NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 3566, 23 November 1926, Page 4

NEWS IN BRIEF.

It is estimated that there are ahout seven million cats in Britain. The nap on silk hats is sometimes made from the fibre of the milkweed. A strip of country 200 miles long in Pennsylvania, contains 40,000 oil wells. The stained glass windows in York Minister are valued at) no less than £73,000. London’s street motor traffic has increased from 381,26!) vehicles in 1912 to 796,019 to-day. Skeletons of men believed to have been killed in the Battle of Senlao have been found at Eastbourne. The giant bamboo, which sometimes reaches a height of 120 ft., grows at the rate of a foot a day. Waterloo is the largest station in Great Britain, where in 24 hours 1400 trains are dealt with at 23 platforms.

Of London’s bridges, slow-moving horse traffic is heaviest on the Tower Bridge, with Waterloo Bridge next. Because it disfigured Matlock’s beautiful natural scenery a derelict chimney-stack has been felled and removed. A quaint musical instrument, discovered in Southern California, is composed of acorns, carefully graded in size. At a marriage ceremony in India, the bride stands on a large plate filled with milk and rose-coloured sweetmeats. Baldness, earthquakes, twins and revolutions are among the “risks’’ which can be insured against at Lloyd’s. For six positions in Council schools in one London suburb recently, there were 500 applicants, all fully-trained teachers. Scientists have calculated that the temperature of the moon’s surface, at its noontime, rises to 250 degrees Fahrenheit. Second-hand bookshops in London are receiving large orders from Moscow University and similar educational institutions in Russia. Mr. G. Meuntney, of Fiskerton, Nottinghamshire, has died at 95. His father lived to be 97, his grandfather 102, and his great-grand-father 104. In addition to measurements and fingerprints of criminals, phonographic records of their voices can now, without their knowledge, be taken. Farms, especially in Essex, are falling vacant for the want of tenants, and quite a number are being offered for sale at less than £lO an a ere. Black and green tea are both produced from the same plant, the difference being in the age of the leaves and the method of preparation. Londoners are eating more meat, the consumption for the first eight months of this year being 12,000 tons more than for the same period of 1925. Face exercises are the latest aid to beauty. Pouting the lips is said to keep them full and young, while sniffing develops fine, sensitive nostrils. Mirrors with a slightly convexsurface, which have the result of slimming down • the person using them, are said to be popular in American dress salons. Six lobsters from Donegal weighing together just under a hundredweight were lately sold in the Liverpool Fish Market. The largest of them was 33in. long. Rev. Samuel Lnwrev, of Christchurch after 50 years of service in the Methodist Church, is retiring from the active ministry. He has a record of 34 years as Circuit Minister, and 10 years as Connexiona 1 Secretary for New Zealand.