NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 2709, 18 March 1924, Page 4

NEWS IN BRIEF.

An electric • flash 42 feet high, under the control of one man, was recently shown to American electrical engineers at the Westinghouse laboratory. Game-shooting is becoming a profitable pastime for owners of estates in England, as pheasants fetch Bs. a brace, and rabbits from Is. 3d. ’to Is 6d. each. Burglaries are on the increase in Berlin, although the number of watchdogs kept has increased from 130,0U0 in 1022 to nearly a quarter of a million. A ton of water from the Atlantic when evaporated yields 811 b of salt, a. ton of Pacific watei-, 791 b; the Avater from the Dead Sea, 1871 b to the ton. Butterflies for ornamenting hats and dresses are one of the coming Paris fashions, although by some the wearing of a butterfly is considered unlucky. Male house-servants are less exacting and more attentive and more polite than women, according to the experience of an ex-navnl officer’s wife avlio employs men only. “Wool” obtained from Samoyed dogs is believed to have commercial possibilities. During the Avar it was Avoven into cloth, from Avhich garments were made. Due to a jellyfish getting spread out over an inlet pipe twelve inches in diameter, a lnrge steamer was recently held up for - sixteen hours in Durban harbour. Open spaces controlled Avholly or partly by the City of London brought in a return of £406, against a cost of £13,557 last year, Avithout considering Epping Forest. Oil fuel for ships means a big saving; a 5000-ton steamer run on oil costs less than a quarter the cost of a 3000-ton vessel burning coal over the same mileage. Tenants of a property-OAvner in La Rochelle, France, receive a “bonus” of three months’ rent on the birth of the second child. Under a treaty concluded betAveen Nepal and Britain, Nepal is to be free to import arms and ammunition through India,— but agrees not to permit their export across the border. Income-tax payable in the United States Avill begin on incomes of £2OO for bachelors and £4OO for married men, plus £BO for each child under 18 if the bill before the Congress becomes lavv, “Skyscrapers” waste time, according to one expert, who estimates that the time taken fo reach the thirtieth floor would equal that taken by an express under-ground train to reach a spot a mile distant. Sir EdAvard Marshall Hall, K.C., at a prize distribution in London said: “Never on any condition go to law. It is ahvays cheaper to lose money in another Avay.” Raw materials, apparatus, and cost of manufacture of medicines and dressings amount to £16,000 a year at a London Hospital, which makes all the lotions, potions, and pills, etc., it uses. “Quack” doctors to the number of nearly 25,000 are believed to be practising in the United States, they obtain their diplomas by purchase from institutions with highsounding but meaningless names. NeAv r silver coins about to be put into circulation in Austria are to be called the “schilling," “doppelschilling,” and “half-schilling,” out of compliment to Great Britain, to Avhom Austria owes her regeneration. Running Avater and telephone and electric services were maintained Avhile a seven-storey building in Chicago Avas moved at the rate of four feet an hour for a disof 85 feet to make way for street widening. French farmers, whose families have cultivated the same soil for over 300 years, are to reeive a new decoration, the Croix de Chevalier. Over 750 have qualified, the record tenure being since A.D. 772, over 11 centuries. The United States Department of Agriculture finds that it takes about 61b of grain and 61b of bay to produce lib of lamb (lve weight) ; 101 b of hay and 101 b of corn to make lib of beef, and 5.61 b of corn to produce lib of pork. Each year the British Postal Service carries about, 5,600,000,000 letters —more than 17,000,000 each working day. It -also deals Avitb about 788,000,000 telephone calls and pays £358,500,000 across the counter for money orders, and so on. A life sentence for an ordinary prisoner means twenty years; there are men and women in Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum who have been there twice that period. The oldest is a man who was admitted in 1864. A burglar at Polmont took a meal before leaving the house in which he had seized silver. The impression of his teeth was left in a roll of butter, and the Falkirk police took a east of it in plaster of Paris. Later, a man was detained in Edinburgh. A Hampstead insurance agent found a shilling on his doorstep, his wife picked up half a crown, and his daughter rushed in uuiiouneing the discovery of a two-shilling piece. At supper their - toast was “May our good luck continue,” and then the lather found that oAving to a hole in his pocket he had lost about fifty shillings. \V|hen a train from London to Aberdeen was bulf-way across the Forth Bridge, all the members of a theatrical party travelliug in it threw coins from the windows into the river. Asked for an explanation, one of their number said they Avere prompted .by a superstition common among actors and actresses going to Scotland.