NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11692, 29 June 1901, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF.

'' - : Etrnor&has 32,000; births and 24,000, deatha ■ dady;.:sS:i|S':-;:; ; England has 42,800 ' police; Scotland, 5000; Ireland, 12,400. * < ' ; Canada:; had < only 1700 schools in 1850. • She has now over 18,000. 1100 miles- of British tramways; give &'>; clear profit of £1,000,000 a year. , 3 London has about.7oo periodicals 5 Scotland : : : and Ireland 500 between them. , - 952,5(15: men- are at - present available 'fdr'A.,? the defence of the British Empire. " ' ; Out of 555 Japanese students recently, questioned 472 declared they: wero Atheists; Norwegians eat more potatoes than Irish f \ people;,,' the average being 5001b each" a--year. : •':■ i.■ "--V-Ki There are 4£-.'- million:'farms in the United States,• most, of/'them between 50 . and 500 ;'/ acres. r :4,700.000 tons, of Spanish iron ore are ini-« ported? into; Great •)Britain; in the course ■of a year. - _ ..Prague holds.' the record nr glove-making,' J exporting,.five.: million pairs a year, Worth £400,000. - ' ' Every man,:: woman,: and child in England spends, on an average, £.1 a year : on. ■ furniture, ; - An oak. tree at 100 years averao/ 41in ' in diameter, a larch 40in, an elm to.anda yew Dm. ' . V - ' 50,000 letters passed through the": English Post; Office daily in 1801. The 'number 1 : is ! - : now 8,300,000. fj Belgium.-.rgrow's:-; 12-,: million; ; quarters of wheat a. year-— million more 1 ' thatv the Sf; United Kingdom. * \ In-" 1849 British sailing-ships employed>'x.j 144,165 men. Last year the number had?>■ fallen to 57,000.:- .\ ; V;-''■ -'■ Russia mow 'exports 70,000 tons ,of sugar ;i!v a year. A ..century ago she imported : all that she used herself. ; * y W : The price of Government laud in.-Ceylon' ; - ! averages '30a an acre, in , Jamacia 15s -an' -: :" acre, in' Trinidad 255. In 1810 France'had 203,000 more births yearly than . deaths..: This number has now ; ; fallen to aboi£ 80,000. i; V": . There are .80 cities: in India with over' 50,000 inhabitants,, a; record beaten by rib ... country of the same area. ' v No; British; ship may carry a deck load of timber into a ; British port between the:Vi last day'of October and April 16. . ; In the Crimean War there were 144,400 : admissions into hospital, 46,000 moro than =:> the. total strength, of our forces.. Of people • with •an • average fortune - of- : '' £25,000 or over, there arc 160,000 in Eng- ■' land, about- 700 of whom are millionaires, Building the new street from: the Strav.d to Holboni will cost. 4£ millions, of which only £500,000 will come, from the rates. The Earl of. Seafield holds Great Britain's record, as': a tree-planter .'with 60 million: / trees planted on 40,000 acres in Inverness- • shire.: 'r J ~ • ■ 9 • ' The biggest ,pumps- ever used were made / to, pump . out .Lake Haarlem, in Holland. They pumped 400,000 tons daily for' eleven years.' . ; All Bonaparte's wars cost Franco only 51 millions. . ■ The Crimean war cost her 93 : millions, the Franco-German 316, millions. , _ r '• •/The 12. railway, companies of .England-' and. Wales" employ between; them 312,000' men. .The Scotch ; : and Irish" companies 40,000 men |- between them. : In ,a- single .year .the French police" expel •: : j ■ over '4000 foreigners, fromFranc^TO&thessX- : about. 1500 •' are. Spaniards, 1000 Belgians; '. I ana 500 Germans. ' ■ / An ordinary lead for casting at sea weighs f 71b - to 141b, and has at the bottom of it; j a hole, filled with tallow to bring up samples of the sea-bottom. . * "• { The Ceylon pearl fishery lasts only: tliree , weeks. During that time the average catch is over. 11 million oysters, ; There are piilyv(; 50 divers, employed. " //, ' In the 16th .'cGntrry 70 B.A. graduates i; - were ■ yearly -"admit : : at' , Cambridge. This ; j number rose to - 235 a, year in 1690, arid, is' now about 330 a yea;'; ' One hundred and forty of 1000 British children • die before' a year old, 163 French; 5: and 209 Italian. Wurtemberg holds the I record with 308 such deaths. ■. • One hundred million sacks are made' out'-:: of India's yearly: jute crop. California takes.. 