NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 3661, 5 July 1927, Page 1

NEWS IN BRIEF.

The eye of a butterfly . contains about 5000 different lenses and 50,000 nerves.

Rheumatism occurs more frequently in those districts which lie very little above sea-level. The American Navy is now stronger in point of numbers of vessels than that of Britain.

Clouds travel at immense heights. “Mare’s-tails,” for instance, are found 30,000 ft. up. Two wells at Orpington, Kent, supply between two and three million gallons of water a day. Uniforms for English postmen have to be stocked in 1800 sizes; each complete suit costs £1 11s 4d. Incomes of more than £IOO,OOO a year are owned by 138 persons in Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

On very wet days, as many as 500 lost umbrellas are taken to the Lost Property Offices of the London Police.

People are living longer. A baby born now has an expectation of 50-58 years of life if a boy and 00-67 year of a girl. Telephone calls in London last year averaged 5.7 seconds from the iifting of the receiver until the operator answered. Silence is the rule in one wellknown bookshop in Oxford, where the assistants never speak to a customer until spoken to. -Pennsylvania has a law which permits local authorities to impose upon offenders a fine of £5 for each wayside flower picked. Berths in sleeping-cars on the London and North-Eastern Railway are no longer to be numbered 13, as, railway passengers do not like them.

A stuffed crocodile, two bags ol: ant eggs, a bag of whale fins, and a pump handle were among the queer assortment of goods sold at a London auction.

The British are eating less bread as a nation. Some bakers, in London especially, describe their sale of loaves as 30 per cent, less than formerly.

Beer has a history which goes back to 5000 8.C., and the earliest brewers were faced with the difficulty of producing a beverage free from cloudiness.

Hundreds of qualified scientists iu Britain, bolding honours, degrees, arc in receipt of salaries which are less than the average wages of the dustmen.

Women should not ride on horseback astride, especially in the hun-ting-field, according to one expcit. Only exceptional women can do it with safety.

One manufacturing village with live hosiery factories, Fleckney, in Leicestershire, has ten less houses now than in 1013, since when no new houses have been built. Easier emigration and the higher wages offered for farm labour arc two of the main causes of recruiting for the Army in agricultural districts showing a lower return.