NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 2789, 25 September 1924, Page 4

NEWS IN BRIEF.

The yearly rice crop of the world is about 100,000,000,0001 b. Russia in Europe and Asia has a population of about 125,000,000. The Tower Bridge costs something like £33,000 a year to keep in repair. Kiss-stealing is not a crime in Canada, according to old FrenchCanadian custom. The Plymouth education authority proposes to abolish fees in secondary schools. Developing the British telephone system will cost £17,000,000 during five next two years. * An old Chinese bottle, thirteen and a-half inches high, was recently sold for £4305. The average number of calls recorded in the Wembley telephone exchange weekly is 65,000. Marsh marigolds and water lilies will last longer in water than any other cut flower. Tramway cars in London travel at a greater speed than in any other town or city in England. Visitors to the British Houses of Parliament average 5000 on ordinary days, and over 20,000 every Saturday. To improve the lighting of tramcars an expenditure of £17,000 is recommended by the London County Council. Summonses were recently taken nut against most of the 32,000 inhabitants of Sheffield who have not paid their rates. Damage that will cost £IO,OOO to repair has been done to Peterborough Cathedral by the “death watch’' bottle. Mustard gas is being used in New York for killing bacilli of colds chronic bronchitis, whooping cough, and influenza. Tn the Crypt chapel under the House of Commons is preserved an altar cloth reputed to have been made by Queen Elizabeth. For four and a half' hours after -die stopped breathing the heart of a patient in Charing Cross Hospital continued to beat. The part of Captain Cook in the Pageant of Empire at Wembley was taken by a direct descendant >f the famous explorer. ■ A gigantic ice figure of a beaver A in front of a furrier's shop in • lichee. It is 15ft, high, 12fl. in niglh, ami weighs 12 tons. One large London store has a ystem of burglary alarms in which 0 miles of wire connect up more ban 1(10 electric batteries.

Mr. P. Sharpe, a Lowestoft .each fisherman, has made friends itli a seal, which swims after his .oat whenever he launches it. Truant schools and reforma lores are being closed all over Engand,.as there are not sufficient, “incrrigihles’’ to make them iiecessi rv. St. George’s Hall, Liverpool, roptrded as the finest example of Peek arehiteeture in England, was ’.esigned by a vonng architect of 23. The coconut tree begins to prodnee nuts at the age of eight years, and goes on producing a hundred nuts a year until it is 80 years old. Street collections in London during 1023 numbered 351. In six cases only £SOOO or more was collected while 226 yielded less than £IOO. Dancers to the number of 10,000 ran he accommodated on the now lance floor at Wembley. This is the largest in England, if not the world. A tramear was recently chained to the tracks by a constable at Highland, New York, owing to nonpayment of taxes by the tram company. The central hall of London’s Law Courts has recently been cleaned and redecorated for the first time since it was opened, forty-two years ago. Thomas Davies, an octogenarian miner, of Portli, has just completed 73 years’ work underground. For the last 43 years he has worked in one pit. Berlin’s two official pawnshops are doing big business. The highest sum advanced is 50 marks, no matter how valuable the article pledged. Willow-growing, for making cric-ket-bats, is a profitable occupation for those who arc prepared to wait the sixteen years the willows take to mature.Cloth made from the wool of Wensleydale sheep can, after weaving, be induced to acquire the natural wave characteristic of these sheep. . .. ... ... A giant searchlight which throws a beam of 300,000,000 candle power, is to’ be erected in Cleveland, Ohio, as a “lighthouse'’ for the night air mail service. The Latvian Government has decided to order 5,000,000 two-lal silver coins from the British Royal Mint. The work is to lie executed within three months. Mr . W. do P. Crousaz, of Guernsey, who lias been organist of the town parish church for 58 years and has accompanied over 00,000 hymns, is to resign next month. The Palace of Engineering at the British Empire Exhibition is the largest concrete building in the world. It has a floor space of more than half a million square feet, “Sea-horses” made of rubber are popular with holiday-makers in Britain this year. They are large enough to bear the weight of any skilful enough to mount them. At the special post oliiee in the British Empire Exhibition, 10,000 letters are delivered and 30,000 letters and postcards posted daily and 1,500 parcels are forwarded each week. White on duty in Sheflield as dawn was breaking, a constable noticed a horde of rats marching m regukt-V formation along the tram

track. They vanished down the hank of a river.

The atmospheric pressure on the body of the average man is calculated at 32,4001 b. The ordinary rise and fall of the barometer will increase or decrease the pressure 25001 b. A Nottingham girl preacher. Miss Ida. M. Wombwell, who is only 17, recently conducted a successful 11 days’ mission in the Wesleyan Reform Chapel at Ellistowti, Leicestershire. Two more vilamines have been discovered, according lo a report from the University of California. One is found in tea and the other is a substance extracted from wheat.

Canada, leads the world in the per capita consumption of electric energy. There is an electric meter for every live inhabitants and 454 hose-power is installed for every 1000 population. A police raid on a gaming honsej at Poplar, London, had a sequel a! the Police Court, when a Chinaman was fined £25 and two other Chinese £lO each. The gamblers included a girl of 11 and a boy aged i 3. A hidden smugglers’ cave, 20ft. deep and 15ft. wide, believed to be a retreat, of the famous smuggler Jack Rattenbury, has been found at Watercombe farm, near Seaton. Devon. A horse fell into the cave when the field was being raked. The son of a Lincolnshire farm labourer, and having started work himself as a plough boy, Alderman A. J. Bailey has been chosen to be Lord Mayor of Sheflield next year. He will be the second Labour Mayor of that city. The British steamer Voltaire has been fined £25,000 at Boston for landing their 500 Philadelphia members of the Order of Elks. I nited Stales laws forbid foreign ships engaging in commerce between American ports. An appeal will be made.