NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 3736, 31 December 1927, Page 1

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Maryland) in America, was so named in honour of Queen Henrietta Maria, the consort of Charles 1.

Plants are most active during ,the period between noon and 3 pair, they grow “tired” after five. Plants will ultimately supersede animals for experimental purposes, according to one famous naturalist. It is estimated that more rain falls in Britain between 3 a.m. and 8 a.m. than at any other time of the day. Telephones are a paying proposition in New York, where a regular dividend of 6 per cent, is paid to shareholders. Wlhilc acting as goalkeeper in a carnival football match at Chesterkeld, the Mayor fell and broke a wrist in two places.

Girls of to-day are from six to nine pounds lighter, in proportion to their height:, than the girls of fofity years ago. * In Somerset House, London, there arc stored wills which date hack to 1487.

Iceland recently let the contract for the first railway in the island. It is to be about 50 miles long and is to cost £IOO,OOO. Death from septicaemia, following a blister on the 'heel, made by a new boot, was the verdict at a Nottingham inquest. From being a cathedral, a church at. Bfadwell-on-Sea, Essex, was converted • into a lighthouse, and eventually became a barn. It was stated recently at Marylebotie Police Court, that, with tips, London hotel porters could earn from £8 to £lO a week. Making a, clock that has no steel parts and needs no oiling is now possible through a new 'alloy peri'edted by an English inventor. There are about 8000 licensed taxicabs in the London metropolitan area, and no one has power to prevent the number increasing indefinitely. .The area of the Pacific Ocean is 70,000,000 square miles, and exceeds the (total expanse of all the continents and islands on the globe. Modei'n machinery makes it possible to generate one unit of electricity from 2.291 b. of coal, whereas 4.9011). were required ten years ago.

One pair of sparrows multiplying for ten years without hindrance would number more than 275 billion descendants at the end bf that period. The risk of being struck by lightning is five times greater in the country than in cities, and twenty times greater a't sea than in a. railway carriage. \,

A novel type of taximeter supplies the passenger at the end of Ills journey with a printed ticket showing the exact amount of fare due.

Many of London’s old lamp posts are made from ancient guns. A number of such old guns, planted upright, are still in use as kerb posts.

It is an interesting fact that in Now Zealand the female sex has a better average of life than the male, from the cradle to the grave. The statistics for 1926 show that of children under one year there died 638 males to 49.4 females. At the other end of the scale, between 65 and 75 years of age, 1247 men died, compared with 880 women.