NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 2938, 19 September 1925, Page 4

NEWS IN BRIEF.

The tongue of the giraffe is nearly a foot and a half long. Yachts of about 800 tons now cost about £IOO a ton in Britain.

Bus passengers in London have nearly doubled in number since 1919.’

Masks, modelled from the living face in wax, are coming again into favour.

The only British airships are the R 33 and R3G, which cost £350,000 apiece.

Binding the annual grain harvest of Canada calls for over 80,000,0001 b of twine.

Borrowers using London’s free libraries have doubled in number during the lasl 20 years. New motor-cars are being registered in Britain at the rate of nearly 2000 every week. Four beagle puppies, deserted by their mother, have been mothered by a lien in Massachusetts.

In native parts of Africa under British rule, “ju-ju,” the “magic” of the witch-doctors, still exists. A Manchester firm has produced yarn so fine that a single pound of it would measure 400 miles. The British Empire’s tallest building, 290 ft., has recently been elected in Toronto. I( contains 26 storeys.

Letting out cats on hire to destroy vermin in' offices and warehouses is becoming a thriving industry in London. The historic bells of Carlisle, silent for 180 years, are being refitted and tuned, and will shortly he rung again.

Signorina Toti dal Monte confesses having a great weakness foi dolls, of which she has a large collection.

British tomatoes are now claimed to be the finest in the world, owing to the successful attacks on pests and diseases.

School desks are said to be too small for the modern London scholars, who are much bigger than their predecessors. Tenders have been invited for a lift to travel at a speed of 250 ft. a minute, to be installed in an American building. Large houses are a drug on the British , market. A mansion in Cumberland which cost £36,000 was recently sold for £2OOO. Dog-training has been made a fine art in Berlin, where doge are taught to act as spies and guards for their burglar masters. A wall 150 yards long and 7ft. high was recently built in ten days by Colonel Watts Morgan, M.P. He did all the work himself. In the United States .the income per head of the population is £45 10s. Four Americans pay taxes on incomes of over £1,000,000 a year. Passengers on the Atlantic liner Berengaria can now acquire artificial sunburn by electrical means while swimming in the ship’s bathing pool. Coloured dress-suits, gaily-strip-ed lounge suits, and brightly-lined jewellery are prophesied as the Coming style for the Parisian “knut.”

Too much borne work is blamed by the eye specialist of the Derbyshire County Education Committee for the poorer eyesight of school children.

Wjhile excavating a spring in Connecticut a. fanner unearthed some lmtter, stored away in jars and labelled 1575. The butter was quite edible. The London Metropolitan .Water Board is responsible for enough water to provide every one of: the world’s inhabitants with one gallon daily lor a week.

The site of Winnipeg, Canada’s third largest city, was first occupied bv settlers in 1812. In IS7O where wore still only 215 inhabitants; now fliere are 195,148 . Sherry should only he used to describe wine from Xerez, a winegrowing district of Spain, and not as a general classification, according to a London magistrate. A new form of insurance being effected at Lloyd’s covers the risk of school children’s illness in term time at a. premium, of about three, and a-half per cent. Scorpions have assumed the proportions of a plague in the Mexican (own of Durango, where special prayers were recently offered in the cathedral for relief front the pest. Beige, the fashionable colour of the day, was popular six' centuries and more ago. Monks who illuminated old .manuscripts used this colour for garbing their saints and angels. “Mannequins” who show off frocks in the smart West End shops are usually paid a fee for each parade, as much as £8 to £lO being given to a particularly successful girl.

Science is coming to the relief of the man with corns. It is claimed that with a single large dose of X-rays a large corn can be removed in one piece, leaving a smooth, healthy skin. The tirst daily paper published in England was the Daily Courant, the first number of which appeared on March 11, 1702. It was “printed by E. Mallet, against the Ditch at Fleet Bridge.” Until two years ago no census of the population of Palestine had been taken since the time of Solomon. There were in 1923 83,794 Jews in the country; to-day the total is estimated at 108,000. Before 1774 the use of chintz or printed calico for dresses was illegal. Eighty persons were convicted in 1708 before the Lord Mayor, of London, for “wearing chintz gowns and were fined £5 each.’”