NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 3600, 17 February 1927, Page 4

NEWS IN BRIEF.

There is one divorce to every 150 weddings in Britain. ' An ostrieli yields about 31b. of feathers yearly.

Last year saw women score two successes. The English Channel was swum by two women, and the first woman aviator qualified for a licence to carry passengers. Eight million people are said to dwell in Greater London.

The first free library in England was opened at Manchester in 1852.

Many river pilots in the London district earn nearly £IOOO a year. Grasshoppers have been found on mountain summits as high as 18,000 ft.

The most northerly British Isle is Muckle Flugga, in tiie Shelands.

The Chinese learned how to make paper watching wasps build their nests.'

There are approximately 4000 known languages and dialects in the world.

It is estimated that one jet oi gas consumes as much air as foui adults.

The sales of National Savings Certificates have reached over 780 millions. '

A total,of 1569 women magistrates have been appointed in England and Wales. . Birds have three different classes of notes —alarm notes, call notes and song.

“Dummies” made for use in ventroloquial acts may cost as much as £IOO each.

A new German car of 12 h.p. has the engine at the rear instead of the front.

More than half of the world’s annual gold output is produced in British South Africa.

In a high wind a factory chimney 100 ft. high will, it is calculated, sway eight or nine inches. A motor-car has appeared in Germany with its engine behind the seats instead of in front.

■Compared with Englishmen, Scotsmen and Welshmen, the Irish have much the larger heads. Glasgow is to make slum clearances which will affect 14,000 dwellings and 50,000 ipeople. It is estimated that the annual loss to Britain by the depredations of rats exceeds £55,000,000.

A landside on a mountain near Glenfarn, County Leitrim, has revealed a valuable coal seam. Electricity is to be used for heating as well as for lighting the animal houses at the London Zoo.

London’s official residence for the Lord Mayor, the Mansion House, was formerly a fruit and vegetable garden.

Eggs arc now being flipped for preservation in an oil bath maintained at a temperature of 235 degrees Eahr. There are over 1000 British building societies with members numbering approximately 1,000,0(10 in existence. The feet of bees are their organs of communication, according to Dr. Karl Von Frisch, a German entomologist.

Rents for furnished rooms in the poorer parts of London are stated to vary from 18s to 30s a week. In many eases the furniture is not worth more than twenty shillings or

A Holstein bull attacked a judge Mr Richard Davis, at the Kuemeu (Auckland) A. and P. Show on Saturday. Mr Davis was seriously gored in the thigh, and was removed to Auckland for treatment.

The Royal National Lifeboat Institution possesses at Poplar, London, a shipyard to which their damaged boats are sent all round the coast to be repaired and refitted.

On any given day there are on the seas, counting only the value of ships over 3000 tons and the cargoes borne, no less than £700,000,000 worth of trade under the British flag. The sun moves at a speed of 12 miles a second; Areturus, a star recently visible in the sky, does 250 miles a second; while there are other stars which have a velocity of 1000 miles a second.

Golders Green Tube Station, London, is used by more than 40,000 passengers every day. When the station was opened, less than twenty years ago, the daily passengers numbered 1000.

The world’s greatest disasters due to fire were London, 1066; Moseow, 1812; Chicago and Paris, both 1871; Boston, 1872; Baltimore, 1904; San Francisco, 1900; and Salonica, 1917. Tobacco'consumption is increasing in Britain. In the period January to June, 1924, the quantity was 73,805,7681 b.; in 1925 it had increased to 73,165,3511 b.; and in 1926 it was 78,421,1521 b.

Royal Air Force pilots recently Hew in a specially-equipped aeroplane. upside down for four and a half, minutes, thus beating the record of two and a-half minutes made by a Belgian pilot. +V beacon of 1,000,000,000 can-dle-power, said to be the most powerful in the world, was inaugurated recently on Mont lien, a. hill near Paris, where it has been erected to facilitate air navigation. A new electric prospecting instrument is being used by the,Ontario Department of Mines to indicate the presence of gold deposits —not so much to locate new veins, however, as to survey known areas.

Recently £2OO was obtained for the unused second blue Mauritius post-paid stamp, £llO for the British (Occupation set of German Marshall Island, and £.120 for the rate 12d Canada —all records. Mabel Pennings appeared in the Christchurch Police Court recently on two charges of having undertaken to tell fortunes. „ The evidence of two police matrons was that 'they had visited defendant’s house and had had readings. One was told of plans in the new year with some hints about a dark man and a blue limousine, and was told also that she would marry next year. Defendant was fined £2.