NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Times, Volume XII, Issue 1807, 4 May 1921, Page 7

NEWS IN BRIEF.

An elephant never cats flesh, its food being- entirely vegetable.

Ohio is the centre of the American automobile tyre industry.

Motor cars built in 1S9!) were officially called motor cycles—not automobiles.

About 20,000,000 feet of timber each year is used in the manufacture of clothes pegs. There are ten miles of highway for every mile of railway in the United States of America.

The value of the United Kingdom wheat crop of 3 920 may be estimated at about £31,000,000. Jamaica’s first yearly contribution of £60,000 towards the cost of the war will be paid this year. There are no less than 240.000 oil wells in operation in the United States for the production of petrol. London's County Hall, begun before the war, which was to cost £870,000, will now cost £4,344,000. In New York, the number of horses has decreased in the past three years from 108,000 to 76,000. Switzerland’s tax on war fortunes yielded 476,000,0001.. (about £2O, 000) up to the end of 1920.

In 20 countries, the membership of trades unions increased from 10,835,000 in 1910, to 32,680,000 in 1919. Despite the increased cost of telegrams, the telegraph service of the British Post Office lost £2,636,183 last year.

Owing to the Government’s recommendation, the programme for building 6 328 houses at Swansea is being curtailed to about 450.

Of 33,604 tons of meat received for sale at the London Central Markets during January, 122 tons were seized as unfit for human food.

The quills of a porcupine may easily become detached and stick in the flesh of an attacking animal, but they cannot be shot out.

February, 1920, has proved'in London the driest month since April, 1912, but its average temperature was lower than that of January.

The deaths from consumption in the United Kingdom in 1918 were over 58,000, and in 1919 over 77,000 fresh cases were notified. The duration of the life of a canary depends, of course, on treatment, but canaries and other small finches may live as long as 15 years. ■ i Sicily is practically a treeless couni try. In a journey of 150. miles across the island, one cannot observe a single tree that would cut a lOin. board.

A Canadian scientist estimates the loss of wheat* in one year through rust disease as a hundred million bushels, worth between 25 and 50 million pounds.

During Pebruai’y the coat of living in Sweden lose to 162 per cent, above the cost in July, 1914, and was 7 per cent, higher than in January this year. The German liner Bismarck,, just completed, which has been bought by the White Star line, is the largest ship in the world. It registers 56,000 tons.

For the first time since! 1911 a census is about to be taken in •’ranee. The census which should have been takes in 1916 had to be omitted owing to the war. According to a British Parliamentary paper, £632,187 of the £1,351,071 advanced by the British Government to Greece from 1843 to 1871 is still outstanding. At the end of 1920 the number of Masonic lodges on the register of the UnitSd Grand Lodge of England was 3612, as';compared with 3442 at the end of 1919.

A five hundredweight wheel at the Efficiency Exhibition in London was so beautifully balanced on ball bearings that a touch was sufficient to set it revolving for three hours. According to one French statistician at 50 years old the average man has slept 0000 days, worked 6500, walked 800, amused himself 4000, spent 1500 eating, and 500 ill. Vienna police statistics show a remarkable diminution in crime year, especially in murder and rob. berv. The number of robbery cases fell from 102 in 1919 to 38 in 1920. According to the census taken on February Ist, Denmark’s population is now 3,268,807, which is 347,537 more than in 1916. The total figure includes 184,133 from North Slesvig. Many Indians of North America are fitting motors to their canoes, and they now move rapidly up and down the rivers where for centuries the tribesmen have invariably had to paddle their canoes.

After a number of tests, it has been decided that six-wheeled omnibuses, which seat 48 instead of 38 passengers, may be run in Paris on certain wide thoroughfares where their groat length will not hinder traffic. In the early part of the nineteenth century, oil spouting from the earth was regarded as a nuisance and a calamity, while to-day 70,000,000 tons a year is regarded as all too small a supply for the world's needs.

In order to provide work for men thrown out of work by the closing of certain nitrate factories, the Chilean Parliament has authorised the Government to issue a £2,000,000 loan to start a number of public enterprises. When a perching bird alights on branch or twig its muscles automatically “lock.” The bird is thus kept in position while sleeping. It requires a conscious effort on the part of the bird to release itself from a resting po. sltfon.

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