NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XL, Issue 12272, 16 May 1903, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Most of the telegraph operators in Swe*' don are women. In the British Isles £5,000,000 is spent yearly on funerals. Pearls, unlike any other precious gems, are liable to decay. On an average there are 120,000 Strang- . ers staying in Loudon. Two million cigars are smoked annually - m the United Kingdom. The Red Indians can sec one-tenth further than the white man. A recruiting sergeant says that few men have legs of equal length. _ Eight solicitors were struck off the rolls in one day in London lately. Last yeas 4050 tons of cigars and cigarettes were smoked in France. Year in and year out. the coldest hour" of each twenty-four is live o'clock in the morning. "Fire-drill" and practice in expeditious exists are being enforced in all State schools m Austria. At Cathays. Cardiff, a lady has found a) gam ring inside a tmbot she was preparing i for dinner. ; _ Over 8000 men. women, and children, it is said, gain their daily bread entirely by pocket-picking. Fresh milk is now imported into England from Rotterdam. Amsterdam, Cherbourg,. Havre, and Hon'fleur. It is said that enough gut fa percha is made into golf balls every year to insulate an Atlantic cable. The War Office has decided to enlarge Woolwich Arsenal. The extension is- expected to cost about £80,000. Of the 156 principal poor law unions of iingia.net, 119 arc urgently supporting further legislation to protect infant life. Pledges to attend divine service eery Sunday for twelve months are being torem by members of a church in Keighley. Birmingham, which had no crematorium nearer than Woking or Manchester, will shortly open one of its own at Perry Barr. Davyhulme (Lancashire) Wesleyans are about to rebuild, at a cost of £4000, a chapel opened by John Weslcv on Good Friday just 125 years ago.

Assisted by his wife, Mrs. Boyd-Carpeii-1 ter, who worked a limelight lantern, thai Bishop of Ripon addressed 3000 working- 1 men in Leeds Town Hall. !

To rehearse a theatrical production on Good Friday is considered unlucky, so all rehearsals of new plays Mere suspended inf. Loudon on last Good Friday.

Not more than a tenth of tho Scottish! coalfields have yet been worked to the point of exhaustion, states the president of the Mining Institute, of Scotland. * , During a conference as to smoking among boys the Provost of Girvau, Ayrshire, said he was one day hailed by a young urchin; with : " Hey, provost, gie'a a licht!"

Coal shipments from the Tvne during the first quarter of this year total 3,600,000 tons. This represents an increase of 271,000 tons over the corresponding period of last year.

Forty-one stowaways were found on the liner Sophocles after she left London for South Africa and Australia. Some were landed at Graveseud.and the rest at Plymouth. *

" Eighteen months is the natural life of a dress stut," said a witness at Clcrkenweil County Court lately. Judge Edge, however, said he should expect one to last much longer.

In Ystrad Police Court, South Wales. a woman said she was prepared to live happily with her husband if he would go lo chapel instead of Sunday clubs. The maii refused the condition.

A " pay-for-your-own-drink" league h ~ '" been formed in Devonshire, having for its object the abolition of the indiscriminate practice of "asking back" when men meeS together for refreshment.

Some physicians in France assert that ballooning is a cure for consumption. Tl.\ patient has to make ascents at .stated intervals, increasing or decreasing llw altitude in accordance with his condition.

Chicago puts forth a claim to be considered the true Babel oi the twentieth century. No fewer than forty language:! are spoken within its limits, and of fourteen each is spoken by more than 10,000.

To give the electric tramway-cars a fair chance to travel speedily,.Manchester Corporation has ordered all drivers of slowgoing vehicles to keep clear of the lines under a penalty or 40s and costs for nob doing so.

With an original five-stanza poem, writ- 1 ten on the fly-leaf by Thackeray, a book was sold for £131 at Sotheboy's lately. A' small pen-and-ink drawing by him was sold for £55, and two humorous water-colour drawings, for £51.

Relics of Blondin, the famous rope-walker* were sold lately at Debenhamfs. The' gold medal and chain given him when ha walked over Niagara in 1858 fetched £20 10s, and a diamond ring given him in Melbourne in 1875 £28 7s.

Sentences of three months' hard labow were passed on a Nunhead couple named Blackmail at Lambeth for neglecting their four children. The officer stated that ilia children could not be brought to Court fof they were absolutely naked.

At the launch of Shamrock 111. the East of Shaftesbury stated that not only waa this vessel the third challenger of the name, but it was also worthy of notice that ife was launched on the third day., of the third week, of the third month* of the third year of the century.

In order to advertise their wares a Washington business firm have just concluded mi extensiv. sale of money. They offered new Treasury bills of 4s 2d each at half-price. The firm tired of the sale sooner than their would-be purchasers.

The biggest pigeon-flying contest eve? known is announced to take place at Philadelphia on July 4, • when 2000 birds will start in a 500-mile race. The birds should cover the entire distance in about tea hours, as the record flight for a homing pigeon is 1603 yards a minute.

So successful ara the Ilford municipal electric tramways that the number of cars in use, deemed more than ample at the opening, is found to be insufficient, particularly on Saturdays and Sundays, and more have now been ordered. On one day the receipts were £134 and the total of passengers over thirty thousand.

An Anthony (Kansas) farmer has an aged horse which browses round the nests in which the fowls lay, and, breaking the eggs with its teeth, laps up the contents with evident relish. When the cackle of a hen denotes that an egg has been laid a race to the nest takes place between the horse and the farmer's wife.

In a printed reply to a Parliamentary question, the Chancellor of the Exchequer states thai Ireland's contribution towards Imperial expenditure in 1901-2 was 2.54 per cent, of the total amount contributed by the United Kingdom. In other words, lieland contributed about one thirty-eighth ol that of Great Britain.

Sentence of twelve mouths' hard labour has been passed on the ••x-policeman at Brentford, who obtained £50 from a widow on a promise to marry her. The girl to, whom he was engaged at the time declared that she would have no more to Cc with

him ; but as soon as he was sentenced she

begged the Bench to let her see him before he went to gaol.

A cat at the Bellcfontaine, Ohio, railway engineering works went to (deep one night in a huge fly-wheel. The machinery was started next morning before she could make her escape, and for three hours the wheel ran at the rate of sixty revolutions per minute. When the cat was taken out she was unhurt but rigid. In half an hour she recovered. It is thought that the revolu, tioas hypnotised her.