NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 2763, 26 July 1924, Page 4

NEWS IN BRIEF.

The eucalyptus grows higher than inv other tree.

A girl usually attains her full weight at the age of 20. The British Empire Exhibition has two million electric lights.

A toy balloon sent up from Preston was found 100 miles away.

Florence is abolishing trams from its narrow central streets.

The frigate bird and the albatross can both sleep on the wing.^ Surplus oil for which there is insufficient, storage at an oilfield eon he pumped hack into the earth, to remain there till wanted. This was a wartime discovery only recently made public. Mr. and Mrs. Robert Magna 11, of Exhall, near Coventry, who have just celebrated their diamond wedding, walk three miles to market to shop, although the husband is 80 and the wife 81. At London recently, Donald Pluii, of a firm of clock importers, was lined £SOO for making a false declaration in respect of a consignment of German clocks with intent to evade the German reparations levy. A freehold cottage in the Wye Valley, with a garden and three enclosures of pasture hind, was sold by auction at Monmouth for £BO. The property is let at £0 per annum, the tenant paying the rates. In June, 1857, when Queen Victoria went to Hyde Park to pin the first Victoria Crosses to the coats of sixty old Crimean heroes, there were among the 'recipients twelve members of the Royal Navy. Hundreds of young people went to the little island of La Grenouillere at Chatou, near Paris, recently to attend a Fair of' Sweethearts. Official gatherings and dances are arranged for young people there. Of all the earthquakes on record the most disastrous occurred in 1550, in China, when 230,000 people were killed. One of the worst recent disasters was in Messina, in 1008, which had 72,283 victims.

The steamer CM'more, of 107 tons from Grangemouth, Scotland, with coal for Erith, collided with the Oxear lighthouse in the Firth of Forth, and foifhdered in deep water. The crew were rescued. John Farquharson, farmer, was liued four guineas at Aberdeen re-

contly for illtreating 10 young pigs. Ifc conveyed the pigs in a smallhox cart for a distance of seven miles. On arrival all liic pigs were dead.

Claimed to bo the lies! locomotive built in England, a liny piece of machinery l tin. high and I Din. long uas recently offered for sale in Loudon. It was built by Murdock, the famous engineer, who tried it in 1784.

When John Bnrnie, a pedlar, was lined til Elgin for lodging in a barn without permission, it was stated that he refused to walk to the police .-.lnlion, and the farmer had to provide a horse and cart to drive him lit ere.

A horse which had been with Driver Easton, of the Royal Horse Artillery, throughout the war was led behind the coffin at his funeral. The animal broke loose at the cemetery gates and made a. dash for the gi aveside.

The will of a factory superintendenl in Merdin, Connecticut, leaves practically his entire estate of .011, Still to a newsboy, who as he went, through the factory selling papers, never failed to give the lonely old man a smile.

Persons breathy le-s when they are concentrating their minds on slinlv or work, and also when under 1114* influence of depressing eiuofion. On the oilier hand, we breathe more when exhilarated by pleasure and amusement;. A tablet- on the South Bridge, which crosses the River Proine at W'areham, states: “Any person wilfully injuring any part of this country bridge will he guilty of felony upon conviction and will be liable to be transported for life.” The Moors are inveterate coffee drinkers. Their sight begins to fail ait the age of forty or forty-live, and many are blind at fifty. The number of blind persons in the streets of Fez is impressive, and excessive use of coffee is always given as the cause.