NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 2254, 22 March 1921, Page 4

NEWS IN BRIEF.

The area of England is 5(3,874 square miles. Seven M’s.P. are returned byEnglish Universities. Earthworms eat small vegetable substances and soil. Crimson was the colour for bridal robes in the middle ages. The world uses up an average of 3.000,000 needles a day. A total eclipse of the moon maylast as long as one hour forty-live minutes. There have been four Eddystonc Lighthouses, the present one being 18G ft. above low water. Powerful electro-magnets are frequently used to remove steel splinters from the eyes of workmen. Elephants are entirely vegetarian in diet, feeding on the leaves and j

twigs of trees, and on grass. The delta of the river Nile is 155 miles wide between the extreme points ou the Mediterranean coast. The average cost of each prisoner in English gaols is now £95 a year; in 1913 it was just under £2B. There is plenty of sugar in France, and for tho first time since 1914, the commodity is being exported. Prunes arc never picked from (he tree. They ripen on the tree, drop to the ground, and then are gathered. There are thirty varieties of datepalms to be found in Egypt, which country contains neither woods nor forests. The Police Commissioner of New York has appealed to the Mayor for 1269 more detectives to check the crime wave. Owls hoot by the simple process of closing their bills, puffing out their cheeks, and then letting out the air. Some English counties have as many as nine egg societies, which collect the eggs of small producers and market them. In a brief career of gaiety in the West End, a young man squandered £I,OOO. Patrick Kenneth White, 24, the son of a professional man in Kent, went to Australia at the age of 16 in order to learn fruitfarming. He spent some time in the bush, and then returned to England, when his parents gave him £I,OOO to start his career in London. According to his solicitor at the Guildhall Police Court, White was preyed upon by undesirable women, and had lost everything. White was charged with stealing 56,000 Prussian bond marks, belonging to his employers, Singer and Friedlander.