NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 12663, 17 September 1904, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF.

The area of Greater Loudon is 4-13,419 acres. One in every 50 persons over 80 years of age is. blind. :;:.- First class railroad fore in India is less than a farthing a- mile. On th© summit of Mont Blanc a Marconi station is about to be erected. The blood of an v injected into the vein of a man acts as a deadly poison. c \ An artesian well at Grenelle, near Paris,; supplies 700,000 gallons of water each day. ' ;.■- Moody and Sahkey are the names of two men charged at Marylebone with assaulting a publican. ' Eighteen stained-glass panels from the original Star Chamber were sold recently for ten guineas. Consumption, is on the increase in Paris.. About 12,000 persons annually die there from this disease. The cinematograph is being used by Paris surgeons in teaching students how to perform various surgical operations. The biggest hedges in England are at Hall Barn, Buckinghamshire. They arc of yew and box, and are 30ft high. . To send one ton of potatoes, value £3, by rail from Spalding (Lincolnshire) to He!lingly (Sussex) costs £1 16s lid. Three hundred - and sixty whales ; have -'. been captured off the Shetland Islands this i year, as against 150 last season, j Glasgow Corporation tramways i yielded [last year a net profit balance of £80,737/ with a gross revenue of £724,851. A curious prize offered at tioriestoti slower Show by. a local barber was ..free shaving. and hair-cutting for twelve months. There are fewer blind people in the United States than in any other* country in the world, in proportion to the population. ; Excavations on. th© island of Ithaca have brought to light the remains of the palace ■■■ of Penelope, whose virtues Homer praised. The area of China, and her dependent territories is 4,468,750 square milesmore than one-twelfth of the land surface of the globe. .■ Dismantled 300 years ago, the ancient church at Keswick, Norfolk, has now, after restoration, been reopened for Divine service. ■. - : . The air breathed daily by a person weighs 341b, about six times as much as the food and drink consumed in the same amount <& time. ■ A Parisian boy (if eleven was cent to a reformatory, after having been convicted :on * twelve different occasions of burglaries and "thefts. More than half of the breweries in .the world are in Gem any. Altogether theis are about 51,000, of which 000 are in Germany. - : 'y ): vS&^M&&ik^'-

At a cost of-thirtymillion francs attattempt is to bo nude to pierce a tunnel through Moat Blanc, 'from ChavmouniK to Courmayenr. ." .'' : ~.y- " More than 17 per cent, of the waiters in Germany and 21 percent, of '.-lie waitresses receive no wages at a 11,,, being expected to subsist on fees. Before "looting Holy- Trinity Church, Tavlpr ton, near" Preston, thieve" drank a : large' ■ bottle of communion wise, -and afterwards i indulged' in a smoke. " ; A white Aylesbury duck of Foxley, Wilts, : i has laid daily from February 25 to July '13* " with one exception. The total number of . eggs laid," was, 138. : ■ ' \ ~\" ', \ Two hundred, and forty Indian camels have been bought by the Transvaal Govera : : meat at a coat of £40 each-for transport work in that- cc-ionj. The editor of the Hew York. AsMi'lcw ■ I receives from Mr. Ijloarafc a salary rivalling' \ that of the ■Preside tit of the United, States,. ■ namely £10,000 a .year. . '■ { y : :/ :^;";' ;•;;.'; : 'L Cats and sever;;] other animals ,■ have .'a ■_ false ; eyelid, which can be dtftwn/ever the- ] eyeball Neither l*> c'te&uee it- ofti© protect if .■ . from too strong a- light.. i, ', ', >>• ' ■ ; Tile Berlin Zoological Society is just new '•■ rejoicing in the posHession of as«a elephant; It is' a weird monster, with a Jang trunk- < like nose, and weigh® over 10,0001b,< .A!- Elkhart. Indiana, well-known society : ; women recently raised funds for a charity* : by shining boots at a street stand. One 0-1 thorn was the wife of a former Mayor. ' ', , I That the coral reefs m'& made up entirely * ■ of the skeletons of animals and algas is : proved by borings to- a depth of mm® than . 1000 ft in the Pacific island of Funafuti. . -| A : CViisV/rnian woman physician, I)r-- ; . i Fiances Williams, has formed .a wmpany with £1,000,000 capital to develop a newlyfound coal deposit in the Coftldale district. "You ate all assassins, vampires, hypo-' . elites',' liars, and brigands." said a man at Rennes to the judge ami jury who had sentenced him to penal servitude'for twenty years. _ Near the "German town of Cased a sportsman, named Koniji', shot dead a child of six ' in the twilight. lift had mistaken the child, ■ who was leaping about among the imm f ' for % deer, :• -'. ■' - ,/„ .~, '. . ' . ■ In the Natal High Court two Boers, father and son, have just made good their claim to & sum of £723, hidden by them before the ■ war, and handed over to the Government by-natives. . j In the Paris Law Courts » lady having; lost her case 'began' to violently abuse &©»* counsel. Finally losing all control of her- • self" she knocked: off his cap, smacked ilia face and tore his: robe. For painting the portrait oi the Dowager- i Empress of China, which is now being exhibited at the Rt Louis Exhibition, "Tvlise ' Kate Carl has just received the sum oj 10,000 fcaels {equal to £1373). '. At Derby, Connecticut, the other' Jay,' a workman crawled SOOffc down a 24in water main to inspect the joints. The blacknepa and silence drove him out of hin sens?% and he was hauled out a raving maniap. ."'The neatest town in the world is Bwk," ■ in Holland. So tidy are the inhabitanta that they won't allow horses in the streets. It - contains a populatici a of 2700. and the chief industry is the making of Edam cheese. ; A pauper and a county patient died at, the same time in a public institution h>', Perth. The latter was buried in mistake in a Perth grave mtend«d for 'the t>*i}por; The body had to he disincerftsd f as the relatives wished to inter it in the family grave; ' ' In Belgium there are i more | l ihß,n , $0,000 , ; l dogs used for draft purposes. •' They , are I mostly employed by milkmen, , pedlars, and- | small .farmers, and a 'feO'Saty^ioi 4 the im- a; provement of the breed ha just been formed.' I For several mornings a. cow ! at' Ncuchatel gave no milk. Suspecting theft, ■ the owner quietly placed a bull in the covfV place, mi ■ \ the uext night had the satisfaction- of seeing two Italian railway ■ labourers''put' to ignominious flight. • A lake has been discovered on 'Kildin : Island, Lapland, which contains, fresh water ■ on the top and salt water on the bottom The lake rises and'falls with the tide, and is' evidently connected with the tea rv an an ' derground channel. , " Policemen in Chicago who chow signs of growing too,fat will in future have to submit to a " training down" process. They must don boxing-gloves each day, and stand up for an hour against a well-known San ; Francisco light-weight pugilist. • , "■ j Edgar Cook, a SeV-enoaka fairm labourer, had a weakness for chunks of raw bacon. ' - : When he tried to swallow « piece three inches long and two inches wide it stuck in 'hie throat. "He choked" was the coactueion reached by a coroner's jury. Roumania would appear to be the most illiterate country in Europe. The/last "census shows that* in a population of nearly 6,000,000 neartv 4,000,000 «a neither read ; not write, ami that only a Lti.t oyer. 1,000,000 have »ay education at all. / , *.., In a holiday note on the Zoological Gar- , , dens, the Times xemarka:---: W»et note- ~ worthy additions are two Japanest : .bears. , ■ These" animals are Mack, «d much,-smaller; i -than the Russian bears, from vw", tltev have to be kept. separate to -prevent- them ;,; t from fighting."