BREVITIES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 17, 13 February 1909, Page 3

BREVITIES.

c- The National Debt is £702,320,051. " The Loudon Comity Councils Uamit ways extend over a total length of 11!) miles. Coal tor fuel was sola lor the lirst j. time in the United States about IS3O. ' The number of motor licenses issued 1 ia Loudon County in 1907-8 was 3871. ;. The annual mineral yield of the .British Umpire exceeds £200,000,0110. There were 700,000 .men under arms.i iu this country in the year of Trafalgar. There are 00,000 motor-ears and autoj cycles in cireat Britain at the present , time. " The population of the United King- , (lorn has nearly doubled since the census oi 1821. I Sweden, Norway, Iceland, and Doui mark have given the municipal franchise , to women. England and Wales contributed £83,109,000 towards the Imperial expciijiture in 1007-8. More than three-fifths of the world's supply of copper comes from the America;! and Mexican mines. Sixty-three now. plays were produced last season. Of these, thirty-seven were by English dramatists. The State woods of (jlermuny extend over 10,000,000 acres, and give employment to nearly 100,000 people. There are in Ureal Britain 1,4-111,181 private dwelling-houses over £2O iu value, wit'h a total value of £05,(581,722. The House of Lords contains 008 members, of whom 483 are hereditary, the remaining 125 being non-hereditary. There are- 55 Labor M.i'.'s iii the llouse of Commons, of whom 30 have hitherto beeu receiving payment from the Labor Party. There are iu London 1700 to 1300 charitable institutions and agencies, dispensing funds aniuuuting to more than £10,000,000 annually. The Rotherhitlic Tunnel is the largest of the thirteen which have been driven ' under the Thames. It occupied four " years in the making, and cost £1,088,484 to build. Royal Commissions are now sitting for the purpose of enquiring into the Poor Law, Canals, Miners, Vivisection, Church in Wales, Land Transfer, and Ancient Monuments. The recent famine in India cost £5,750,000. The German army numbers over five million men. The total population of the British Empire is over 400,000,000. There are three-quarters of a million paupers in England and Wales. There are six colored inhabitants of the Empire to evory white one. The national wealth in property Is £5,500,000,000; in gold, £107,000,000. \ Of tho 03,453 Chinose admitted iuto the Transvaal, only 17,000 are still in the country. The amount of gold in active circulation in the United Kingdom is estimated to be £84,000,000. The total number of mentally defective persons in England and Wales is estimated to be 271,007. There are nearly 50,000 .police in England! and Wales. In (ireat Britain there are 2,000,000 trade unionists. The South African War Debt outstanding is over £117,000,000. The British Post Oilice Savings Bank has over 10,000,000 depositors. Over £30,000,000 annually is raised in , Great Britain for Poor Rates. New York Stato has passed a Bill which makes race-track gambling illegal. The German population now exceeds that of France by over 20,000,000. The largest turbine engines on the Lmsitania weigh between 400 and 500 About 700,000 of tho dwellings in Engand are either insanitary or overirowded. At the Census of lsiil there were !0,959 houses without wi.i.i its in Scotand. In one hundred years the birth-rate if France lias fallen from 32 to 19.7 per ;housand. Central India was recently visited by ixceptioual rains, which caused the loss if 20.000 lives. ' There are 17,000,000 acres of land ivailable for afforestation in the ."nited Kingdom.. About 500,000 tons of silver is proluced annually by Mexico, Peru, Chili, md British colonies. There are 2208 industrial and provilont societies, with 2,351.1180 member?, n the United Kingdom.