NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 3730, 15 December 1927, Page 1

NEWS IN BRIEF.

There are 1,567,000 more women than men in England. 'Sugar is found in the sap of nearly 200 plants and trees. Wasps and bees can see nothing more than two feet distant. A mouse is said to consume food worth one half-penny every day. Visibility in London is 50 times greater in summer than in winter. A cricket ball was found in a bullock recently killed in Lincolnshire. Women's size in shoes is. growing bigger. Formerly four, it is now much, more usually five. There are over 3000 telephone kiosks now in use in Britain. The cost of their upkeep is £50,000 a year. There is in the district a plague of Hies slightly bigger than the housefly' states the Winton Record, Otago. The H.B. Electric Power Board is installing about 20 electric ranges a month. Big luscious peaches, locally grown, have made their appearance in Hastings. A nutmeg is the kernal of the stone of a fruit which grows in Brazil, Madagascar-, and the West Indies. It is estimated that the natural increase of deer in New Zealand is about 100,000 annually. There are in Britain 46,822 blind persons, of whoiri 31,667 are unemployable, one-third of the unemployable being over seventy years of age. A catch of about 40 shags was the feat of Ranger Kean at Waikaremoana recently. These were in o colony, and have long been a menace to young trout. Statistics prove New Zealand's claim to be the healthiest country in the world. The average expectation of life in this country for men is 62 fyears and for women 65 years. In England and Wales the. figures are 56.58 years for men and 60.47 years for women. A novel letter-box has been constructed at Leipzig. The letter is placed in an opening and then coins of the value of the stamps required are placed in slots provided for them. Thereupon the envelope is automatically stamped and the letter falls into the box. In South Wales, red seaweeds belonging to the genus Porphyra are collected and boiled down to make Laver bread. This substance is eaten as a condihent with fried bacon and is to be seen regularly on sale in Cardiff market. The 73rd anniversary of the famous Eureka stockade epistle at Ballarat fell on Sunday last. According to the Timaru Post the only survivor of the event, so far as is known, is Mr. John L. Potter, of Timaru. Then a young man of 20, Mr. Potter was among the “rebels,” and to-day he is able to recall the events with a vividness undimmed by the passing of 73 years. Another centenarian smoker; and this time a woman. A Home paper records the death at Messing, near Tiptree, Essex, of Mrs. Naomi Harrington at the age of one hundred years. The good old lady smoked a clay pipe every day and attributed her long life, at any rate in part to that practice. What the antitobaecoites will say to this must be

left to conjecture, but a more convincing proof of the harmlessness of tobacco could hardly be found. The plain fact of the matter is that smoking won’t hurt anyone so long as the tobacco is pure and as free from nicotine as possible. The imported brands, by the way, are mostly full of nicotine. That’s where they differ so essentially from our own New Zealand tobaccos—the purest in the world and the freest from nicotine. They are quite safe and owe their fine aroma and deliciouS fragrance to the toasting of the leaf (quite a novelty). Ask your tobacconist for “Riverhead G-old” mild, “Navy Cut” (Bulldog) medium, or “Cut Plug No. 10” (Bullshead), full strength.