NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 11430, 21 July 1900, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF.

o— — -bviously, S Over 600,0001b of tea is consumed iaW\ e " I land daily. » ; 'flip is only one sudden death amon& 0> women to eight among men. M One hundred thousand tons of apples are \ . raised on British soil yearly. \i Japan has passed a Bill to prohibit boys |j under twenty years of age smoking. -g It is estimated that Parisians spend jf £24,000 sterling every year upon confetti. | Married couples in Norway are privileged a to travel on railways at a fare and a-half. \ 617,000,000 telephone messages passed over the wires in the United Kingdom last year. \ London will be the scene of the fourth International Zionist Congress on August 13. Dr. Thomas Myles has been appointed President of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. Lord Carnarvon has been fined 40s and costs at Stratford for furiously driving a motor-car.

There are 4200 species of plants used for commercial purposes. Of these 420 are used for perfumes. A drunken passenger, who assaulted a 'bus conductor, was sent to prison at Westminster for three weeks. A white-haired old man of 74 was sent to prison for two months at Epsom for" welshing" at the races. There are 90,000 trees in the City of Paris, including 15.000 willows, 17,000 chestnuts, and 26,000 plane trees. Instructions have been given to enlist photographers for service with the Royal Engineers in South Africa. Two policemen have been injured, and about a dozen other persons treated in hospital after a riot in Belfast. The London County Council have suggested " Mafeking Avenue" as the new title for West Hampstead Avenue. About 1500 hands are idle through a strike of rivet heaters in Messrs. Harland and Wolff's shipbuilding yard, Belfast. The orchard at Teddington of the late Mr. R, 1). Blackmore, author of " Lorna Boone,'' has been sold for building purposes.

'Flic P. and 0. Company have sent through Sir Thomas Sutherland, the chairman, a donation of £5000 to the Indian famine fund. So useful are toads in gardens that they arc sold in France by the dozen for stocking gardens, to free them from many injurious insects.

The excavation on the site of the former Dominican monastery in Doctors' Commons has yielded a large collection of nearly perfect 'skulls. The Prince of Wales was amongst the. prize-winners at the- Bath and West of' England Cattle Show with some of his famous Sandringham Shorthorns. "Wilful murder" was the verdict returned by a coroner's jury at Liverpool against Mary Doyle, who poured boiling water over her child, saying Cod told her to do it. In Holland it is the custom for the women to wash the china and silver used at breakfast, and tea immediately after the meal in the presence of the family and guests. For allowing a horse to be worked in an unfit state, Arthur Castcllano, contractor, was, at West Ham, sentenced to a month's imprisonment without the option of a fine. Clinker from the refuse destructors at Bradford, which in 1894 cost nearly £1000 for carting and dumping, is now turned to profitable purpose in mortar and concrete making.

Three-tenths of the earnings of a Belgian convict are given to him on the expiration of bis term of imprisonment. Some of them thus save more money in gaol than they ever saved before.

An old man named William Simcock, who lias just died at Wilton, Cheshire, as tho result of an accident, recently climbed tho church tower and hoisted, the Union Jack, though 95 years old, A Queen's chocolate box, with the contents intact, was raffled for at Northampton, and fetched £12 Os 6d,» which was handed over to Private A. Cleave, 2nd Northampton, who was wounded at Belmont. All ironworks in South Staffordshire and Worcestershire have notified a 5 per cent, advance in wages, consequent upon the prices realised, and making more than 26 per cent, advance during the last 16 months. In Java a small State exists which is entirely controlled by women, with the single exception of the sovereign who is a, man. Ho is, however, entirely dependent on the three women who form his State Council. The Halifax Corporation Tramways Com-/ mittee report that the total income from the electric tramways for the year ended March 31, 1900, has 'been £30.477, and the expenditure £27,360, the profit being £3117. An example of patient industry is the sorting of hogs' bristles as it is carried on at Tientsin, China. Each one of the bristles has to be picked out, measured, and placed ill the bundle of hairs of corresponding length. Aluminium has just been employed for tho construction of a new fireproof curtain to be used in theatres. The curtain is 60 feet wide by 54 feet high, is composed of aluminium sheets one-twelfth of an inch thick, aud weighs 400011). London University offers £100 as the Rogers prize for an essay by any member of the medical profession in Great Britain and Ireland upon the production of immunity in specific infective diseases. The essay must be sent in before June 1, 1901. For cruelty to a cat in biting off part of its tail, Matthew 'Scott, a carpenter employed at Messrs. Ropner and Sons' shipyard, at Stockton, has been sentenced to one month's imprisonment, with an additional fortnight in default of payment of the costs.

An Austrian has patented an electric apparatus for preventing a collision between trains, having an automatic brake-operating device on each engine, with wires beside tho track, having contacts arranged at intervals to close a portion of the circuit, and stop a train following too closely. The Prince of Wales has ordered a motor car for his own use. The car is to be of the phaeton type, fitted with a six-horso power Diamler motor, and will carry four persons. The Prince is to be personally instructed in its management, and the car is to be delivered at Sandringham in six weeks.

The Rev. St, George de Savignon, Vicar of St. Philip's, Leeds, intends to have prattical instruction in rifle-shooting Riven to children attending the St. Philip's Church Schools. Girls, as well as boys, are included in this " general order," the only condition being the possession of strength enough to hold a miniature rille.

The War Office have decided to convert Salisbury Plato into an important artillery as well as infantry centre, and a comprehensive scheme for the erection of huts at Bulford has been definitely approved. It is stated that the contract price for this work is £150,000. and accommodation is to be afforded for 19,000 men, besides stabling for horses. Fair-Haired people usually possess between 140,000 and 160,000 hairs on the scalp, the number being about the same for man and woman. Dark-eyed people have, on an average, about 105.000; while red-haired people are said to have only 30,000 hairs. But the latter apparently possess one great advantage in the fact that they retain their hair better, seldom becoming bald. Mr. Mills, headmaster of Sayer-street Board School, Walworth, has set up a small Bisloy in the large hall of his school. The range was no very expensive affair, and was arranged by the master himself, .without any aid from the, War Office or even the ... School Board. Other games during/the,-, school intervals have been abandoned for the :; A shooting. Mr. ML* says the rifle range has (lone wonders, in making school popular -