NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 2293, 23 June 1921, Page 4

NEWS IN BRIEF.

General Booth has received a cable from the Salvation Army Headquarters in Helsingfors stating that all the Salvation Army officers who had Been imprisoned in Russia have been set at liberty.

The people of Amsterdam have been taught how to behave in public, that is, which side of the path to walk, how to hold sticks and umbrellas, etc. —by means of an official cinematograph film. The largest railway company in the 'United Kingdom, the Great Western, controls <1,775 miles of track. The next company in order of size controls 2,775 miles, and the third company 2,064 miles. \

In the sixteenth century it was customary to put on one side of the blades of table knives the musical notes of the benediction or grace before meat, and on the other side the grace after meal.

The total exports of pulp and

A new doll toy, which will “chatter” by means of a concealed phonograph, has been designed. The records will, it is suggested, be of educational value to the fortunate children possessing those playthings.

papor from Canada for the last current year are valued at £32,600,000. If nulpwood exports arc added, ii brings the total to £35,600,000, as compared with £21,500,000 for 1919.

A Bill lias been laid before the French 'Parliament providing for the taxation of foreigners in Paris. The minimum tax proposed is three anc a-half francs a day. The tax will be six franco daily in better class hotels.

A “poorbouse" for millionaires who have lost their wealth through busbies?, failure has been established in Chicago by means of a private bequest. Each member has a private hath and the use of libraries and billiifrd-rooms. Canada has Ike most extensive fisheries in the world. Both coasts, Atlantic and Pacific, and the inland lakes supply huge quantities ol palatable fish. If further resources were wanting, there are the countless rivers, creeks, and other streams teeming with fish. The golden eagle is the largest British birfi, and the golden-crested wren shares with its relative, the common wren, the distinction of being the smallest British bird. The eagle is 3ft. in length, with a wingspan of,4Hr., while the wrens arc 3Un. long. The site of' the White House in Washington was selected by George Washington in 1781, it was occupied first by President John Adams in November, 1800, and was burned by the British in 1814. It was called White House because of its construction of while freestone. The £SOO worth of radium which mysteriously vanished from Sheffield Royal Infirmary was, it lias since been discovered, swallowed by a patient who wa* being treated for cancer on the tongue. He was quite unaware that the infinitesimal particle had gone down his throat. Nearly all returning liners from the United States to Cherbourg, France, bring back passengers who have been refused entry there for Carrying false passports. A search is being made for the quarter from which these papers are obtained. Twelve passengers arriving at Cherbourg to sail by the Mauretania for New York,. furnished with

false passports, were brought before a magistrate and examined. It was said at Hampstead that Scline Smith, a gipsy, had a rooted objection to walking wiih man. She was fined five shillings for being drunk when in charge of'a baby, which, it was alleged, was in danger of rolling from a basket in which it was being carried. “You are a very nice gentleman,” she said to the officer who arrested her, “but it will hardly be respectable for me to be seen walking through the streets with you. My husband might meet us, or your wife. Be a kind gentleman, and walk in front.

By the end of March, 10,309 metres on the southern, and 9,072 metres on the northern side of the second Simplon tunnel had been bored; this is 98.1 per cent, of the total length. It is now 10 years since, in March, 1911, it wa*s decided to bore' a second Simplon tunnel, and tiny work was undertaken by Switzerland in the following year. The first tunnel was begun in 1898, and opened for traffic in 1906. Mile. Bolland, the young French airwoman, left Mendoza, Argentina, and flew over the Andes Mountains, arriving at Santiago (the capital of Chile) just three hours later. This is tiie first time a woman has llown over the Andes. The distance Mile. Bolland covered was about 112 miles. There are heights of more than 20,000 ft. in the neighbourhood of the point at which she cross ed the range. Mile. Bolland flew the English Channel last August, at a height of 3,600 ft.

The Duke of Sutherland lately returned to London after ir big-game shooting expedition in the Sudan, in which he secured a large and varied bag. At Lado he shot a while rhinoceros. The species is now comparatively rare, and the specimen which the Duke shot has a horn 37in. in length. A variety of game was hunted, and the whole hag made during the trip included six elephants, of which throe each had trunks weighing 1401 b., two lions, two buffaloes, a reed buck with horns of 17in., and a quantity of smaller game.

On a high viaduct half a mile from Ledbury Station, England, an excursion train carrying racegoers pulled up at night because the signals were against -it. One of the passengers, John Hodges, noticed the parapet -of the viaduct, and mistook it for the platform.. He opened the compartment door, and, before his fellow-passengers could realise what was happening, he stepped out. He alighted on the narrow stone parapet safely, but almost immediately slipped, and fell over the viaduct into a field more than 80ft. below. Tie was picked up dead.

For a perpetual lamp to be burnt in memory of her late husband, Airs Mozelle Ezra, of Mayfair, bequeathed 3,000 rupees to the Jewish Synagogue at Calcutta. She dir-

cried that the lamp should he placed over the family pew in the synagogue. Airs Ezra left*estate in the United Kingdom valued at £78,663 gross. Among, many bequests to charity were 30,000 rupees (nominally about £3,000) for investment, the income to be distributed on the first day of the twelfth month of each Jewish year among the poor i.f Jerusalem, Calcutta, and Bombay, and a school til Bagdad.

A bull can be quite as obnoxious n a costumier’s as it can in a china

■ hop, apparently. Maddened by the traffic in Southgate Street, one of Patti’s busiest thoroughfares, a bull nearly collided with a tramcar, and I sen tried to force its way into a picture palace. It failed, and turned its attention to premises occupied by, a firm of ladies’ costumiers. Assistants kept, the door closed against the animal’s onrush, but the bull plunged straight through the plate-glass window. It dashed into the midst of a large stock ol the latest spring fashions, which were scattered in all directions. Subsequently the animal was driven out.