NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 2214, 11 December 1920, Page 1

NEWS IN BRIEF.

The estimated shortage of houses in England and Wales is 800,000. * The choir at one church in New York costs £7,000 a year in salaries. Paper bootlaces, made in Germany, are now arriving in Great Britain. Swarms of . bees have died of starvation during the recent English summer. The British high-speed record for aeroplanes stands at 106.8 miles an hour. The average age of bridegrooms is nowadays 30.08, and of brides 27.79 years. Lake Magidi, in British East Africa, contains millions of tons of soda deposits.

lu many European soil mines the men working there never come to the surface.

A woodworker in Tokio, Japan, has carved an exact,imago of himself in wood.

There is one telephone to each eight inhabitants of the United Slates of America.

The number of bachelors over 3;> who go to the altar as bridegrooms is steadily increasing.

The average' attendance at .elementary schools in Great Britain is now estimated at 5,300,000. A hoy of 13, says ’ one expert; needs move food than an adult man leading a sedentary life. . German guns were recently being destroyed under the Peace Treaty at the rale of 1,000 a week. All the 1914 and 1915 war-wid-ows registered in one South London post office have married again. Last year the petrol consumption in the United Slates of America was over 3,500,000,000 gallons.

It costs between £2OO and £3OO a year now to keep a boy at one of Ibe big English public schools. On dark nights a while light can be seen farther than any other, but on light nights red takes the lirst place. The whole southern const of Alaska has a temperate climate, due to the warm Japan current running close bv.

Toads in India are so used to snatching at objects that they have been known to snap up and cat red lad charcoal.

At Hungarian weddings, silver coins are thrown into a plate until it cracked—the money going to the ncwlv-weds.

A pet canary was recently interred in New York in a tiny coffin, to the music of a brass band and before 590 mourners.

More Ilian 200,000,00011). of! lander I wine are being' used annually lu harvest wheat, oats, rye and barley in the United Stales. Some eastoniors no longer lest •doth t'abrie by feeling it, but examine it through a pocket microscope, according to tr tailor. Hubber-Irees grow at a tremendous pace. At four years old from planting, a rubber-tree will measure eight eon inches in girth, and is (hen ready for tapping. The value of-the rolling slock, used on the*-highways of Canada is approximately equal to that of the entire capital slock of the railways, the automobiles alone in the Dominion being valued at over £IOO,000,000. The maximum traffic, passing through the Suez Canal in any single year occurred in 1912, when 5,375 ships of 20,275,120 net tons made use of the international waterway. Last year 3,086 vessels of 16,013,802 net tons 'passed through the canal. In New York City about 4,000 new and used gas meters are tested each week for accuracy, lirst by the gas company, then by inspector- in the employ of the I’ublie Service Commission. Tin* result of one test made not long ago showed a general average in favour of the consumer by 1.70 per cent. The work of reconstruction in France is proceeding apace. Since the armistice 1,250 miles of railroad have been constructed, 600 miles of canals restored, 60,000 buildings replaced, and 60,000 more placed under construction, 80,000,000 cubic yards of trenches filled, and 4,000 communities restored. *

The blue of the sky is due to the interception by-particles in the atmosphere of the blue rays, which form part of the while light of the sun. The parts of white light conveyed by longer ‘red and yellow light waves manage to jump the many substances in ■the atmosphere, and are seen at sunrise and sunset.

The most sensitive instrument yet made is the bolometer, originally in-, vented by Langley, which is used for measuring variations in the -radiation of heat. It registers to a millionth part of a degree. The heart of it is a platinum wire so thin that it cannot lie seen except when a ray of bright light is reflected from it.

The San Francisco telegraph office, which is the third largest in point of business transacted in the J A entire United States, handles ap-

proximololy 2,500,000 per monlli, and due to the modern equipment and efficiency of operation; at least 2,-100,000 of these messages are disposed of within ten minutes from the time they are received at the office.