NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 3747, 28 January 1928, Page 4

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Among the “lost property” found in London’s underground railways during the past year were 20,000 pairs of gloves, 12,000 umbrellas, and 5000 walking sticks. Although the number of babies in Britain shows a decided tendency to decrease, the number of perambulators and! baby carriages increases every year, according to one expert.

A two-seater light aeroplane, painted turquoise blue, forms part of the luggage of Lady Heath — formerly Mrs. Eliott-Lynn—the well-known air-woman, on her visit to South Africa.

Mora wood, a. new type of timber grown principally in British Guiana, is claimed to resist the attacks of any insect or any condition of weather. Its great use will be for making railway sleepers. No'' fewer than 120 empty milk bottles were recently recovered by the dairy owning them, from a house in West Kensington. ‘Cases of as many as 60 bottles collecting in houses or flats ai'e not uncommon.

An increase in wool output from lib. to 61b. per animal had been brought about in the Titicaca district of Southern Peru by crossbreeding between native mountain sheep and Scottish, and other imported strains. Old Joe Rogers, a London cabman, who died at the age of 99 years, for nearly 60 years plied for

hire in the city. He was chartered several itimes by King Edward, who, he said, w T as “one of the best cabriders, and he paid well.” [February 6 next will be the eighty-eighth anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi. To mark that historic event the Broadcasting Company is arranging for a party of Maoris to visit Wellington, for the purpose of broadcasting native songs, hakas and speeches suitable to the occasion. This should prove to be something novel and interesting for listeners-in throughout New Zealand.

An old settler of South Taranaki who observes the weather very closely, predicted a dry spell many months ago (states the Hawera “Stai 1 ”). Though the drought has checked the milk supply, the farmers have plenty of grass, and with lucerne out on the plains, they ai e doing pretty well. In the country off the plains, they report that they have not felt the dry spell, and in fact in many of those areas they have had good rain that did not reach the open country. If the district had a good autumn, this will go a long way towards mitigating the bad effects of the present dry spell.