NEWS IN BRIEF

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 2283, 31 May 1921, Page 4

NEWS IN BRIEF

A gale becomes a hurricane when its velocity exceeds 74 miles per hour.

Shoes are now being made from the skins of pythons, lizards and apes.

The number of people killed in the recent earthquake in China Was over 250,000.

Prices of 50 staple commodities have decreased 30 per cent, in the past year at Osaka, Japan. Captain Fryatt’s ship, the Brussels, is to be used in the cattle trade between Ireland and England. For the hospital care of ex-soldi-ers the American Congress voted in March the sum of-£3,700,000.

The sum of £2OO is offered in Albany (New York) for a new horseshoe which must be non-skidding.

Bare aims and low-necked dresses have been forbidden in churches by the Ecclesiastical Governor of Argentina. An aeroplane fitted to carry four stretcher cases has just been completed, and will be used solely as an ambulance.

Of the t>o9 convicts who broke out of the Raj-Shahi prison (India) on March 24th, 300 had been captured by March 31.

Canada’s mineral output in 1020 was valued at £43,555,000. The highest figure ever reached before was £42,200,379 in 1918. The American railways have ordered 10,000 wheels from Krupp’s, who underbid all their 16 competitors by 50 per cent. The cotton area is being extended in Mesopotamia, which is now expected to produc 20,000,000 pounds of cotton a year. Foreigners to the number of 300,000, of whom 27,000 are British and 23,000 American, livo in Paris and the department of the Seine. Greenland is to have a wellequipped wireless station to prevent her being cut oft’ from' communication with civilisation in winter.

Since the beginning of 1919 the Belgian tax on war profits has produced 825,000,000 francs (approximately £16,500,000). Britain’s national drink bill for 1920 was £469,000,000, an increase of £83,000,000 over 1919, and £303,000,000 over 1913. A message from Paris states that the Japanese Parliament has voted

a law making obligatory the adoption of the metric system.

In a recent test at Vancouver, Mi* Frank Walters, inventor of an aluminium diving suit, claims to have reached a depth of 39Gft. Over 1,000 German immigrants have arrived at Rio dc Janeiro, whcnco they, are to be sent to various agricultural centres in Brazil. The ocean has sea snakes, but the existence of the fears.ome, enormous sea serpent of legend and travellers’ tales has never been proved. Elephants are causing great,trouble to Zambesi railway surveyors by following the men and pulling out the stakes set up for taking levels. In 1920 there were 900 fatal accidents in the mines and quarries of the United Kingdom—an average of nearly three ft day all the year round.

The Biitish and Foreign Bible Society has now distributed over 300,000,000 Bibles and parts of the Bible translated into 528 different languages. The American Committee for i’oiief of distress in Ireland is trying to raise the sum of 10,240,000 dollars, or about £2,560,000 at present exchange. The ratio of accidents in French aviation in 1920 was one to 02,500 miles flown, and the fatal accidents worked out to one for every 134,374 miles.

A Bill to compel inhabitants of the Philippines to wear trousers was introduced in the United States Congress recently, but failed to pass the Senate. Aeroplanes of the American Army Air Service, operating in California and*Oregon on patrol duty, located 494 forest fires in less than two and a -half months. The French Government has passed a Bill for the construction of a railway system in French Morocco, the estimated cost of which will be about 700 million francs. A mail was carried from San Francisco to New York by aeroplane last February in 33 hours 20 minutes the fastest trans-conti-nental mail to date. The distance is 2,700 miles ,and is 4 days’ journey by train.