NEWS IN BRIEF

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 3538, 16 September 1926, Page 4

NEWS IN BRIEF

Ashford in Middlesex has sold its old fire engine for £25. A municipal garage at Eastbourne is to accommodate sixty char-a-bancs.

Of the potatoes iconsumed in Britain 15 per cent, are eaten in the form of “chips.” The death-watch beetle is causing havoc in the choir stalls of Minster Church, in Thanet. Mosquitoes are more apt to bite people with fair skins than those of dark complexion. Cigarettes are turned out at the rate of 1,350 a minute by the latest type of machine.

Sea water for the aquarium tanks in the London Zoo is obtained from the Bay of Biscay. London consumes about 35gallons of water every day for each one of its population. Among the inmates of the London Zoo are 74(5 animals, 1791 birds, G 22 reptiles, and 3080 fish.

Underneath the Embankment Gardens, London, is a is a subterranean lake containing water 12ft. deep. In the year ended April 30 last, out of a possible 444 C hours of sunshine, Britain only received 1312. Oranges were recently sold at Liverpool Fruit Exchange at 12 for a penny, owing to an unprecedented supply arriving from Spain.

A girl and a man recently climbed a 200 ft. chimney stack at Hastings, England, and had their photographs taken at the top.

Giraffes are very nervous creatures, as well as being delicate. The two specimens in the London Zoo are the only ones in Britain.

To prevent waste, the London Metropolitan Water Board employs 250 detectives, whose business it is to seek leaks in mains, etc.

A weighing machine, designed f gii use in shops, is so finely constructed that it will weigh anything from a human hair to articles of 401 b. Britain is now exporting motorears to the Dominions at the rate of 31,000 a year. In 1923 the number of cars exported was only 5000.

Seven members of one Buckinghamshire family count up 604 years between them. The oldest is 98 years and the youngest 75 years. “Old, maids,” tall, slim men, and short men are the best workers,

according to one expert, who places widows and large, fat men at the other end of the scale.

The record catch with rod and line in the United Kingdom last season was a salmon weighing 50411). This fish was captured in the River Tweed, near Kelso. Postmarks date back over two centuries, the first provincial specimen being marked “Warrington” on a letter dated 1702, long before adhesive stamps came into use. A homing pigeon alighted on the deck of the steamship Auk 100 miles off Flamborough Head. It had keen released the same day in n 200-mile race, and was quite vigorous. Erinoid, the material made from congealed milk which has been used for buttons and knife-handles in the past, is now being employed for -making fancy heels for ladies shoes. Among the races in Europe and America, Jews have the lowest infantile mortality rate. This is said to be largely due to the fact that Jewish women usually make splendid mothers. In the Royal library at Mindsoi Castle are illuminated bfloks so precious that they are kept always under lock and key. The Royal Library itself was mainly built by Queen Elizabeth. _ . The smallest radio receiving set ever built has been constructed on the shaft of an ordinary pin by Rufus P. Turner a student, at the Armstrong Technical High Sc 100 , Washington. Models of insects which may carry disease, such as flies and mosquitoes, each enlarged to the size of a small dog, have been placed m the Natural History Museum, South Kensington. , t M Joan Boucher’s statue of Marshal Gallicni, military governor of Paris during the war, has jus been unveiled in the French capital. It represents Gallieni listening to the voice of France .