NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 2543, 15 February 1923, Page 4

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Christmas was first celebrated as a religious festival about A.D. 190. Devonians consider it unlucky to wear new shoes on Christmas Day. Inscriptions on animal’s bones are the earliest form of Chinese writing. A huge eel caught in the canal at Elgin had two partridges in its stomach.

A trout once taken in Loch Stenness, Orkney, measured 3ft. 2in. and weighed 401 b. Tenders received by the London County Council for the construction of part of a storm relief sewer vary from £52,453 to £107,839. While riding a bicycle in Hull, Police-constable Askluun kicked the trigger of a gun he was carrying, and was shot through the thigh. In t'lie steamer Georgette, which has arrived at Plymouth, 300 cattle out of 718 died on the voyage between Buenos Ayres and Bilbao. Hounds of the same breed which were pets of the Pharoahs, Egypt’s ancient rulers, were exhibited at a recent dog show in London. Charged with begging at Lincoln, Harly Butters, a homeless groom, said he had two ages—sl when he wanted to join the army, but 61 in reality. A Kingston (Surrey) orphan sent to Australia by the guardians nine years ago, now owns a farm of 9GO

acres. It took nine tugs to manoeuvre the White Star liner Majestic, 56,000 tgns, out 0„f dock when leaving Southampton in face of a heavy wind.

Owing to the prohibitive cost, estimated to be one billion dollars, the U.S.A. Government has abandoned the plan to build another Panama Canal. Beckett has signed articles to meet Dempsey for the heavyweight championship in July or August at New York. The match is conditional upon Beckett beating Dick Smith at Holland park hall on February 19. „ Workmen of the Manchester bmp Canal Company at Weaste, while sawing a big old elin tree into baulks, found a brown earthenware jug embedded in the very heart of the tree. It is thought that more than 100 years ago a forester put the jug in the fork of the tree after a meal and forgot it.