NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 3008, 9 March 1926, Page 4

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Cals on an average, live any age up to 14 years. Every day a spider eats 27 times its own weight in food. In proportion to its size, a fly walks about 35 times as last as a man.

There are (J,000,000 pedal bicy-

cles in use in Britain, and 600,000 motor-cycles. London’s Council Schools will have, it is anticipated, 657,000 scholars in 1926-27.

Masters of hunting packs in England have to pay an annual tax of 7s 6d per bound.

For every single British film sold to the United States, Britain buys 800 American films every year.

Every colour is said to have its own wave length, that belonging to blue being ihe shortest of all. In a smoking contest at Fisherton, Lincoln, the winner kept his pipe alight for 1 hour 32 minutes. A shilling each is being paid for heads of shags rmd cormorants by the Cornwall Sea Fisheries Committee.

The Salvation Army is now established in 81 countries and colonies, and its officers speak in 58 different languages. Spinnig mills, engaged in making linen, in Scotland and Ireland, number less than 25; 60 years ago there were 102.

Rhythm, in the form of dancing to music, is now being tried as a cure for stammering at one London Hospital. Christmass boxes originated from boxes containing alms for the poor, kept in churches anti opened at Christmas.

Spain has more sunshine than any other country in‘Europe. The yearly average is 3000 hours. In England it is 1400. King George inherits from his father, King Edward, a fondness for giving walking-sticks as presents to his friends.

A new process for weaving muslins in 14 colours on a single shuttle loom has been patented recently by a Glasgow firm. Knaresborougli Castle discoveries in Yorkshire include Flemish glass, a George 111. leaden token, and 14th century pottery.

In the annual stocktaking at the London Zoo, just accomplished, all the animals were “counted one by one” and catalogued. The Rev. C. C. Ewbank, vicar of Langford, Bedfordshire, has baptised a child whose parents and grandparents he also baptised. Of the 13,202 books published in Britain last year, juvenile literature takes second place to fiction. Religious works came second in 1914.

In some parts of England, especially Cumberland and Kent, the children of to-day are taller and heavier than their predecessors a few years ago. Judging by the number of tooth brushes sold in Britain last year, only one person out of every two of the population bought one durthat perjod. Having made a profit for the year of over £IOO on 7:1) acres of sugai beetroot, the Kidderminister Council is to increase next year’s acreage to 40. Wooden houses, which are said to be hardly distinguishable from those built of brick, are to be erected ou part of the Hendon Estate, England. The total tonnage of shipping under construction in Great Britain and Ireland at the beginnig of this year was the lowest recorded since September, 1909. £IOO COMPETITION IN “HUMOUR” The latest issue of that popular weekly magazine, “Humour,” inaugurates a big jumbled word competition in which cash prizes to the value of £IOO are offered. There is a first prize of £SO ami nineteen other prizes. “Humour” is one of the most entertaining of weekly magazines and in its pages is to be found a reflex of the world’s cleverest witticisms in picture, verse and anecdote.