NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 3734, 24 December 1927, Page 1

NEWS IN BRIEF.

In a Mexican home the sofa is the scat of honour. There were 1470 fatal accidents in the German coal mines last year. While in circulation a penny is estimated to pass through the hands of 125,000 people. s

The average depth of sand in the deserts of Africa is estimated to be from 40 feet to 80 feet.

Nevada is now a state without a tram, buses having entirely supplanted the street car system.

The number of motor vehicles in use in' Britain went up last year by 237,000 and 1 now is 1,750,000. Every person in Britain eats an average of 93 apples, 67 oranges, 52 bananas and 15 lemons every year. The Communist Party of Great Bi'itain report a total membership of 7377, a reduction of 3600 compared with last year. ,

Outside the British Isles, there are fewer than 18,000,000 white people in the 13,000,000 square miles of the British Empire. King Boris of Bulgaria is the only teetotal monarch in Europe at the present day. He has never tasted strong drink in his life. At marriages in South Arabia the bride and bridegroom havo to sit in .the same position from noon till midnight, fasting, in separate rooms.

A woman giving evidence in a police court case at Pontefract stated that she was 43 and had had 22 children, but they had not all lived.

The Northern Ireland Government is to defray out of the Road fund the total cost of the new Londonderrv Bridge, estimated at £300,000.'

The total rent-roll of the completed dwellings provided by the London County Council to March 21 last, amounted to nearly £1,000,000.

In Seoul, capital of Korea, a large bell is tolled at about 8 a.m. and 3 p.m. daily; only between these hours are women allowed in the streets.

In Great Britain 50,000 men are permanently engaged in catching fish in deep waters, the value of their annual catch reaching £19,000,000

The Luxembourg Chamber has passed an Act imposing a special tax on visitors from countries which impose a similar tax on Luxembourg citizens. A London real estate firm lias adopted the practice of showing motion picture films of its properties to callers interested in purchasing or renting. The mounting of a guard at the Bank of England dates from the time of the Gordon Riots in I£BU, when the bank was attacked by the mob.

The Rotherham guardians have decided to supply wholemeal bread to workhouse inmates as an alternative diet after rejecting a proposal that sweet cake should be given instead. The Reading guardians, to encourage thrift among the girls who are being trained for domestic service, have decided to allow them 1/a week, and to open banking accounts for them. Particulars have been published of a scheme, estimated to cost £200,000 for the creation of a jungle on the edge of the Chiltern Hills, as a rest home for animals from the London Zoological Gardens.

A man who had smoked the same 2 feet long meerschaum pipe for 87 years died lately at his home in Essex, aged 100. He was Mr. Walter John Winder. He celebrated his ‘hundredth birthday in July. The death lias taken place atXisvernan, Tipperary, of Denis Halloran, who is reported to have reached the great age of 108 years ll months. He was fond of smoking and he enjoyed his pipe to the last. After Richard Griffith, of Baltimore, rolled from his bed out of a third-storey window he awoke in mid-air to find himself clutching a pillow. Using it to protect his bead when landing, he buffered only slight cuts.-

In recognition of the hospitality which he has enjoyed at Doom, the ex-Kaiser has offered to present to the local municipality a rose garden, with a view to adding to the amenities of the locality and attracting tourists.

For having matches in his possession while working at Outwoocl Colliery, where 1000 men are employed, a youth named John Byrne was fined £2 at Radcliffe, Manchester. Using a match, he lighted a cigarette, which he half-smoked.