NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 3511, 15 July 1926, Page 4

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Chicago now has over a hundred all-sized golf courses.

The old camel caravans are to be restored in the Sahara Desert. Spanish peasants are now wearing shoes made from old motor-car tyres. An American locomotive just completed contains over 200 tons of steel. An all-night sitting of the House of Commons is estimated to cost £420. To help to pay off a church debt 200 farmers in a town of lowa each gave a pig. King Fuad of Egypt has given £SOO toward the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre Fund. Last year more than 90 tons of reindeer meat was shipped from Alaska to the United States. “Mac,” n dog Which had collected nearly £250 for London charities in eight years, has died. The British Government is subscribing £70,000 during the present year to t'he League of Nations. Twenty-one nations were represented at the Girl Guides’ International Conference held in America recently. This year £50,000 is available for the relief of the rates from Nottingham’s gas department and tramways. Of the telephone lines in Great Britain four million miles are underground and one million miles overhead. " It is estimated that every time a country issues a new postage stamp collectors buy at least £ll,000 worth. The Isle of Java is the spot in the world subject to most thunder, over 200 storms occurring each year. Forty thousand racing pigeons, mostly from Liverpool and district, were liberated at Bath on one day lately. ... Two houses in the Spanish village of Poyuelo de Vidriales have been destroyed by the invasion of white ants. Stronger and more elastic silk is obtained by treating it with organ- • ic compounds at a temperature of boiling point. Canadian and American fishermen catc’h about three million whitefish in the Great Lakes every year, worth about £300,000. Scientists who are piecing together the skeleton of a dinosaur, estimate that it will take them two years to complete the task. An artificial lake covering 500 acres has been formed on the Danish island of Zealand for the purpose of raising eels as food.

A tame rabbit which escaped from its hutch at Hartlepool came home, after an absence of two days, with a young wild rabbit. So fast does a machine that cuts up wood into matches operate, that in a single minute it will turn out 40,000 splints. The British people are now spending at the rate of ton million pounds a year on wireless, that is to say, about five shillings a head. Nearly a hundred schoolboys from Tilbury have had a sea trip to Marseilles and back, through the kindness of a fellow townsman.

Crashing through level crossing gates at Hull, a motorist escaped death by a few inches. A train stopped only one foot from the cai. Duncan Soutar, a young fisherman, has received the Royal Humane Society’s Stanhope Medal for the bravest deed of last year.

A Luton boy of eleven hsa travelled from his home to Bedford and back on a scooter. He covered the distance of 40 miles in 12 hours. A large and elaborate house stands secure in America, although there is not a single nail in its construction. It is held together with wooden screws.

Loading two lorries at Lime Street Station, Liverpool, with baggage for the Baltic, tlie baggage men engaged during the general strike were agreeably surprised to receive an offer of help from the Eftrl of Lathom, who started heartily to work.

Quill toothpicks came first of all from France. The largest factory in the word 'is near Paris, where several million quills are dealt with yearly. The factory started to make quill pens, but when these went out of general use, it was converted into a toothpick mill. The absence of trams in Bradford during the first six days of the general strike :s redacted .n the receipts for the week ended\May 8, which amounted to only £3160, as against £12,423 for the corresponding week of last year, a decrease of £9257.

The King of Italy has signed a decree conferring the bronze medal for valour on Signorina Edda Mussolini, the Italian Prime Minister’s ildest daughter. It will be remembered that she risked her life last, summier at Cattolica to save a drowning bather in a heavy sea. The rhythmical movement of the Foot Guards on the march is likely in the near future to lose some of its music. The regulated and sharply-resonant tramp of many feet in unison on a hard country road is to be partially silenede by the general use on the ankle boot of rubber-covered heels.

mile the majority of the insurance companies were inundated with injuries regarding policies risk in riots and civil disorders, the outstanding feature of the insurance business during the general strike in Britain was the large number of claims made for motor-car accidents due to the enormous increase in road traffic.