NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13438, 16 March 1907, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Mohammedans salute with the left hand.. A swau ha* been known to exist 300 years. Four sovereigns are m circulation to on* half-sovereign. London's imports by sea arc over 174 million tons yearly. Eight thousand people arc employed is Woolwich Arsenal. The first locomotive was built by Richard Trevithic in 1804. Coloured people suffer more from blindness than white races. A ton of oil hast been obtained from th» tongue of a single whale. Twenty-seven thousand vessel* yearly enter the port of London. , The blasting of reefs in New York Harbour cost in all £1,070,000. In London there are three habitual criminals to every two policemen. A London omnibus carries, on an average, 2500 passengers a week. Mild steel has 0.15 to 0.4 per cent, of carbon in it hard. 1.2 to 1.6 per cent. In the sea there is four shillings' worth of gold in every twenty-five tons of water. The Belgians are the greatest potatoeaters in the world, and the Irish com* second. One thousand and fifty soldiers are employed by the London and South-Western Railway. The combiued annual income of the British working classes exceeds £600,000.000 Melbourne and Wellington are the great- | est distance by poet from London of any of the colonial cities. The railways of England and Wales own, on an average, twelve acres of land for every mile of railway. German engine-drivers receive a gold medal and £100 for every ten years of service without accident. The oldest tortoise in the London Zoo has seen 550 summers. He has to be fed by hand with cabbages. Horses, -. giraffes, and ostriches have, in proportion to their size, larger eyes than any other living creature. George Borrow, writing to the Morning Herald in 1839, from Spain, was practically the first war correspondent. Furniture and works of art in the United Kingdom are valued at between £580,000,000 and £620,000,000. The King has a collection of 170 curious walking-sticks. One is made from one of the piles of old London Bridge. There are at present no fewer than 39,800 foreign seamen in our mercantile marine, to say nothing of 42,700 lascars. A kangaroo has been recorded to jump a height of lift; while the longest jump known to be performed by a deer is 94ft. The ancient Egyptians used a form of blast furnace in 2000 B.C. We have pictures of these ironworkers on the tombs at Thebes. Twenty-five thousand spectators started snowballing one another at a football match between Manchester United and Aston Villa. A flea can jump over a barrier 500 times its own height. At that, rale, a man could jump over a wall more than half a mile high. . / Ripon is said to have tho finest carved stalls of any cathedral in England. Lincoln Cathedral haw no fewer titan 62 stalls, all elaborately carved. • • Lava retains its heat longer than any other known substance,. It has been recorded to remain at boiling point a foot below its surface for 53 years. . Siberia., commonly imagined to be a region of desolation, is in reality a productive country, with largo rivers, extensive forests, and ample mineral wealth. An English adder lias lately been found in a back garden in Engndine-strcet, Southfields, Wandsworth. It is about 3in in circumference and 2ft 10£ in long. . Paper can easily be made fireproof. It only requires saturating in a strong solution of alum-water. When thoroughly dry it will resist the action of flame. ; ,•,..; ; The Sikh of India prefers to die on the bare ground. Regardless of rank 'or age, no rug intervenes between his body and th« • earth when he breathes his last. Cyclists in Roumania, to facilitate identification, are compelled by law to have their names on the lamp-glasses of their machines, so as to be legible at nightWhile fishing at Dover, an angler captured a fine 'solan goose, which swooped down and swallowed a fish he was landing. The goose was thus hooked in the throat. A boat can travel from the Regent's Canal, in London, to Kendal, in Westmorland. This town is 261 miles distant from London by rail, while by canal it is over; 300 miles. , , ■-.. ' The Koh-i-noor is not nearly so valuable a diamond as several others in existence. It is valued at £140,000, but the Pitt is valued at £400,000, and the Russian Orlof at £200,000. ,Y The schipperke is one of the few tailless dogs. The nar-ie means " Little Skipper," . and is derived from the fact that this dog was formerly a common companion of the Flemish bargee. / . , A voting stick of bamboo stretching its head'above the ground looks much like a stalk of asparagus. In Japan these young shoot* are as much sought for food as asparagus is elsewhere- ; . Seeing a fox carry off a fine rooster from his poultry farm, on the outskirts of Nottingham, Mr. Husbands picked up his gun and shot Reynard dead. The fox was 4ft long, and weighed 191b. It is stated that a Glasgow firm has obtained the contract for the widening of Blackfriars Bridge, at a figure which rune to just over £200,000. The work is expected to occupy three years. Mr. John D. Rockefeller has been reelected superintendent of the Sunday-school of the Euclid Avenue Baptist Church at Cleveland, Ohio. Mr. Rockefeller has occupied this position for 25 years. In Java women and young girls do all the work of porters carrying heavy loads on their heads with great skill. As soon as a Javanese girl can walk she is taught the art of carrying things in that way. Drink is written over your face," said the magistrate at the Brentford Police Court to a prisoner. "When you come here next time come with a new face, which you can get by leaving off the drink." . The effect on the skin of extreme cold and extreme heat are the same, so that if a person touch a piece of cold iron which lias been subjected to intense frost the sensation is the same as if the piece of iron were nearly red-hot. The value of petrol consumed in the United Kingdom has increased in two yean from £296,590 to £690.098, says the Motoi Cvcle. The number of gallons consumed in 1904 was 11,972,459, in 1905 18,658,391, and last year 26,792,687. The total coal consumption of the world is said to amount to upwards of 1,000,000 cwt per hour. Of this quantity about 240,000ewt are required per hour in order to heat the boilers for stationary and marine engines and locomotives. A Devonshire landlord has exposed those tenants who were backward in paying their I rent by whitewashing the fronts of the j houses of those who paid their rent, while the others remained unwashed. Toil j treatment soon had the desired effect. j Allowing a space of. 2ft or 2ft 3in for I every person, the Isle, of Wight would, I afford standing room for all the inhabitants ' of the world without wetting i their ; feet, said Mr. F. ; Morey, F.L.S., hi the course' 1 of ft lecture at Newport, • Isle of Wight.