NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 3850, 27 September 1928, Page 4

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Aeroplanes which will carry two people with a compartment for luggage, for about 4d a mile, can now be purchased in Britain fpr £650. A woman at Acton who returned a lost purse containing £ls to its owner, was given sixpence as a reward.

One of the longest canals in the world runs from Leningrad to the frontier of China, a distance of 4,500 miles. The silence in the Rocky Mountains is so great that the flapping of a partridge’s wings may be heard for several miles. Kings in the earliest days were merely the “fathers of families,” and the word is derived from the same source as “kin.” The first paper mill in England was erected at Dartford, Kent, in 1590. It was built by Sir John Spielmann, a German. A blind chameleon ceases to change its colour and remains dark in tint. The reason of this peculiarity has never been explained. Some samples of Belgian hosiery recently exhibited in Brussels were made entirely from waste cuttings and floor sweepings. Illustrated posters showing pedestrians where they may cross the road are used by the Paris police to reduce the number of accidents. The fastest flowing river in the world is the Sutlej, in India, which rises 15,200 ft. above the sea, and falls 12,000 ft. in 180 miles. The village of St. 'Bay in Cornwall is without a water supply. A water seller makes a round with a ■,barrel and charges a penny a bucketful. Much of the silk smuggling which goes on on the south coast of England is done by people who use the steamers making day trips to the French ports. Christmas recognise this year as 1928, the Mohammedans call it 1346, the Jews 5688, the Japanese 2587, and the Byzantine calendar says it is 7436. From the Armistice until a few weeks ago, 690 marriages between British soldiers in the Army of the Rhine and German women had taken place. Kew Gardens have been the means of creating industries, as by the introduction of rubber growing in the East and tea and coffee cultivation in the West Indies.

It is expected that the construction of tty) new railway workshops at Addington will be completed in two months or so. A Stratford resident found three young blackbirds in a nest, indicating the general mildness of the spring. Nestlings are usual in October. A new metal is being made in Germany called electron, said to be 4(1 per cent, lighter than aluminium. A few months ago an appeal for £IOO,OOO was made on behalf of the University of Sydney. The sum was reached a fortnight ago. The lowest paid woman worker in the British Civil Service is the (post office sorting assistant, her minimum salary being 24s a week, which includes the bonus. A Canadian farmer who first reached his present homestead by ox-cart in a journey of 21 days, has made the same journey in an hour and a-half by air. With only one pair of twins, Mr. and Mrs. James Speariett, of Preston, have had a family of 25 children. Fourteen of them are still living, seven being of school age. Built at Saleombe, Devon, in 1811, the fifty-two ton hedge, Ceres, is believed to be Britain’s oldest sea-going ship. She still plies between Bude and Cardiff. A new gas mixture, 700 times lighter than benzine, is to be used to drive the five engines of a new German airship, with which it is hoped to start a transatlantic service in June. The number of people killed in London’s streets last year was only 271 less than in the whole of the United Kingdom in 1910. The figures fos London were 1056 and for all the United Kingdom 1327.