NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 2950, 17 October 1925, Page 4

NEWS IN BRIEF.

The timber of an oak is not really much good until the tree is about a century old. The British annual mail bag has increased from 169,000,000 letters carried in 1884 to 3,500,000,000. Great Britain pays £32,000,000 a year to repair the damage caused by the smoke nuisance. It is estimated that 10,000,000 people in the British Isles listen in to radio programmes. With the aim of watching the interests of pedestrians, a new association has been formed in London. Britain’s best overseas customers, in order of importance, are India, Australia and the United States.

The British Museum was visited by 1,181,242 people last year, the largest number on record since 1851.

Cricket’s birthplace, Broadhalfpenny Down, at Hambledon, Hants, lias been purchased by Winchester College.

It costs'. £l5O a year in Britain to keep a boy as a boarder at a good public school apart from certain personal expenses. During the daytime, the City of London has a population of 430,715, of which number only 13,709 remain there at night. Cricketers, in the infant days of the game, wore knee breeches, silk stockings, shoes with silver buckles, and sky-blue coats. During the second quarter of this year 220 people were killed or died from injuries received in accidents in London’s streets.

Among the most musical of the members of the British Royal family is Queen Mary, whose charming singing voice was trained by Tosti.

Women have larger feet and hands, on the average, than they had five years ago. The difference is believed to be due to the increase in sport.

The “uppers” or markers, who mark the young swans on the River Thames each year, say there arc at present 1,100 of these birds on the river.

Regarded as the largest of its kind in the world, an oak tree recently blown down in California. It is believed to be from 700 to 1000 years old.

One-third of the population of the British Isles smokes cigarettes, and three-quarters of the tobacco to reach England is used to meet this demand. > Parents who wish their sons to go to Eton must be prepared to enter the boys’ names practically at birth, so long is the waiting list at this famous school.

After 50 years of railway service Mr. Seth Bastow, the stationmaster at Cromer, Norfolk, took his first real holiday when he retired at the beginning of August.

For more than eight centuries one firm at North Walsham, Norfolk, has been making baskets. The business was established 42 years after the Battle of Hastings.

The longest non-stop rTtii without any change of engine on British railways is that on the Cornish Riveria Express, Paddington to Plymouth, a distance of 220 miles. Belgium had 100,000 houses destroyed during the Great War. V hen the present reconstruction scheme is completed, however, there will be 1000 houses more than in 1914. AVell-trained assistants in a highclass hairdressing business in London, where ladies are attended to, can now make up to £lO and £l2 a week, with tips and commission.

Capable of housing nearly 500 people, and standing in 14 acres of ground, Tooting Home, London, has been standing empty for two years. It was originally a theological college.

Fragments of silk, taken in many eases from grames thousands of years old, are now on view at the British Museum, and rival in pattern and texture the finest products of to-day.

“Ream,” a term in collection with paper, since Caxton’s day, is to be abandoned in favour of a definite number 1,000 sheets. Reams in practice vary from 480 to 510 sheets.

Over £6500 was paid out in PoorLaw relief and unemployment dole in one week recently at Port Talbot, Glamorganshire, a record which is attributed to the closing down of the steel works.

The New Testament, translated into Esperanto, was published 13 years ago. It is now stated that an Esperanto edition of the Old testament has been prepared and will be issued shortly.

The annual expenditure of the local authorities in England and Wales on the collection and disposal of refuse amounts to nearly £8,000,000, and on street cleans-ing-—including watering—to more than £4,000,000. A hundred lead mines are lying idle in Derbyshire, but a world shortage of lead may bring new prospex-ity to this district.; Sixty of the mines are to be pumped free of water and worked again. Some of these mines run under railway lines.

While Police Constable Dillard was on his beat at Stony Stratford lately he came across two men breaking into a shop. He arrested one man and handcuffed him to the railings while he went in search of the other. Eventually both were captured.

Efforts are being made to preserve the fourteenth century glass of the famous east window of Carlisle Cathedral at a.cost of £4OO. Some of the glass that came from windows destroyed in the civil wars

has been preserved and will be fitted together and replaced in medallions.

The Mississippi State Supreme Court has ruled that Chinese children are not eligible to attend the white public schools of the State. The Court held that Chinese children are of the coloured race, and must attend negro schools until some provision is made for them by the Legislature.

In his annual report as Medical Officer of Health for the Port of London, Dr. W. M. Willoughby says that- during the year 42,458 rats were destroyed in the port at the expense of shipowners and Port of London Authority. The total number of rats exterminated since their destruction was first systematically undertaken in 1901 is 1,318,000. ■Cruelty to dumb animals meets its just reward, and a good story how four women meted out punishment to a country yokel for illtreating his horse was related by an Australian lady who attended the annual mefting of the South Canterbury Branch of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, held in Timaru recently. Complaints were heard of the youth having thrashed his horse across the head, and the women decided (o administer punishment, so attired as men, and armed with whips, they accosted the youth and challenged him with the offence. He pleaded for mercy as most cowards did, but the plea fell on empty cars, and the youth was saddled with a heavy log, which he was made to pull up a hill. Every time he haltered he was whipped, and at the end of the journey he vowed he would future respect all animals.