NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 3516, 27 July 1926, Page 1

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Some part of the Bible is now printed in 835 languages. There are five million people in America who have to work on Sundays. An American woman taught 83 Canadian men how to fly during the war. Pythons in zoological gardens in America are now kept in padded •cages. In two Irish counties, Fermanagh and Tyrone, the men outnumber the woma by 6000. Sleep is declared by some scientists to be largely a matter of habit and mainly unnecessary. Women are greatly in the majority in Ulster, Belfast alone recording 23,010 “surplus” females. Tortoises are long-livers. The veteran at the London Zoo is known to be at least 260 years old. Corn cobs are said to have been turned into a good substitute for wood by a university professor. The latest census shows that there are 2,838,416 people living in Paris, which is 25,017 less than in 1921. The average capacity of human lungs is one gallon. A person hales about 375 cubic feet of air a day. Handel, the great composer, is best known nowadays by his orators; he also left 40 operas however. Posted on June 4, 1916, at Knaresborough, Yorkshire, a postcard was recently received at Walmer, Kent. Of the world’s soldiers, barely 50 per cent, are in Europe, China alone having 1,607,000 men in military training.

It has been scientifically calculated that men do better work in the spring and autumn than in the summer and winter.

In a Dutch town the biggest bee market in the world is held, sometimes 30,000,000 insects being sold in one week.

Although only 14 years of age, a Cleethorpes boy has, by the local council, been given a license to act as boatman.

A signal light that is worn on the finger like a ring has been, devised. It is intended for policemen directing traffic. In a recent contest, a 19-year-old English typist, Elinor Mitchell, typed 142 words a minute. She is the champion of Europe.

Wfhen if is necessary to destroy dogs in an American state, an electric chair is used in the same manner as ordinary executions. Sheets to the number of over 300 can be dealt with at one time by a new washing machine recently exhibited in London. Tickets for the tennis championships at Wimbledon, which originally cost £4 4s, have been resold for as unveil as £2O and £3O each.

Laundry work is a large industry in Britain. It finds employment for about 115,000 people, of whom 85 per cent, are women and girls. The Veddas, an almost extinct race of Ceylon, have two remarkable characteristics. None of them has been known to laugh, and they seem unable to tell a lie.

Unoccupied good-class houses, which were built in Britain before the War, may contain as much as £SO worth of' lead. The result is an epidemic of lead-stealing.