NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 2610, 24 July 1923, Page 1

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Only ine man in 203 is over six feet in height. Asparagus is believed to be the oldest known plant used for food. Jordan is tlie crookedest river known, winding 230 miles in a distance of GO. The record number of lightning Hashes for England is 1,244 in two hours. p. Wireless messages were recently picked up 100 ft. underground in an American mine. The deepest wells in the South of England are still suffering from the drought of 1021. The ravages of rust and corrosion represent an annual wastage of £500,000,000. Nobel, the founder of Nobel prizes, owed his vast fortune to the discovery of dynamite.The first woman graduate in agriculture from the University of Alberta was given her degree recently. Oysters can only live in water which contains thirty-seven parts of salt to every 1,000 parts of water. As far back as the fourteenth century there are records of a ferry across the River Thames at Woolwich. Rubber gloves for house-painters to avoid any risk of infection, was a recent suggestion of a London coroner. Top-hat fed idols 0000 years old have been brought to London from the interior of Panama by an explorer. Britons in prison for not paying their income tax numbered 1,102 two years ago; the number is much smaller now. Potatoes in (lie wholesale market at Selby, Yorkshire, were selling- recently at 27s fid a ton, nearly Tibs, for a penny. This is lower than any price realised in February for the past thirty-four years. During the past year 4,000 tons of granite were shipped from Aberdeen in addition to a large quantity by rail. The prices however, have been so low that the industry has not been a remunerative one. America during the past year has been the best market for British manufactured hosiery. The boom in sports coats, junipers and knitted dresses for women has been a factor in keeping the factories busy. Manufacturers in Great Britain anticipate that the demand for coarse cloth will increase on account of the high cost of' worsted suiting and the advance which may be necessary for cloths made of merino wools. Tn common with other shipbuilding centres, Aberdeen experienced in 1922 the effect of the slump in shipbuilding orders, which commenced in the latter half of 1920. The vessels launched during 1922 were contracted for before the slump commenced and had been delayed on account of (he high costs. :