NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 3548, 9 October 1926, Page 4

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Within a period of 01 years Mexico has had 59 revolutions.

A Oominiquc hen is reported to have laid 227 eggs in a year.

An ancient hostelry near Shaftsbury is named “The 1 Listen Inn.” Tennis on roller skates is the latest hobby of the younger folk of California.

Wild canaries are stated to lijive louder and clearer notes than the tame varieties.

It is estimated that £20,000,000 worth of building work is now going on around the Bank of England. The average age to which an ant lives is 10 years, although in some cases this is extended to 15 years.

Oysters weighing lib. lOoz. each and 13in. in diameter appeared on the market recently in America. Three thousand wolves have been destroyed in Ontario as the result of a campaign during the winter and spring.

In Chinese ’the letter “i” has one hundred and, forty-five ways of being pronounced, and each pronunciation has a different meaning.

Three young fox cubs, with theii mother, have been discovered in a holly tree by a Cumberland farmer who was out pigeon-shooting. “Blue blood” is an expression of Spanish origin. It was used in speaking of the Spaniards who had never intermarried with Moors. It is claimed that an ultra-violet lamp, costing £l4, will give for 3d per hour, sunlight equal to that of the hottest day in summer. Rocket stations round the British coasts saved 153 lives last year Forty-nine of these stations are worked by volunteer helpers.

An electric sealer, ' containing stamp and heater for the wax, is said to save time and prevent injuries to the fingers while sealing letters.

Infants grow at the rate of 5 per cent, a month, and increase their weight about 20 per cent, a month during the first six months of their lives.

The world’s highest aerial tramway,' from 15,000 ft. to 17,000 above sea level, more than five mies in length, is used at a Bolivian tin mine.

The average ago of a man in recent years has been increased 20 years. One by one the diseases fatal to previous generations have been subdued.

An American cabinetmaker - recently completed a table 30 inches high, containing 09,200 pieces of 400 different kinds of wood. The largest piece was il inch square. A mail is now being compiled in United States that will show every road and house. This map will cost nearly £10,000,000 and will take up 0,000 sheets. Of 84 soldiers who lately completed training at the Hounslow and Catteriesk vocational centres, 05 obtained immediate employment in civil life.

A new keyless lock, which is said to fasten more securely than one with a key, has 1024 confirmations, of which the owner may take his choice.

A peacock is unable to distinguish one colour from another. It is said that birds that fly by day see everything a bright reddish orange. Night birds, however, see blue and violet. Recent researches with fowls have shown that the quantity of grit carried ordinarily in the gizzard of a chicken is sufficient for a year’s use, supposing the chicken could get no more.

Only one person out of two bought a toothbrush in Britain last year. As a brush lasts about six months this indicates that care of the teeth is confined to one-quarter of the population. While a tennis tournament was being played' at Northlield, Worcestershire, a tennis ball hit a sparrow which'was flying low over the court, and killed it. Foghorns that begin to blow whenever a/ thick mist gathers have been invented in France. The device is set in motion by the action of the damp air on calcium carbide. A painting on wood found lately at Bologna is believed to be by Michael Angelo, and' has been valued at over £125,000. It is a scene in the life of St. Anthony. The first notice of the use of coal is in the records of the Abbey of Peterborough, England, in the year 850_, which mentions an item of 12 cartloads of “fossil fuel.”

Finger-prints recorded at Scotland Yard lead to the discovery of 15,000 people a year on an average. There arc more than 400,000 different finger-prints in the oificial collection.

For over twelve years, Mrs Petty, of Harleston, Norfolk, has never been beyond the sound of the telephone bell, night or day. The local exchange is installed in her house.

Miss Lillian Cannon, of Baltimore who intends to make an attempt to swim the Channel, will take two dogs with her, which she claims to be the finest canine swimmers in the world.

Although mortality from all causes has decreased in England and Wales by 11 pei* cent, since 1904, the deaths due to motor vehicles have increased 1,000 per cent in the same period. New telephones are being installed in (Treat Britain to the number of 2,500 a week, over 12,000 new instruments being put into operation in London during the first 13 weeks of this year.

To save her pups from being destroyed by the owner, as on two previous occasions, a retriever made a, burrow in a hill at Durham and guarded the entrance. When the last mail left, the pups were 22 days old, and had not so far emerged.

An 88-storey skyscraper may be built in New York soon. This would rise 33 storeys above the Woolworth building and would be 1,250 feet high. The rhythmical movement of the British Foot Guards on the march is likely in the near future to lose some of its music. The regulated and sharply resonant tramp of many feet in unison on a hard country road is to be partially silenced by the general use of rubber covered heels.

A telephone said to deepest in the world, has jus't been installed at the bottom of a mine shaft at Calumet, Michigan, United States. This shaft is 5,300 ft. deep, and the cable connecting the telephone at its bottom to the surface weighs almost four tons. An aged, injured quarryman, of Ails a Craig, the lonely island lying twelve miles off Ayrshire mainland, owes the fact that he has been receiving skilled medical aid in a Glasgow hospital to a carrier pigeon which was sent to Girvan with a note appealing for a doctor.