NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 3019, 6 April 1926, Page 4

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Dating from the reign of Queen Elizabeth, a silver salt-cellar, recently acquired by the British Museum, is regarded as one of the finest pieces of old silver in existence. In salary and fees, Sir Patrick Hastings, Labour Attorney-General, received £18,751, and Sir Douglas iiogg, the present Attorney-General, received £12,062 in 1924-25. Entering Billericay, Essex, workhouse when she was 17 years old, Miss Mary Fewell has remained there ever since, as she found it so comfortable. She is now 94 years of age.

Training cadets for the lloyal Air Force costs more than £6OO a head. This is considerably more than the cost of either Woolwich or Sandhurst, the two great military col-

leges. Physical training is apparently not a strong point in British secondary schools. The inspector recently announced that the training was inefficient in nearly 80 per cent, of the schools visited.

The Marquess of Londonderry is the first man to hold the honour of being three time a Privy Councillor —of Great Britain, of Ireland, and of the newly-formed Council of Northern Ireland. Bonuses amounting in many eases to the equivalent of a year’s salary were given to their staffs by British Stock Exchange firms at Christmas. This was the result of the recent rubber “boom.” Rubber-topped tables, which it is claimed eliminate clatter, minimise crockery breakages, do not cool food so rapidly as marble, and are practically noil-slippery, are being tried in London restaurants. Mr. Henry Wright, inspector of weights and measures, Reading, the oldest municipal official in the.country, died lately, aged 00. He was a member of Reading Literary Institute when Dickens was president. An interesting exhibit at a recent radio show in London was a small volume that carries between its covrs a complete wireless set. Its

maker bound the book in tortoiseshell and called it “The Listener.” Two days after they had been separated from their calves, two cows broke out of a field at Peakirk, near Peterborough, and walked thirteen miles during the night to the pen in a farmyard at Witham-on-the-Hill, South Lincolnshire, to which the calves had been driven.

The broad arrow on a convict’s clothes and on naval and military stores is the mark of the Government ownership. It was the crest of Henry Sidney, Earl of Romney, Master-General of the Ordnance in the 17th century, who used this mark to identify Government property for which he was responsible. How remarkable has been the growth in the value of London property during the past three centuries is indicated in a statement made in connection with an estate in the neighbourhood of St. Paneras which forms part of the endowment of Sir Andrew Judd’s School at Tonbridge. The estate was purchased for £346. Now the rent-toll exceeds £25,000. The exact cause of a parrot plucking out its feathers is yet perfectly known, but it is generally supposed to be due to improper management of some kind. No certain cure is known, Karl Russ, but the bird may be helped by having plenty of wool to gnaw, also lime and sand, and the withholding of all titbits and unnatural food. China dishes are tested in the course of manufacture by means of a hanging at the end of a pendulum. The strength of the blow can be regulated and the “breakingpoint” of the china thus learned. A boy of sixteen should be given as much food as a person who is doing fairly vigorous outdoor work, such as gardening, while a girl of thirteen may easily require more food than her mother or even her father does.

Mrs. E. M. Bolton, grand-niece of Sir Humphrey Davy, has invented a

■‘eoncurtina,*’ stair-carpet sweeper. The brush is attached to the tray by an extending device and the dust swept directly into the tray without rising.

A new all- steel, rustless diving suit, weighing 5501 b and tested to work safely at a depth of 650 ft., was demonstrated recently. It has delicately-constructed hands which nan be changed for powerful tools by the diver while submerged. Cleaned for the lirst time for forty years, a carpet in the draw-ing-room of the British Prime Minister’s house, 10, Downing Street, London, was found to be a priceless Persian carpet. It had been unrecognisable through layers of London dirt.

In ease where subscribers in Britain delay paying their fees until the telephone service has been withdrawn, the Postmaster-General has decreed a fine of five shillings. This interruption in the service no\y costs the post office about £25,000 a year. Golden cagies have been credited with carrying off live lambs and even infants. An expert photographer of birds now states that he has failed to find any evidence of this. He himself saw an eagle have the greatest difficulty in lifting a live hare off the ground. Sawyers employed at the London, Midland and Scottish Railway works at Wolverton have discovered a sickle embedded in the heart of an elm tree which was being conver-

ted into logs. The annular markings show that it must have beei left in the tree over 70 years ago.

Through the recent capture of a burglar who had his facial appearance altered by surgery, attention was called to the increasing use of plastic surgery by criminals to escape identification. On the prisoner was found a receipt for £9O paid a surgeon for changing the contours of his cars, chin and nose.