NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 2650, 25 October 1923, Page 4

NEWS IN BRIEF.

To 'enrich the soil of England, 32 millions is spent yearly in fertilisers. A great London shop in Oxford Street served fifteen million people last year. An ordinary horse’s strength, roughly speaking, is equal to that of about five men. It has been proved that plants thrive better under white glass than under green. Sugar exists not only in the beetroot and maple, but in the sap of 187 other plants. Women electors in the Wandsworth district of London outnumber the 70,000 men by 6,000. A 20-foot shark, weighing three tons has been captured by seamen off Lorient, France. With the new type of car, the average stopping times at stations on London’s tube railway works out at 19.33 seconds, as compared with 22.11 seconds taken by the present type of carriage.

Since there are no State restrictions on the size of houses, sanitation, water supply, etc., “mushroom cities,” largely built of wood and corrugated iron have sprung up around the French capital. Of all newspapers in the world, 68 in every 100 are printed in the English language. The latest estimates give the total number of Mohammedans in the world as 200,000,000. Victoria, British Columbia, was a mining camp 67 years ago. To® day it is a beautiful city. This is the centenary year of “Home Sweet Home,” one of the most songs in the world. The elephant rarely sleeps more than four or five hours a day in spite of his capacity for hard work. Cast-iron, antimony, and bismuth all expand when they cool. Most other substances contract with cold. About £279,200 is to be spent on the construction of roads and bridges in British Columbia this year: With the exception of Brazil, Spanish is the prevailing language of every country in South America. Potatoes have been fetching so low a price in Lancashire recently that the growers have been giving them away. In the course of a century ail acre of constantly cultivated land land loses no less than 12,0001 b. in weight of alkalies. Flower borders round the graves in British military cemeteries in France and Belgium measure 238 miles in all. Maraschino is distilled from cherries bruised, both wild and cultivated kinds of fruit being used in its manufacture.

The robin is the last bird to retire to its nest in the evening'. It. has large eyes, and can see well by a dim light. The top tier of a bride’s cake at a Chelsea (London) wedding; was the same her parents had at their wedding 25 years ago. It is unwise to have a house too much shaded. An Italian proverb says that “where the sun never comes the doctor must.” The letters delivered in London on Monday are 30 per cent, more numerous than those delivered on any other day in the week. Blank verse was first introduced into English poetry by Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, in a translation of Virgil’s “Aeneid,” in 1547. It is a strange fact that the right hand which is more sensible to the touch than the left, is less sensible than the latter to the effect of heat and cold. Water conducts sound better than air. Dickens did most of his writing before breakfast. The revised naval salute is by the right hand only. Certain kinds of rice are polished by French chalk. Bread and butter is much more nourishing than bread and jam. There are twenty-seven railway tunnels in England over a mile long. In the inside of a recently landed shark were found several other sharks. The Chinese can stand a change of climate better than any other race.