NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 13948, 2 January 1909, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF.

In* many parts of Africa gin is the only ;Jg" currency. ...... ' •|s' Negroes possess £70,000,000 worth of ,'W property in America. "M London's paupers cost £10 a head a ■ ':-§'• year; those of Paris £1 12s only. 1 In the British Isles alone there are nearly 1 80,000 motor-cars and motor bicycles. " h The number of British horses bred is J falling off at the rate of nearly 4000 a year. JL The Queen won a first prize for bantams f; at the King's Lynn Fur and Feather So- Jciety's show. ■§': An Antarctic iceberg has Been seen that j was 20 miles wide, 40" miles in length, and I 400 ft in height. T A billiard table, originally belonging to 'i the Emperor Napoleon, has been sold in |. Edinburgh for £20. |' The first expedition in search of the . I North Pole was made by Corte Real, a f or- | tuguese, in the year 1500. ":| A scholar in the Woodlands County ,| school, Birkenhead, has completed nine i years' unbroken attendance. ■' 1 According to telegrams 500 houses in | Riposto, Sicily, were wrecked by a recent f cyclone, and several fatalities are reported. ,1 The value of shipping passing through i the Suez Canal in the course of the year , M is £11,000,000, and the great bulk of this ■: <| is British. ■-«» If the appetite of a man w«6 as great .1 in proportion to his size as that of the ;f sparrow, he would eat a whole sheep i'or I his dinner. v |§ On the body of a man who committed Vas suicide in the canal at New Gravel Lane, ; <|| Stepney, a hospital card was found marked ;| "delusions." '..'...■■• :; -w:;fl A man told the Bow County Court judge oft that he could not afford to continue con- Jfl sulting his doctor, as the latter charged . ;i :|| sixpence a visit. ll , :;g| At lipping a lad named Rogers was or- 'M dered to pay £1 damages for setting tiro to . .\| a baby in a perambulator by throwing a. 'iS lighted firework. • 'ffl Count Tolstoi, states the Novoe Vremya, told a friend that he feels his end is near '.':' M and the work on which he is engaged will ' ■'■ 'ijm never be completed. •.-:'..•sjff A 19-year-old girl living in Chicago saw || the murder of her brother in a dream, and || was able to indicate to the police where his ;rS body had been hidden. .\ '• : .\^St A Gaplmm girl,- Isabel May Donald, was ; V;iß at Lewes Assizes, sentenced to three years' ,'jam penal servitude for throwing vitriol at tier i lover, who was badly disfigured. W A pigeon used by a Manchester firm of ~J| mill owners, to carry messages from, one , J mill to another has saved the firm £229 / in telegrams during the past 10 years. '|* A cat which was brought from new- || castle to Tooting a. month ago disappeared ! || two days later. It has now been, found at ."j! its old home. The distance is 280 miles. g|| Many Japanese towns are so infested ";,*| with rats that cargoes of cats are being ';,m shipped from Europe. Recently 5000 cats ; -| were embarked at Hamburg for Yokohama. Perfume manufacturers of Italy every Iq 1 year consume 1860 tons of orange blos- , .jy som, 930 tons of roses, 150 tons each of > i ? jasmine and violets, and 15 tons of jon« t j It was stated at the ; . Lambeth County Court recently that- a workman who" had \\ received £150 compensation for injuries ; Had , [ j immediately, spent £65 on armnire?' and A great fire recently broke put in the .'Coil A mills of the British firm of William Milleii ■„ m and Co.,.in St. Petersburg. the damage, jj which is covered by insurance, is estimated 'mm at £80,000. , « Since the inland postage in France was reduced from three-halfpence to one penny ' two years ago, the number of letters posted ■ ■ yearly has been increased by 190,000,000* -.; ■ or 27 per cent. , II . While shooting near Paris, a gamekeeper ' V . ] placed his gun qn the ground in order to? iy take a hare that his dog had retrieved. fy The dog trod on the trigger, and,. master was shot dead. " < "^'^^"r^^^m "Seconds" coal is now being sold in the - |^ East End of London at the rate of seven. ,!? pounds for a penny farthing, or £1 13s 4d :'-i a ton. This is 6s a ton more than the or- ;• | dinary price of the best coal. - jl It has been estimated that there are at- . -[M tached to Portsmouth no fewer than 45,000 '. ■ ,•'l| sailors and soldiers, .of . whom between ; ' i 10,000 and 15,000 are frequently either in -j barracks or on the ships in the harbour. | The Pennsylvania Railroad Company has ' - -J decided to "electrify" its lines between '\J Philadelphia and New "York, and expects .. ',] it will be able to reduce the running tim« J for the distance of 100 miles from two hours ~"A to one. i J In the colliery township of Walkden, ;| near Manchester, there is not only'a fe« --v-t»»*-| male sexton, but also a female "knocker- i; up." She rises at three o'clock each morn- '■§ ing to commence her rounds awakening . | clients. • *| During the past three months 458 ani- /J mals have been added to the collection a§ the London Zoological Gardens, including ;if 88 that were born in the gardens. Visitor;, -M to the gardens during that time numbered '. a 346,151. I Applicants for the posts of porter ind •|, cook at Smallburgh, Norfolk, Workhouse undertook to be married at once if they were appointed. They were successful, and \ < were ordered to take up their duties within; -f a month. ,-■ • ■' ffi The "Belfast newsboy who spread his ■> papers on the footpath less Madame Melba, ; fei should soil her boots lias bought a talking ,;;] machine and a-record of the singer's ren- . j dering of " Home, Sweet Home" with tha >~-.'j £5 which she sent him. :'\~■ | An announcement in a ship window in ' 1 the Commercial Road, Stepney, informs the ;■ :| public that " Here resides a man who writes " ",.-i 1 letters in English, German, and Russian." | There is evidently some demand for Eng- 1 lish in the East End still. | Although Newcastle, according to Bishop -' | Straton, possesses 5000 Jews, there is no | record of a Jew having been before the j city's magistrates for intoxication or for | neglecting children, and there has never been one of them in the workhouse. .■:! | At a meeting of the Yarmouth Guardian* ,J at which the appointment of a probations ;.| nurse was made, the majority of the Board . j were accused by a member of voting ior the successful candidate because she was J'i M the best looking of the three. applicants. . ,j Frau Siegmund Fleischer, whose property | is estimated to be worth a million sterling, . » died of starvation in Budapest recently --|$ while consulting her solicitor. She lived 1 in a garret in the poorest quarter of ' the 'jj city, and had not eaten anything for seve- • ral days. r £& The Royal Worcester porcelain works are the oldest in England, having been . | founded in the year 1751. "Old Chelsea" china is a deep claret red in colour. The f] earliest mark on Sevres china is two cross capital L's, which stand for Louis XV. who founded the works. A company has been formed to bore another tunnel connecting Switzerland and Italy. This tunnel will run through Mount -J Blanc, starting at Martingly, in Switzerland, and coming out at Courmayeur, ' /; j Italy. It will be 28 miles long, and it is Jffl expected that it will be completed in. three i r "j yeans. \ ; Mr. John Buckmaster, late organising i. ■, master of the South Kensington science .'-] and art classes, stated in his will: " I wish ,'• my funeral to be of the simplest and plain- --'~3> est description, and I do not want my. relatives or friends to be miserable at my - '5 departure, as I have finished the work [ ' ' : had to do." "Telegraphists' cramp," a disease that ) affects users of the Mors* key instrument, -, i is dealt with in the report of the Depart- , mental Committee on Compensation,for In- 1 i dust-rial Diseases, which was issued as a • White Paper. The committee- considers! > that the disease should be added to the ' I schedule as a subject for . j | v ' Pirn $ J