NEWS AND NOTES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 3863, 27 October 1928, Page 4

NEWS AND NOTES.

The normal life of an elm is 100 years. England’s sootiest town is New-castle-on-Tyne. ..Snake-bites caused 19,069 deaths in British India last year Motor-cars in America are increasing- at the rate of 2,000,000 a year. « One pound of tin can be rolled out into 18,000 square inches of tinfoil. A new artificial silk factory covering 32 acres is to be built at Spondon, in Derbyshire. On an average working day there are 1,029,651 passengers on London’s Underground railways. It is estimated that there will be a surplus of £8,300,000 on England’s postal services for 1927-28. The bridegroom’s present to the bride at a Linsl-ade, Bucks, wedding consisted of 400 threepenny-pieces. It is possible to telephone from England to New York, but not from England to the Channel Islands. The majority of the people in the world will be speaking English in fifty years’ time, according to one expert. A Christmas card posted at Deal, Kent, on December 24, 1924, has just been delivered at East Acton, London. More than one hundred new telephone exchanges have been built in Britain during the last twelve months or so. Tests have shown that the air at Wandsworth Common, and Southwark, London, is ready purer than that of Brighton. Kashmir, over 84,000 square miles in area, is the largest independent State in India. -Its Maharajah has an annual income from his personal estate of £2,500,000.

Motor touring as a holiday is increasing rapidly in popularity. The Automobile Association in Britain was planning tours for members at the rate of 5000 a week as early as June.

Several finds of ambergris have been made at Stewart Island during the past few weeks, the heavy gales having brought up a considerable quantity. Recently Mr. R. Matheson secured a piece weighing 1340 z., worth about £53, and while this is the largest single piece brought up, other finds have also been made, Mr Matheson himself obtaining a second piece of about 12oz. Mr. Adam Adamson, the “Ambergris King,” has been away at Mason’s Bay for two or three months, and is expected to return with a good “swag.” Messrs CL Bragg and R. Traill are searching round East Ruggedv, combining this occupation with the shooting of wild cattle. Back-block settlers are viewing

with concern the introduction of the Australian method of taking opossums by means of cyanide, says the Nelson Mail. It is . said that in Queensland cyanide poisoning has practically exterminated the opossum, whilst in all the Australian States the opossum skin industry, which was once a flourishing business, is now almot a thing of the past, due to the same cause. In New Zealand hundreds of settlers, who a few years ago were, financially speaking, almost “down and cut,” are now finding .that opossum skins are fetching in as much as their wool, and things look brighter, provided they can stop raiders using poison. Poison means extermination, and no honest settler wishes to use it. A movement is now on foot to petition the Government to restrict the sale of cyanide.