NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 2426, 9 May 1922, Page 4

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Four small islands in the South Seas were recently offered for sale in London.

Indiarubber as a means of erasing pencil marks was known over 150'years ago.

Until the nineteenth century, ropes in this country were labouriously made,by hand, although the first machine was brought out in 1792.

One week of manual and agricultural labour is in future' to be included in the year’s work of every Bulgarian school, for boys and girls alike.

Going round London suburb with a handcart, a man recently stole cans of.milk which he sold again on the'same round later in the day. Extra! lingers are not* unusual as generally supposed. In one ease on record there were twelve fingers on one hand and thirteen on the ot he A

That finger prints can be forged thus throwing suspicion on the wrong persons, is a new theory in criminal investigation which comes from America. Lessons in matrimony are suggested by an American judge, who has to settle many divorce petitions between very youthful married couples. , A tree seed takes three years to grow strong enough to be transplanted, and another forty-four before it is stout enough to cut for timber.

Letters and telegrams containing proposals of marriage arc showering in upon the young lady doctor who has become “mayor” of an Ohio town. i

The stand for spectators beingerected at the new all-England tennis ground eclipses the Albert Hall in size, and will accomodate 14,000 spectators. A eat, belonging lo a Margate resident, has a white face with black markings which give it a striking likeness to Charlie Chaplin, even to the moustache. A London underground railway station, not then in use, was employed as a “safe-deposit” for pictures from the National Gallery during the air-raid period. The name “Mary” has been given to seventeen daughters among the twelve monarehs of England. Geortwelve monachs of England. George ge 111. and Queen Victoria had each three daughters bearing this name, together with the others. Ninety per cent, of the foreign, correspondence clerks in British export firms are foreigners, many of whom work for little or no wage in return for the knowledge and experience they can pick up. A rabbit trapper on a West Carmarthenshire farm saw a goshawk rise from a young rabbit which it bad killed in the trap lie had set, and next day he found the bird dead beside the trap. “A few pounds spent on a new •suit or a new frock at just the right moment is often a bel ter cure for depression than ten times the amount spent on a seaside holiday,” said a well-known lady doctor. , A Bill, introduced by'llie Abbe Lemire which has passed the French Chamber reduces the age of discretion, at which men and women may marry without first obtaining (be consent of their parents from 30 to 25. During the invasion of Northern France the house of M. Brabant, a well-known butterfly-collector, who died in 1914, was looted by Germans, who carried away his collection valued at some £IOO,OOO. Part of the collection was received from Germany in 1919, and official inquiries are now being made with regard to the rest.

A verdict that he was found hanging by a rope was recorded at the inquest on Robert Whitestone, 16, assistant school cleaner, at Barrow-in-Furness, Lancashire. The coroner said he thought it was a ease in which a verdict of suicide should not 1m brought in. ‘ The theory put forward was that Whitestone climbed up a stokehole with a rope to frighten a girl, and jumped down a distance of about 10ft. The shock unnerved him, and he allowed his weight to hang on the rope until lie was suffocated.