NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 1929, 21 January 1919, Page 4

NEWS IN BRIEF.

A huge porpoise has been washed up at Maryport. The sea pig is eleven feet long, with an estimated girth of seven feet, the measurement of a good Shorthorn bull. At Petrograd recently an English sovereign was sold by auction in aid of the funeral expenses of the Cossacks who were killed in suppress i ing the mutiny. It realised £OOO. The tohib of Charles XII. is to be opened in order to ascertain whether the bullet which killed him at the siege of Fredrikshald, in Norway, came from the front or the rear. At Lambeth ’Walk, the Thames is 1,001 ft. in width; near Whitehall Gardens 1,200 ft., opposite Buck-

ingham Terrace 1,480 ft., and opposite Somerset House and the Temple Gardens above 1,200 ft. Snowdon, in North Wales, is the highest mountain south of the Tweed, and Scaw Fell Pikes, in Cumberland, the summit of which is 3,1(50 ft. above the sea-level, the greatest elevation in England. Traces of the bicycle are found as far back as (he Jifteenth century. In fact, Egyptian figures found on obelisks mounted on twowheeled vehicles show they hud some idea of the velocipede. Mr George Ford, who rang the bells at Chapel-en-le-Frith when peace was proclaimed after the Crimean War, is still, at the age of cighty-six, a regular attendant at (he belfry, and rang (he peace bells on November 11th. While ploughing at Meopham, Kent, a labourer was surprised by one of his horses disappearing into the earth. It was discovered that a subterranean passage, 10ft. in height, and believed by experts to be the course of an old stream through the chalk, had collapsed. Miss M. Bennett Burleigh, the daughter of the famous war correspondent, was in Louvain both before and after it was burnt by the Germans; she penetrated into a German military hospital, and spoke to the wounded English inmates; and she was in Antwerp during the she was in Antwerp during the bombardment. A pretty full record for a girl hardly out of her teens. Until quite recently there were hopes that it would be possible to refloat the Lusitania, which for two years has rested under 300 ft. of water, about twenty miles from the Old Head of Kinsale. Salvage experts have now come to the conclusion that, even if successful, the effort would not be worth the cost, and the proposal has been abandoned. Exposed for such a long lime to the Atlantic swell, it is probable that the vessel's back is broken; but, so far, no diver has gone down to investigate, nor is such a survey thought likely. It is possible, however, that an attempt may yet he made to recover the specia which is known to be locked in the purser's cabin on the upper deck.