NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 2357, 19 November 1921, Page 1

NEWS IN BRIEF.

It, is said that 6,000,000 families in the United States own their own homes.

Turf treated by a patent process is being used as a substitute for cork in Bohemia.

To combat excessive vcharges, Scottish farmers are to open their own blacksmiths’ shops.

A bed-ridden man’s evidence at a Southend inquest was taken through an open window. Cartloads of parrots, love-birds, and canaries wei’e recently hawked in West London.

. Antwerp has bgen giving concerts from the cathedral tower with an accompaniment of bells. A man with two wooden legs has just saved two people from drowning near Gilbert, Minnesota.

Hornsey tradesmen have asked the churches not to hold bazaars, which would affect Christmas trade. The-great lakes of America are to be connected by canals, enabling Atlantic liners to reach Chicago. London City Companies, which used to give as many as fifteen dinners a year, can now only afford two.

A new German sugar trust, embracing all refineries and 08 per cent, of the raw sugar producers, has been formed.

Attempts to make Japan a great sheep-rearing and wool-producing country are being made by the Japanese Government.

A request by a Canadian soldier for a bounty for three sets of twins, born since 1910, has been referred to the Colonial Office. There arc no vacancies'for six or eight years at many of the great English public schools, such as Winchester, Eton, and Rugby. Work has begun on a huge scheme' for harnessing the Bridge River in British Columbia. A mountain is to be tunnelled for a mile and a-lialf, and 400,000 horsepower generated by a fall of 1,400 ft. Reports of the movement of Swiss glaciers show that 5!) per Pent, had been advancing in 1020, as against 00 per cent, in 1010.

Nearly 450 farms in Canada are now devoted to rearing fur-bearing animals, 425 being fox farms. A silver black fox realises £IOO.

It is hoped that an aeroplane service will soon take travellers from England to Morocco in thirty hours, instead of six da vs, as now.

Out of every hundred voters, Ofi voted for Feisnl as King of Irak, or Mesopotamia. Few elected men have ever had such a majority, The oldest, vine in Europe, which is at Cumberland Lodge, in Windsor Great Park, had this year about (500 bunches of grapes hanging on it. During experiments in America, a bullet three inches long has been driven through a sheet of steel with a noise no louder than a typewriter click.

A hoy has lost his scholarship because his parents moved to a house on the wrong side of a road, and so passed outside the London school area.

The estimated population of England, Scotland, and Ireland is 48,000,000; it supports an army of 8,000,000 Government officials, soldiers, sailors, etc.

While the church in a Norfolk village was being decorated for the Harvest Thanksgiving, a hen walked in from a neighbouring farm and laid an egg on a sheaf of corn. The Chinese are the greatest irrigators in the world. For thousands of years they have raised water for their rice fields by.means of endless chain pumps, worked by tread-mills. Horseshoes forged by the German ex-Crown Prince at Wieringcn are being sold at 10 guilders (about 17s) apiece, the receipts being divided between the prince and the local blacksmith.

Four new factories for making artificial silk have been started in Prague, and their total output for the next two years has been bought by France, which produces so much real silk.

Girl members of the Young Farmers’ Club started early this year at Hemyock, East Devon, have scored a sucess over the boy members. Examinations in the farming knowledge gained in the season placed three girls at the head of the list. The members of the Club are all between 10 and 18 years old and have taken the kenest interest in the animals entrusted to them.