NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 2289, 14 June 1921, Page 1

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Wales has the largest slate quarries in the world.

Civilisation is responsible for a steady degeneration of our teeth. Britain is now by far the greatest meat-eating nation in the world. Out of 204 Lord Mayors of London, only two were Londoners by birth.

Blindness, in nearly 40 per cent, of cases, occurs after the age of 45.

Pensions are being paid to 1,700.000 war cripples by the British Empire. London electric railways carried 404,000,000 passengers during 1920. . Hand spinning-wheels are still made in London for export to the Far East.

The newest hotels in New York have a bathroom attached to every bedroom.

' The average receipt in Britain per railway passenger per journey is just over 11 Id. The waltz is not an English dance, being introduced into England from Bavaria in 1813.

Esperanto is to he taught in the commercial schools of the Paris Chamber of Commerce.

Reindeer and musk oxen are to be bred in Canada as a source of supply of meat and leather. Some of Berlin’s numerous military barracks are being converted into fiats for working people. Oa the Mount of Olives, Jerusalem, there are olive trees known to have been nourishing in 1099. Since the Armistice the French have re-established 3,540 of the 11,500 factories which were destroyed.

The train speeds on Hie principal English railways to-day are inferior in many cases to those of 1888.

Cigar smokers have taken to smoking Havana tobacco in pipes, owing to the heavy duly on cigars. The town of Edinburgh stands ■gOO feet above sea-level. London is reckoned to be 50 feel below sealevel.

Giant parachutes which would lift off the cabin and passengers from aeroplanes in distress, are suggested. Owing to lower prices. America will Furnish Italy with her main supplies of coal for the next five vears. '

Cough lozenges are to be supplied free to worshippers with I roublesome coughs in a North London church. Unmarried women are now tiermilled to serve as clergy in Switzerland; they must resign in the event of their marriage.

In order to restrict the season’s output of herrings, when a Scottish team drifter had earned £.1,100 it will cease fishing.