NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 2187, 9 October 1920, Page 1

NEWS IN BRIEF.

In hals :nul caps Hie size is onehalf the sum total of the long and short diameters of the head. In other words, if the head measures 13;,'in., the size in hats is ()£. In tin 1 hands of a fast bowler, a eriekot ball can be made to travel ;,t an amazing'speed. Experiments show that even a medium-paced bowler can despatch a ball at the rale of 155.1 miles per hour. Really fast bowlers must have bowled at a rate of over tit) miles an hour.

The influenza epidemic of 19IS--1919 was responsible for 200,000 civilian deaths in England and Wales. The death rale was 4,77.1 per million population/ a greater figure (ban that readied in the cholera epidemic of 1849, when the mortality rale rose to 3,038 per million population. Mars has some resemblance to the earth in that it turns on its axis in almost the same time as the earth, its day being 24 hours 37 minutes ;and it is tilted, so that it has seasons something like ours. As its orbit is far greater, however, i! lakes 087 days to go once round (lie sun, and its year is therefore nearly twiee as long as ours.

An elephant, wheh before the war sold for £2OO, costs £4OO now. A. 25s monkey fetches £4, and a hippopotamus £BOO to £4OO, against £SO or £OO in 1014. Giraffes are tinprocurable, while parrots have trebled and quadrupled in value, chiefly bee;!use the shipping companies no longer permit sailors to bring them home from lire tropics. A May-fly lives only a few hours ns a perfect insect, but it lias previously passed two or three yours in (he water as a larva. Certain built". - Hies and moths, horn without the power to lake food, last but a day or so, but they have had long feeding .-.pells ns caterpillars, and a trancc-hke wonder ol transformation in the chrysalis stage. Probably shrews, of which enormous numbers die in the autumn, are the shortest -lived mammals. •AVe are likely to have a very severe commercial slump about (he end of this year,” writes a correspondent from England, “mainly owing to the excessive wages, which have killed nearly all the foreign trade. As Ibis will have its reticc--1 ion in New Zealand you can keep a look-out for it. f understand that several big motor lirms. though they have two years' orders on hand, arc* mi ihe verge of bankruptcy. The whole position is very precarious.” Post.

The Prince of Wales, during his visit to New Zealand, achieved much popularity by what came lo lie known as “the pcrsolml touch. His Excellency the (lover •-General (Viscount .lellicoe) showed, at (lie civic reception at Wellington, that he was also a strong believer in the value of “the personal touch.'' During his address be referred with a pleasure that was plainly evident to the presence of so many early settlers. At the .conclusion of the formal speech-making the vast crowd which Jilted (ho Town H9ll stood expecting Viscount Jellicoe to leave, but instead lie merely left the pin I form and joined the early settlers, shaking hands with them freely, talking and laughing heartily. He listened patiently to many a discourse on the early days, lie was particularly interested in a number of Maori war veterans. The early settlers particularly, and the public generally, showed their appreciation of His Excellency's kind consideration.