NEWS IN BRIEF.

Clutha Leader, Volume XLVII, Issue 51, 24 December 1920, Page 1

NEWS IN BRIEF.

The flying conditions on the aerial routes to the Continent are corrected every hour. A ilowering jWant abstracts from the soil 2W times its own weight in water (Inriii» its life. With an ((proximate area of :\2,QW square miles, Austria is now a'bont the Siwie size as Ireland. An Att was passed in England in 1'695 taxing tahelors in order to raise money for the French wars.

A costume composed of dyed sacks, and priced at Is (id, was recently worn at a meeting of the 'Economy League in South Africa.

The actual process of making baskets has altered very little since the earliest times, only very simple tools being used.

The indiscriminate giving of alms is regarded as a virtue in LYfahommedan countries, with a result that mendicants about there.

IStaitliug figures in regard- to the infantile mortality of France- have just been published. Of every thousand children under the ajje of one year, 251 die at Rouen, 2A4 at Lille, :542 at Dunkirk, 4.14 at 'iiars-en-Bazoouf, 507 at llalluin, 50!) at St. Pol. In Paris half the children die 'before they are aware of their existence.

Electrocution of miercbes is the latest dental method. It is designed to obviate the necessity for extraction in cases of pyrrhuen, and the method is "painless" as far as the human patient is concerned. The new method is the invention of Mr William Howell, a medical electrician. His apparatus consists mainly of an insulated sofa, a •glass tube connected with electrical apparatus, and a violet ray. This ray, which is only occasionally seen and never heard, does the trick. The patient sits on the insulated sofa, and the glass tube is placed in contact with his gains. An electrical machine then (begins to produce the violet rays, which pass through the gums via the glass tn'be. Nothing is felt by the patient, the only distinctive signs of an active offensive being an occasional glow in the glass tube or a sudden Hash of the violet ray at rarer intervals. This effectively settles the microbes and, what, is equally important, saves the teeth.