NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 2153, 22 July 1920, Page 4

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Camel liesh was recently on sale in Paris.

Superfluous Avar-A r essels, tilled Avith concrete, arc being offered by the British Government to coast toAvns for use- as brcakAvaters.

The greatest smokers are Ihe people of Holland, where seven pounds of tobacco per bead of the population is consumed annually.

A purchaser of an old Arab musket in an antique shop in Paris discoA’ered in the barrel of it-240 valuable turquoises, all of beautiful colour.

Although it Ims been stated that children are no longer to be kept in Avorkhouses, there are still 19,389 children in Avorkhouses in England. Of the total number of passengers carried by London’s electric railways, ’buses, and three allied tramway systems, 49 per cent, travel by ’bus. A Avell-bred Parisian is said to earn a comfortable livelihood by liguring as the fourteenth guest at dinner parties Avbicli otherwise would be attended by only 13 persons. German prisoners in Great Britain were employed in two ways —about 25,000 on the land, and over 0,000 in clearing up camps and tilling in trendies on the East Coast. Wood for tennis rackets requires at least live years’ seasoning—that b, to say, it requires to be kepi: for live years in Hie rough timber state before being cut up for use. Tavo hundred*thousand tons of live ammunition have already been sold for breaking up; 1 the metal is used again, and chemicals in the explosives used for fertilisation of crops. The coasts of the United Kingdom are so Avell supplied witli lighthouses and lightships that a vessel, sailing round these islands by night, need only be out of sight of a lantern six times. Several varieties of fish arc really living electric batteries. The electric ray has the power of general ing electricity to such an extent that in a healthy specimen the shock may be strong enough l<> temporarily disable a man. Aluminium, the most, abundant of all metals, Avas 'merely a scientific curiosity a generation ago, the production in 1883 having been but 83 pounds. It lias now an annual production of hundreds of thousands of tons. Eighty-onc years have elapsed since the first photographic portrait of a living person was taken. The process avus then so sloav that the sitter’s face Avas covered Avith Avhite powder, the exposure being about thirty minutes, and in bright sunshine!

The Cullman diamond, Ihe largest diamond known, and 20 limes (lie size of Jbe Koh-i-noor, Avas found quite by accident by a miner returning' from his Avork in a mine near Johannesburg. His eye caught a glimpse of something glittering by the roadside, and it proved to be a portion of the gem. In the Northern Ncav Hebrides a bride avlio is unhappy seeks (he earliest opportunity of running away from her husband and seeking a home Avith some man she likes better. If her parents cannot induce her to return to the injured husband, they usually send him a pig to soothe his Avounded feelings,