NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 2999, 16 February 1926, Page 4

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Sir Charles Hyde has given £IOO,OOO to the University of Birmingham. A terrier called Rags has killed nearly 300 rats in Lincolnshire village. Four unknown compositions by Schubert have been discovered in Vienna. Seven wild boars took refuge from the cold in a hotel not far from Lyons. The United States’ postal service was run at a loss of ten million pounds in 1924. Britain has built nearly half-a-million houses since the housing campaign was started. There are now 1,400,000 horses on British farms, 60,000 being under one year old. A hare running along a busy street was a strange sight witnessed at Hull not long ago. Britain’s drink bill for the year 1924 was £316,000,000, an increase of over £8,000,000. A badger killed 'all the poultry which was to have been sold at an auction in Yorkshire recently. Six and a-half tons of potatoes to every acre was the average yield for England and Wales last year. A tiny motor-car weighing only 560 lbs. has just completed a trip across America in less than a, month. James Barrie, a twelve-year-old nephew of Sir James Barrie, broke his arm while playing the other day. The speeding up of the London trams has saved 230 ears since 1914, representing saving of £700,000. An aviator has been fined £5 for (lying under the 2000 ft. limit over an athletic stadium at Yale University. ' Dr. Cyril Normood, once an admiralty clerk, has left Marlborough College to be headmaster of Harrow School. An effort is being made to produce a World Index of 24,000 scientific periodicals known all over the world. Opening a barrel of apples, an Aberavon man was bitten by a tarantula spider, and died from poisoning. In her 95th. year, Mrs. Watson, a Northumberland lady is able to sew, knit, and do her own shopping. A German scientist is said to have been successful in rolling metal so thin that it is as transparent as glass. The area of Glasgow will be extended by about one-half under a Bill passed by a House of Commons committee. Falling from his bicycle through being hit bv a snowball, the pastor of Sittard, in Holland, was picked up dead. Three new wireless masts, each ‘sooft. high, were hurled to the ground in a recent storm- at Nordcleicli, Germany. Thousands of fowfis and rabbits for the Christmas dinner were fattened last year in West London gardens and backyards. A deaf-and-dumb motorist has been fined at Croydon, the magistrates regretting that it was not possible to stop his license. During repairs to the fine old Norman church at Bapchild, Kent, a 14th-century wall-painting of the Crucifixion has been discovered. The working time lost through sickness by members of approved societies in Britain last year amounted to more than 450,000 hours. Mansfield, England, has over 8000 school children, each of whom was asked to contribute on potato to help the local hospital. Owing to the advance of motor transport the number of Kentish master wheel-wrights has decreased from 339 in ISB2 to 136 in 1924. After having been entombed for three days through a fall of a roof, a miner at Wiath Main Colliery, Yorkshire, was at ' last rescued alive. The Begum of Bhopal has been learning the handicrafts in London to lit herself to teach them to her women subjects on her return to India. Scientists are still searching for the perfect substance for stitching up wounds. Plants, inset and animal products have all been thoroughly tested* The profits of British brewing firms have nearly doubled in ten years, having gone up from under ten millions in 1913 to nearly 18 millions in 1923. The old Implacable, the only surviving ship of Nelson’s day except the Victory, has been saved for the nation through an anonymous gift of £15,000. The British Minister of Transport remarked recently that there are about 200 miles of new road near London that could be made much more attractive by wise treeplanting. Balto, the leader of the famous dog-team which raced with supplies to Nome, Alaska, during the diphtheria epidemic some time ago, is to have a statue in his honour in New York Central Park. A new regulation, which, says a message from Washington, comes into force this month, has been issued prohibiting the use of whisky, and brandy, or gin in medical preparations. Nearly live million trunk calls, and more than thirty-live million local and junction calls, were made over the telephone service in the West Yorkshire District during 1925.

A will u£ 15 words was proved iu (lie Derby Court —that of Mr. Hubert Hudson, J.P., a trimmings mu-

nufacturcr, and chairman of the local Conservative Party for 15 years. The whole estate, valued at £8416, is left to the testator’s son. Breakfast is not popular with fashionable women in England just now. To keep their figures slim, they limit the morning meal to an apple, six grapes, a glass of orangejuice, or even, in one notable Case, a small lump of ice, sucked slowly. A small native village near Pretoria has been terrorised by packs of wild dogs, which have devoured five children, while a number of domestic animals were terribly mutilated by one of the packs. The police organised a grand hunt to exterminate the pests.

According tot he latest available figures the populations of the various countries in the British Isles are: —England, 35,678,530; Wales, 2,206,712; Scotland, 4,882,288; Northern Ireland and the Free State, 4,496,000; Isle of Man, 60,2.38; Channel Islands, 89,614.