NEWS TIT-BITS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVIII, Issue 155, 30 June 1917, Page 19

NEWS TIT-BITS.

The number of income-tax payers in I Great Britain in 1913-14 was 1,200,000, j j and in 1916-17 3.200.000. Tlie Polish mark is now in circulation in the occupied part; of Poland, and the use of the rouble is prohibited under . severe penalties. Great confusion in ; business has resulted. The Pope expresses regret that his ■ j advice that the war should cease was : rot followed, and that consequently the ! "suicide of civilised Europe" continues, and. indeed, is augmented by the participation of tlie other countries. . According to the "Schleswigsche Grenzpost," nickel and silver coins will shortly lie cancelled in Germany and replaced \y others of metal, or by paper. This is vine to the increasing hoarding that is j 6"ing on. i An ingenious German a few years ago worked out the rank of countries in smoking. After Holland, which takes cisilv the fir=t place, come Austria, Denmark, Switzerland, Belgium, and Germany. Modest places are taken by i Prance. Sweden, and Spain, with Britain almost at the foot next to Italy and Russia. The United States smoker make- the nearest approach to the Dutchman's Soz. with his consumption ot 3oz. a week. If starch may not be made from rice, since rice is needed for human food, and as made from maize, it cannot 'be imported, it seems that limp linen will be tiie vogue, says a London paper. In wheat and potatoes s.arch is too valuable a food to be employed as a mere hy-product for the stiffening of our cuffs and collars, and we shall probably be compelled to do without it, unless there is any value in a patent granted in 1796 to Lord William Murray for a process of extracting it from horse chestnuts.

Ttie country growing the biggest crops of maize—the article of food that we arc asktd earnestly to add to our ' dietary—is the United States of America, says the London "Daily Chronicle." The annual production of maize varies between 2.750.000,000 and 3.000,000.000 bushels. Italy, the next bigg'"st grower, manages to provide abort a thirtieth of the American quantity Egypt, Rumania, and Russia are also producers. Russia is the greatest rye grower, and sh.? also tops the table in v heat. Germany furnishes her popul:st"n : with about twice as much wheat a- we grow here. Beirut, shelled by a French warship, is the classical Berytus, called by a Greek poet "the nurse of tranquil life." In reality this seaport of Damascus has | always been a cockpit, taken and re- | tnken by Christians or Moslems during | tiie < rusades and the scene of the legendary battle between our "patron" | Ft. George and the Dragon. By one of I the grim historical ironies the Great , War has revealed. Beirut was taken fron Egypt and given to the Turks by | us in 1841, after Ibrahim Pasha had I been bombarded out of the place by a! British fleet-

In Germany there are 2,433 British merchant seamen and fishermen prisoners of war, in Austria-Hungary 41, and in Turkey 72.

A new type of pneumatic crutch, invented by the Duke of Portland's chief motor engineer, Mr. A. Hunter, has a resilient head which makes it more agreeable to use and reduces crutch paralysis to a minimum.

A Budapest telegram states that large area- of the occupied districts of Rumania have been planted with corn and vegetables by Austrian and Hungarian soldiers. Vegetables are already being sent to Vienna.

Since its incorporation in 1901 the United States Steel Corporation has increased its capacity 100 per cent, and it is now producing from 40 to 45 per cent of all the steel manufactured in tho United States, as much steel as all Germany and twice as much as England produces.

A life-saving apparatus, consisting of a charthouse which can be detached from the deck of a 6hip within 20 seconds and jmade watertight in a few minutes, has (been invented by a Belgian engineer. It .contains 15 sleeping berths and 10 Itresh -water tanks. I —————————^——______

Colmar, the most important of the places recently bombarded by the French aviators, had been, up to the time of the Franco-Prussian War, in possession of the French for two centuries. In his great campaign, first against Holland, and afterwards against the Triple Alliance, when he accomplished the then remarkable military feat of crossing the Rhine, Louis XIV. took the town, and although, when peace was made, he secured no territory from the Dutch, he retained Colmar, and apparently in revenge for its resistance, destroyed ite fortifications.