NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 2794, 7 October 1924, Page 4

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Deposits in the Yorkshire Penny Bank total over £20,000,000. “Wool” of Angora rabbits, properly treated, is worth -10 s. per lb. A coat made of rabbit-skin, valued at £l2O lias been shown in Manchester. Four hundred thousand mountain sheep were lately dipped in a record “drive” in North Wales. Stonehenge probably dates from 1700-1800 8.C., says Mr Frank Stevens, curator of the Salisbury Museum. One hundred cygnets have been hatched out on the Thames this year. There are now about 500 swans on the river. Poor relief in England and Wales during the year ended March 31, 1922, cost 22/3.7 for every person in the country. A cuckoo is said to lay from five t.) eight eggs in a season, though more than one cuckoo’s egg- is rarely found in one nest. Claimed as the largest in the world, a sapphire weighing 100/.. and valued at over £SOOO, h:is recently been exhibited, at Wembley. A French doctor claims to have met with much success in curing alcoholism by subcutaneous injections of the drunkard’s own blood. Ten shillings a week is regarded as a low estimate of what the average British Member of Parliament spends each week in postage stamps. Skin from a patient’s arm was used to make him new eyelids in an unusual operation recently performed at the Liverpool Royal Infirmary. Hall’s Croft, St rut ford-on-a von which was the home of Shakespeare’s daughter, Susannah, after her marriage lo Dr. John Hall, is to he. let furnished. A woman was lately fined at Stamford, Lincolnshire, for giving beer to her baby, holding a tankard to the lips of the child as it l.av in the perambulator. It. is hoped to commence distributing this month the .£30,000 allocated by the British Government for the settlement of reparation claims by merchant seamen. The Aldershot Command searchlight ia I too Ibis year brought in over £IO,OOO for military charities, a sum which is more than double tho receipts last year. Butterflies have been a plague in parts of Italy. Tlifiy came in siu-h clouds as almost to shut out the daylight and to stop trains, motorears, and other vehicles. Tho number of: .persons unemployed on August 11 in Great Britain was 1,001,700. This was 11,460 more' than on August 4, but 193, 023 less than the figures recorded ou December 31 last.

Five prehistoric human skeletons standing upright in undisturbed strata at Los Angeles, have been discovered. Scientists believe the skeletons date to the last lee Age, 125,000 years ago. William Redwood, who served as a ounher in the Crimean War, and held the Sebastopol and Turkish .War medals, has died in the Wim-

borne (Dorset) Poor Law Infirmary at the ago of 00. One theory to account for horseshoes used to bring luck is that they represent by their shape the crescent moon, and take us back to the worship of Astrate, the moon goddess. Mr. John S. Patterson shepherd of Harris ton Rigg. Xowcastlcton, has received the Highland Society's medal for 40 years' service. Thirty of the largest hen coops ever seen were built for 30 ostriches which were taken from Capetiwn to the British Empire Exhibition.