This gigantice ape, when, alive was certainly 6ft. 9in. high, and-is estimated to have weighed 2761 b. For a wager of one thousand francs, a French cabman recently undertook to smoke a hundred strong cigars in two days. In the first 21 hours he had disposed of 66; and, after a two hours’ rest, continued his task with such vigour that by noon of the following day the stump of his last cigar was burning bis lips. Pancakes originated in a monastery. The custom of eating pancakes on Shrove Tuesday is thus explained by one authority: In the monastries the monks had pancakes for suppor on Shrove Tuesday, in order to use up all the eggs, fat, lard, etc., which were forbidden on Ash Wednesday and after. The monks gave away at the monastery gates what pancakes they could not eat, the poor being glad of them. It is possible that the highest point ever reached by a balloon was in 1362. In September of that year Messrs Glaisher and Coxwel! made (heir famous ascent from the Molyneaux Grounds, Wolverhampton. It is estimated that a final height approaching 37,000 ft. was attained, but this figure is only speculative, The last recorded observation by this intrepid pair of balloonists was taken at a height of 29,000 ft. At this stage Glasher lost consciousness. so that the height attained by the balloon when Coxwell, who was almost paralyzed, opened the valve with Ins teeth is merely conjectural.,

The first performance of “Medorah” at the London Alhambra had

to be postponed owing to some of t ho costumes having been stolen. In a compensation ease at Shoreditch a linn offered £IOO in settlement of a case in which a boy lost an eye. • The parents were willing to accept that sum. Judge,Cluer said an insurance company put the value of an eye at £SOO, He concluded: This boy does not understand, and must be protected. It is a miserably ridiculous offer, which 1 shall refuse to agree to. People in Ilnur class of life ought nut to be tempted by employers with such trumpery offers. It is very unfair. The settlement is refused.

The medical report on Arthur Ilonvood, 41, charged a I Manchester Assizes with the murder of Edith Manning, stated that the prisoner thought that Britain had boon lighting Iho French and did not know on Avliich side Germany had been. He was found to be insane, and ordered to be detained daring His Majesty's pleasure.

A German paper says: “Herr Firdiuand Bunn, author of the “Kaiser” film, in an attempt to defend himself, says that when the danger of the ex-Kaiser's extradition seemed acute, he, with others, formed the plan to let himself be taken to Lon•don, disguised as. the Kaiser, in the latter’s stead. Herr Bonn says the project would not be difficult of execution.”