NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 3723, 29 November 1927, Page 1

NEWS IN BRIEF.

At a depth of a mile the ocean bed is well illuminated by the luminous organs of the fish living there, according to one scientist. Card-indexes are replacing the famous shipping ledgers at Lloyd’s Exchange, London. The ledgers measure 2ft. Gin. by Ift. Din. Less beer is being drunk in Great Britain, the decrease in the year ended last June being 4 per cent, compared with the previous twelve years. A motor-driven “seasick chair” which reproduces the roll and pitch of a ship is used in France to test applicants for naval and merchant marine posts. The Death’s Head moth, common in England until about thirty years ago, but now very rare, emits squeaks almost as loud as those of a mouse. There is now more than one doctor to every thousand of population in Britain and Ireland. Only America, with one doctor to eveiy 753, beats this figure. In the New English Dictionary, which after fifty-three years of work is nearing completion, fiftytwo columns of references are devoted to the word “put.” Artificial heating of the ocean is to. be tried at Wcsterland, Germany, to provide bathing all the year round. Huge electric heaters will raise the water’s temperature. As it is of no use for church purposes, the crypt of a church m Gray’s Inn Road, London, is let as a fruit store. Before that it was a book store, and a wine cellar. It costs Britain £6O a year to educate a blind child; a physically normal child costs £l6 at an. elementary school, £27 at a een ra school,’and £4l at a secondary school. . , ■ Mr. L. Davy, an Islington licen-

sed victualler, lately received a picture postcard, sent to him by his brother on September 12, 1908. The writer has been dead for fifteen years. Scientific workers live to a good old age, on an average. This is supposed to be because they know how to take proper care of their physical systems and usually lead quiet, even lives. Although there are 42,000 pay accounts fewer to handle now than in .1913, the Accountant-General’s Department at the British Admiralty has grown from 347 in 1917 to (ilO to-day. . I Fitted with sleeping accommodation for four people, a new luxury aeroplane has been built for a Belgian millionaire. There is also a toilet room complete with washbasins and mirrors. A peacock is unable to distinguish one colour from another. It is said that birds that fly by day see everything, a bright reddish orange. Night birds, however, see blue and violet. There are more than 207 people in America who pay tax on net in-' comes of over £300,000. Of these, 90 are in New York. Three women reported incomes of from £600,000 to £BOO,OOO each. There are just over 48,000 inspectors employed by the British Government, which works out at more than one for every thousand of the population. They cost more than £12,000,000 a year. Over 20 languages are spoken in the diocese under the Bishop of Fulham; it spreads over North and Central Europe from the English Channel to Moscow, and from North Italy to the North Pole. A new wireless tower is to be built in Berlin. When completed it will be twice the height of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, and the light on the top of the tower will be visible for one hundred miles.

An inmate of Runcorn workhouse, who possesses £2OOO, has been permitted to stay as/a paying guest for 25/- a week. The man has no relatives and says he is glad of the company in the workhouse.

Seagulls’ eggs, similar in size and shape to hens’ eggs, but dull seagreen in colour, with brown splashes, are imported to England in small quantities from Denmark. They find a ready sale among hotels and restaurants. There are 300,000 Jews in Britain, but only one Jewish theatre, and that is in London. New York has a Jewish population of 1,250,000, who are catered for by fourteen Jewish theatres and eight Jewish music-halls. Budgerigars, the prettily coloured “love-birds” so long popular in England, are now having a “boom’.’ in .Japan, with the result that pairs which sold for £5 or so a year ago have fetched as much as £240 apiece. [While trawling off Wairau bar last week, a party of fishermen found in their net a boot with the remains of a human foot in it. The discovery, it is believed, will throw so:.:e light upon the disappearance from his launch some months ago of a young fisherman Roy Eyles. The boot was taken to Blenheim for identification purposes. The Otaki Borough Council has accepted an offer by the Government to set up a Commission to enquire into the financial position of the Borough. The non-payment of native rates, the exclusion of large areas from the Borough by two Commissions, the demand of the Health Department that the sewerage scheme should be completed, and the prospect of reduced valuations next year are four factors that have combined to make the municipal outlook a very anxious

one. Of 17 bankruptcies notified in the current Gazette, three apply to individuals in Hawke’s. Bay, two apiece to Auckland, the Waikato, Poverty Bay and Dunedin, and one each to South Canterbury, Wellington, Wkmganui and Nelson. Bushmen are at present busily engaged cutting timber on the' northern slopes of Pirongia mountain, some distance from the le Awamutu borough water supply catchment area. The logs are being hauled to the Waipa river and then sent down stream by punt and raft to the sawmill at Mercer.