NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume L, Issue 3932, 18 April 1929, Page 4

NEWS IN BRIEF.

There were 3529 new novels published in Britain last year. Cumberland is the wettest county in England. Five (million people in the United States are unable to read or write. Influenza, as a word, is derived from Italian, and means “the influence.” The first “horseless carriage” .’was patented in 1619 Iby a man named Wildgoose. Duelling still takes place in mo3t German Universities, although it is lorbidden by law. A silkworm spins three hundred yards of line silk around itself when it is nine weeks old. The largest Bible in the world is a manuscript Hebrew Bible in the Vatican. It weighs 3201 b. Px-aetically the only fish that pays any attention to its offspring is the popular “tiddler’,” or stickleback. The unemployed in Britain at the end of December numbered 1,520,700; this is 184,000 above last year’s figure. About G per cent, of the coal burned in the ordinary domestic grate goes up in the chimney in the form of soot. Under the Workmen’s Compensation Acts, £12,000,000 was paid out to workmen and their families in Britain during 1927. The foghorn of a first-class lightship requires an engine of 72 horsepower to work it. It can be heard at a distance of 20 miles. With a growing population, Dursley, in Gloucestershire, has no unemployed. Its great industry is the making of agricultural machinery. A company with a capital of £l, 000,000 has been organised in America to finance sales of all classes of aeroplanes on the installment plan. When tea was first used in England it ,was infused in bulk and kept in barrels to be drawn like beer. It was then wanned for use. The London County Hall was to cost £850,000 when the designs were passed in 1908. By the time it is completed it will have cost at least £5,000,000. The deepest canyon in the world, ns well as the longest, is the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River. In places the gorge is more than a mile deep. ,

Two giant airships, to lie built for the American Governlmen't, will he 785 ft. long, and each will carry a crew of 45 men as well ,as five scouting aeroplanes. There were 458,410 industrial accidents in Britain in 1927; of these %he greatest number occurred among miners, compensation being paid in 205,382 mining cases. Among articles to come under the hammer at a sale of lost property held by the .Southern Railway were 8000 umbrellas and 6000 pairs of gloves. lOamels and pigs .are said to be the only animals that cannot swim. Every penny pn't on the income tax in Britain brings in a revenue of live millions sterling. There have been more than 120 rainy days above the normal since 1916 in Britain.

Out of 504 samples of illicit drink tested in New York, 55 contained a dangerous poison, 70 were unfit to drink, 362 were synthetic but harmless, and only 17 were pure. Snails dig thdm’selves into the ground in winter and remain torpid, cementing up the opening to their shells. They breathe through a small hole in the “cement,” too small to allow the entrance of waiter, but largo enough to allow sufficient air for their feeble respiration. A resident of Brittany saw Iris three s'ons and two daughters married on the Same day. The brides of two of the iSons were sisters, and the bridegroom of one of the daughters was the brother of these two brides. Thus five children of one family and three of another were all married at once. The yew trees at Fountains Abbey, at Ripon, Yorkshire, are supposed to have been ancient when the abbey was built in 1132, and there are olive trees on Mount Jerusalem which are known to have existed 800 years ago. One tree expert lias put the age of a certain Baobab tree in Africa at over 5000 years. Trees are larger, in dia|meter in summer than in winter. They also vary in this respect from day to day, being larger from noon to twilight than from twilight to noon. It was an Englishman, Joseph Wilson Swan, who in 1883 took out the first patent for making artificial silk by squirting a pulp of wood and cotton through small holes. Within the eyes of ground birds are tiny periscopes, reflectors which enable them to observe the approach of enemies from behind, says Professor Arthur Thomson. The British Air Ministry is planning the construction of large troop transport aeroplanes, each with accommodation for fifty infantrymen with machine guns .and full equipment.

Roast whale has been introduced to Liverpool and .seems likely to become a popular dish. It retails at fro'iq 3d to 6d a pound. When roasted it tastes not unlike salt beef. Mjoro books |Were published in England last year than ever before. The actual number of new books and new editions was 14,399, an increase of 589 over 'the figures of 1927. Man’s brain attains its maximum capacity at thirty, but a monkey’s brain reaches its greatest weight between the ages of two and three, and after that remains stationary. At the age of seven girls are often better than boys at writing, spelling, and arithmetic, but after that age the boys make up for lost time and then surpass the girls in learning. Now that lifts are so efficient and chutes are provided for carrying letters to the ground flour, offices on the upper floors of big new buildings are letting as readily, as those nearer the ground. “Out of 28 borough .councils in London, 15 have done nothing to build now houses or launch slum schemes for. the last seven years,” said the Bishop of London iu a recent circular letter. A new world’s record for continuous barrel rolling in an aeroplane has been set up at Lambert St. Louis aerodrome by Dale Jackson, who made 417 rolls. The previous record is stated to have been 283 rolls. The experience recorded of a Wanganui resident becoming an inmate of an institution at Rotorua, and there becoming acquainted wit’ll three other patients named Drought, Speight and Johnnie Walker, is .not without a rival. An Oamaru business man recalls that a Dunedin land agent recently inspected a property with three prospective clients, whose names were Walker, Ambler and Trotter.