NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 2217, 18 December 1920, Page 4

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Bananas, are said to be a good brain food. Male spiders are much smaller than the females.

The cork of commerce is the bark of a certain kind of tropical tree,

The persian desert dog is one of the very few species Which never barks.

Domestic economy was introduced as a lesson into English schools in 1874.

Women in Turkey, by a new law, arc not allowed to be seen in public with a man.

The name “sardine” ,is officially restricted to the pilchard in its immature condition.

To rest our bodies, we should stand up for 10 out of every 30, minutes, according to one authority. The duty on playing-cards brought the British Exchequer £48,786 in. 1918, £IO,OOO more than in 1913. Comparing 1919 with 1918, there was an increase in Britain of 5,924 men voters and 377,337 women vot-

A Persian carpet was in use for over two hundred years in the main hall of the Shah’s palace in Teheran. Since fees have been charged to those patients able to pay, the London Hospital has taken about £6O a day. .

A French'firm of winegrowers has recently caused to be made a bottle that holds 300 quarts of champagne. By drawing back the loose folds of the skin, a French doctor recently removed wrinkles from a woman patient’s face.

Statistics 'estimate that the quantity of wine from the French vineyard this year will be about 100,000,000 gallons below last year’s, (bis belying the earlier forecast of a record harvest. There are eighteen stars <4 the first •magnitude. Some idea of their distance may be gained from the knowledge that they are at least 211,000 times fart her from the earth than is ihe sun.

At the Natural History Museum in New York the latest exhibit is a reproduction in glass and wax of a two-inch section of the sea bottom, with its plant and animal life magnified 15,000 timc<.

, Limpets have the means of forming a vacuum under their shells, and are pressed on to the rocks by,the weight of the atmosphere, That explains why they are so difficult, to remove from the rocks.

The liM kidnapping policy ever issued by a United States insurance company lias been delivered to Mr B, F, Wood, of Alabama. The policy is for £3,000, and insures Mr Wood's three daughters from kidnapping.

Every yard of every railway in the United Kingdom is inspected at least once in the twenty-four hours, and most of it twieo. To perform this work requires the services of an army of 66,000 ablehodied men. They work in gangs of four.

Every week, within the borders of Greater London, approximately 4,000 ehihlren are born, 2,400 persons die, and 2,600 begin wedded life. Fvery ten years Grenier London adds to her number a population as large as that of the County of Sussex.

The output of artificial graphite has risen very rapidly in recent years. The output in 1915 was 5,000,000 lb., and it rose to 10,00,000 lb. by 1918. Much of it finds its way into lubricants, paints, battery fillers, foundry facings, and boiler scale prevent at i ves. From 2,100 acres of land which was previously nearly all derelict, the Kent Agricultural Committee lias obtained this year 148 sacks of corn, besides crops of roots, potatoes, and hay. The land was farmed by the Committee, and it is estimated that one year’s crops will fully repay the cost of reclamation. The tonnage of the merchant shipping of the United Kingdom is .18,111,000 tons, and the tonnage for the whole empire, including the British Dominion.-, is 20,143.000 tons. The United State.- conies next with 12,400,000 tons, the 'total for this country having thus grown since 1914, when it- was 2,027,000 tons. Since jellyfish are largely composed of water, they evaporate when they lie exposed to the sun, and nothing remains but a small silvery mark. They are not to be envied, for even when they are in the water they seem at the mercy of the currents., and quite incapable of directing their own course. The cost of education in Britain has increased by 210 per cent, since 1913-14, according to the latest financial memorandum issued by the Board of Education, Teachers’ salaries, which in 1913-14 amounted to" £16,416,000, are estimated for 1920-21 at £39,110,000, an increase of 138 per cent.

Each ship in the British Navy is to have a laicise of distinctive design iu place of the unofficial badges now used. An Admiralty committee has decided that the circular badge is the best for battleships and battlecruisers, the pentagon for light cruisers, and a square, set diamondwise, for auxiliary vessels. n Cables from Norway state that the net increase in the tirst six months of 1920 in Norway's merchant marine tonnage was, 9 per cent., in Sweden 2.8 per cent.; and,in that of Denmark 3.7 per cent. Norway had on January Ist of this year J.,697 merchant vessels, exclusive of vessels loss than 100 tons. Sweden had 1,253 and Denmark 708 vessels. An exceptionally large tonnage of new vessels for the year ended June 30th is recorded. During that period the new tonnage was 4,250,000, compared 1 with 2,800,000 iu the previous year, while at the end of June,

4,930,340 tons of merchant shipping was under construction. Oil fuel ships numbered 426 vessels of 1,995,788 tons, as against 1,193,650 of the previous year.