20 millions, of-;. these, and China 15 millions. The crop weighs 190,000 '4; ' . The toll for .passing the Suez . Canal is 7s 2d a ton, with 8s a . head .for passengers, so that a 4000-ton steamship with 200 passengers would -pay over £1500. Aiistralian immigrants lay by, on an average, £15 12s a year a head, against. £6 17a : 6d : accumulated in. the same time by ne\y. residents in : the United States. ; " The-population of. the Channel Islands lias altered less than that of any other part 'of] the United Kingdom in the past 50 years.:; It was 90,739 in 1851,: 9,7,234 in 1891. . 42,6000z of gold - plate, and' 790,000z 'of ; silver plate, : are annually/stamped ;in the ~ United Kingdom. France makes 410,00002 j of gold and 2,500,0000z of• silver a year:* ; The average price paid for : the German • soldiers .used :by England' in . 1780 ; in/the - United States was £175. : Men from -..Hnsse'--.' cost £153 only ; those from Anspach, ;'£27si-, 'The-wages: of British colliery have. aver--aged about ,4s a day for 25 years past-,, but ■ the product per man has risen from ; 230 to '320. tons a year per man in the same ) time. • -• j './ In the British . home trade .7000 sailing-;," vessels and 2800 steamers are engaged ;Abut»•: in the foreign the proportion is reversed—A there are ; only' 1700 sailing-ships to nearly 4000 steamers. ' -v'vi The result of the strikes of 1897 was that 1673 men were thrown entirely out' of work ' by the filial closing: of the 7 works they were engaged in 1 , 15,207 returned to work on thei? ' employers'] terms', and 9756 arranged matters : : by arbitration. . ;: In 1867' the United Kingdom produced V 10,233 tons of fine copper. This fell to 425, tons in 1893.: ': It is • now about 700 tons; ; a year.... jln the same. period the ; productionf.of tin has •fallen from 8700 to 4600, and lead .from 69,000 to ; 25,000. . .-■>•'; The chief imports into the United King- . dom stand thus in order of value: First;; - raw cotton, 27i- millions; wool, 26 millions ; .:. timber, 25 millions. wheat, millions; sugar, 19 millions; butter, 17 millions; : silk; ... 15 millions!; and Indian corn 15 millions, / lioues. ■ ] -•'*••• ■■■■'■ /; Half a ;!century ago but one .woman .; worked to every ten men. At present the : ratio is one to four. Thirty years ; ago/; two-thirds of all the self-supporting women, ; were domestic servants. To-day only . one- . third are so employed. . . •The enormous , increase of the population '.; in Outer London was shown at ! the laying of the first [stone by the Archdeacon of Mid- -;; dlesex of af new church in the parish of St. , Andrew, Willesdeii, where it was stated;that g; in 1880, when"; the .present; vicar was appointed, the population was. 500, ' whereas • now it is 18,000, chiefly artisans. ' r . ' The report of the director of the National Gallery for 1900 has now been is.sued. - Five"" pist-urea have been purcha-sed during the .. : .., year—three j we note, by Italian aiu. JJiitca : v artists, none by French—whilst the principal -; bequest, a,'very handsome one, has heen tiiai -| of Mr' Herirv Yaughan. ~ Twenty pictures..:.. bequeathed jin 1892 to the Gallery by Lad Hamilton have had to be given up to sir _ ladies who put in a claim to them. Among the interesting relics.. of the war. '; iusfc deposited in the Royal United Service « Museum, Whitehall, is one of the Queens , chocolate boxes, in which a Boer bullet is > - embedded. This box was in the breast-eoat > : - uocket' of a,colonial :trooper^: who ; owes his . life probably to : fact. The two- largo • flags of - fine! 'linen which were hauled dow. from Pretoria and Bloemfontein are also here, as is the s\vord worn by General bIC A W. Pcnn Symoi.s, su:'t by. hiswiW ::v.i^