NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 3861, 23 October 1928, Page 4

NEWS IN BRIEF.

The largest bell ever cast in England weighs 18.} tons. Nearly 1000 agricultural labourers are employed in London. About one in seven of the boys and girls of London are still in school at the age of 15. Members of Parliament in Belgium are entitled to a pension of £2 11/G for each year of service. The Belfast Corporation has decided to spend £30,000 on buses to fight bus competition against trams. Savings certificates have been sold in Britain at the average rate of nearly 1,000,000 a week this .year. France is the only European country whose present birth-rate shows an improvement on the prewar figure. The average rise in the cost of production in Britain manufactures between 1913 and 1925 was over 80 per cent. Married women of middle age, according to statistics, have a better chance of a long life than either widows or spinsters. About 350,000 Londoners, of whom nearly 280,000 are women, are employed in hotels, restaurants, and domestic service. Wjhile goldfish can be bought for as little as sixpence each, the really fine specimens of rare breeds will cost up to £SO apiece. Living tortoises with coloured precious stones set in their shells ard now ousting Alsatian dogs as pets among the “smart set” abroad. About 40 per cent, of weight, and 20 per cent, by value, of the world’s output of. diamonds are used for purely commercial purposes. Sleeping-car porters, of whom there are 7000 employed by the Pullman Company in the United States, receive about £1,400,000 in tips every year. The British output of coal last year was about 8,000,000 tons more than ip 1925; there was, however, an average financial loss, in all districts, of s}d per ton. Butter and cream cheese, made in the Royal dairy Windsor, are sent up to Buckingham Palace every day while the King and Queen are in residence there.