NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 2773, 19 August 1924, Page 4

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Soap was taxed £23 per ton in the time of Queen Anne. The stickleback is one of the few lislies that build a nest. In Japan there are about 500 earthquakes every year. The normal weight of an elephant when full grown is 70001 b. No windows in Persian houses are visible from the street. The entire coastline of tlie earth measures 136,000. The Vatican, in Rome contains 208 staircases and'lloo rooms. The world has an estimated stock of forty-two tons of diamonds. Of the population of Great Britain 80 per cent.' live in town areas. To produce lib. of honey a bee must visit 62,000 clover blossoms. Out of 42,000 medical practioners in Britain only 2000 are women. Telephone subscribers in London numbered 220,000 at the end of March. The circumference of the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral, London, is 420 ft. Street accidents in London during 1922 were move than twice as numerous as in 1909. Technical schools in Tokio are now holding special classes in archil ecture for girls. Over 1000 domestic servants have lefi Britain for Canada already this year. For the first time in ten years a -hip has left Odessa for London with a cargo of timber. Square coins, made of a mixture of copper and nickel, are shortly to be issued in Spain. In Japan the station signboards have the name of the station in Japanese, Chinese, and English. At the foot of the Monument, in London, is an order forbidding the beating of carpets against its base. Between the years 19.12 and 1922, the national wealth of the Pniled Stales increased by 72.2 per cent. Seven-year-old tea plant- yield i'niir ounces of leaves apiece, or seven hundred pounds of tea to the acre. A cow, which with other animals .strayed onto a railway line pear Belfast, charged a train and was killed. Bibles totalling up to over 8,540,uOO were issued by the British ad 'oreign Bible Society during the past year. “The standard of dancing in Lotion is higher than Unit of any oilier iiwa or city in the world,” say- an xpert. Tennis racquets are carried by many of the congregation at a pedal service on Sunday mornings ■ r a Ha instead church. Peacock-feat her fans are coming Mo fashion despite the superstition hat these beautiful feathers are •onsidered unlucky. In turf bets, including readyloitey and credit transactions, it A estimated that £140,060,690 is faked annually in Britain. Electric light and radiators are installed in the huts of' the West \frican natives in the British Empire Exhibition. Travelling libraries that supply books to the scattered rural popu’ation of Saskatchewan, Canada, row number over 900.

Blacksmiths, saddlers, and wheelwrights are dying out in English country towns, due to the spread . r motor traction.

Suited to lie the actual handwriting of Closes, old Hebrew inscriptions found in the Sinai Peninsula have been translated.

Large mirrows have been installed at Talvarera Barracks, Aldershot, to enable the soldiers to study their own appearances.

Pavements for pedestrians raised about 13ft, above the street level is tin American suggestion for solving I he traffic problem. Glove-making uses up “a large quantity of eggs, one London house alone requiring 2000 yolks a week in one process of preparing kid.

A trench, said to date back to 3000 8.C., and recently excavated at Jerusalem, was cut Bft. deep into the rock and lift. wide. Poultry feathers, worth £208,700, Jor use in tilling beds and cushions, as well as for millinery, were imported into England in 1022. .James Mninwaring, the sexton at Grnppenhall, Cheshire, collapsed and died when ringing the bell for a funeral at the parish church. At Northallerton, the railway signal lamps have on three occasions been extinguished by swarm ing bees, who got into the lamp casos. The Woolworth building in New York, which.with its iifty-onc storeys, is the tallest office structure in the world, lisift born sold tor .0 '2 ,- 200,000 An incubator containing 2-10 young chicks was recently ignited hv the lamp inside it, and the birds were killed, at Newport, Monmouthshire. One of the quaintest arches in the United Kingdom is that over tlie entrance to a smithy in Wiltshire, It is made entirely of horseshoes. One of the oldest, if not the oldest, parish clerks in England is Mr. William Wclbourne, of llayton, East Yorkshire, who has celebrated his ulst birthday.

During it recent trip of an Atlantic liner, while passengers at one end of the vessel were were enjoying sunshine those at the other end were experiencing a hail storm. The deepest weliju the world, already 7303 ft. deep,- is being drilled on the Ooff Farm, West Virginia. At a depth of 7000 ft. the temperature was 152deg.' Fahrenheit. Easton Rural District Council, Northamptonshire, have refused permission to tenants tt£ paper the walls of State-aided houses, saying that only distemper must be used.

Sunday-school work should include football, cricket, tennis, social gatherings, and classes for study, according to the president of the English Sunday-school Union. During the first nine month- of lust year, 205,000 skilled workers in the building trades left Great Britain for new lands. Of these. 12,807 have gone to the United Stall's. Teaching parrots to talk provides a New York woman with a living. The lighting of the 2223 miles ot -Ireets in London costs £3331,000 a year. An earthquake travels at the rate of between 470 and 530 feel per second. The largest private collection oi ! cacti in England i- owned by a lady. Certain diseases are shown by marks in the eye, according to a French scientist. There arc six operating theatres on the floor at the London Hospital. Shark flesh has always been considered a delicacy among the people of Japan and the Far East. Franco look a census of its doglast year. The canine population was found to be 3,313,116.