NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 2896, 13 June 1925, Page 4

NEWS IN BRIEF.

No new pianos have been purchased for use in London elementary schools since 1014: Oranges and lemons are said to contain more “stored sunlight” than any other fruits in the world. London repositories ore all crowded with furniture , stored there against the day when houses will lie obtainable. After four centuries, the tollgate on the London Sovenoaks road to Chelstield is to lie removed to 'make room for a new road. In Lapland, when a daughter is born, her father presents her with it reindeer. The progeny of this animal is her only fortune. The radio Corporation of America reported gross sales ol only

£•2.00,000 in 1021. Last year the sales were nearly £11,000.000. Found disabled in the North Sea. a Norwegian steamer was towed by a Grimsby trawler for 20(1 miles. The voyage took it week. An old villager, Lincoln, when making his application for the old age pension, made the discovery that he was 80 and not 70, as he supposed. lie had thus been entitled to the pension for ten years. The Central New’s Madrid correspondent states that the new provincial laws have been signed establishing among other innovations, taxes on bachelors over 25 years of age, and on widows without children. Grev squirrels are becoming so numerous in Richmond Park that over 400 a year are killed to keep them in check. They are an importation from America, and have driven the British red squirrel right out of the London parks.

The British railways, which will celebrate their hundredth birthday in September, have now a stall of over 700,000; they carry 1770 million people and .043 million lons, and earn a profit of .C 01.000,000 in a year. Chimpanzees have shown remarkable intelligence. Cases are recorded of these apes putting tour boxes, one on top of another, to reach a desired object, and of fitting one stick into another in order to get possession of something outside their cages.

Canada’s sheep population in 1024 is estimated at 2,084,743, made up of 1,454,708 sheep and .1.220,075 lambs, Of this number no fewer than 831,227 are accounted for by Quebec, an increase over ]023. In New Brunswick, Ontario, Saskatchewan, and Alberta the number of slice]) decreased.

Claimed to he the most fantastic lisli in the world, the coral lisli of .Java is deep orange in colour, with pale-blue bands edged with black. By a suggested addition to the British police rules constables will not he able to marry without obtaining the consent of their chief officer.

Mr. and Mrs. J. B. Walbcy, of Edmonton, have just celebrated their golden wedding. Mr. Walby, who is 74 years of age and works as a compositor, rises at 4.15 every morning to catch his train. Mrs Walhey treasures letters from Queen Alexandra and Queen Mary, thanking tier for the voluntary work she did during the war.

French mortality statistics for 1924 show that, although the number of marriages remained stationary during the year, the excess of births over deaths was only 32,21(5, against, 95,000 in 1923. The total

population of France (including Al-sace-Lorraine) is now returned officially as 39,209,518. against 41,47(5,272 in 19.11, including the then population of the provinces since recovered.

Pancake Day is the most important day in the year for fruit-sellers. More lemons are used on that day than in an ordinary fortnight. Customers of one New York bootblack can now listen-in while having their boots polished, as he has lilted a wireless set to his box of brushes.

Library books lent to London school-children now number two and a half million annually. Twenty \ears ago the figure stood at 714,000.

The lirst woman Governor of an American State, “Ma” Fergusson, of Texas, has signed a Bill making' it legal to wear a mask in public. Hats decorated with imitations of insects, more or less lifelike, are being shown in the Paris shops. So far they have not proved very popular. Many Parisiennes, who have their hair shingled, visit the hairdresser twice a day to have ther coiffures set so that not a single hair is out of place. Rubber footwear imported into Britain from Canada during the first quarter of 1924 was worth £48,480. This does not include rubber-soled canvas shoes. The windows of Southwark Cathedral were not cleaned for 12 years, as there was no money to pay for the work. It is the poorest cathedral in England. A landslide of 130,000 tons of earth on the Crimean coast, near Sebastopol, has caused a peninsula 480 feel long to he formed, besides several small islands. The Brazilian Government controls practically all the coffee grown in that country. It releases only enough to supply the demand. Hence there is never a glut. An expert states that .ancient Kish, in Mesopotamia, was founded immediately after the Flood, and that its site is-so vast that it might take a century to explore.