NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 14931, 2 March 1912, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF.

A London motor omnibus earns on' ■ £ha average lid per mile. V . Russia ha 8 fewer doctors than any other civilised country. ; . *:

' In Great Britain and Ireland there are over 90,000 public houses. In the last 45 years the population-of

Spain has increased only 3,000,000. In Norway married couples may travel on the railways for faro and a-balf. There are at the present time over 21,000 rf varieties of postage stamps in the world. P

Gold can be beaten so thin that it would take 282,000 leaves to produce a pile- an. inch thick.

A person usually begins to lose heigh* at the age of 50. and at the age of 90 has lost at least ,3.£ m. t Experiment has proved that every tort of coal burned makes unfit for breathing 300,000 cubic feet of air.

Isaac Mason, aged 70, while shouting ati a football match at Newport, swallowed his false teeth and was suffocated. In the course of ' his 34 years' service, a Glasgow postman has walked a distance* equal to ten times round the globe. ~'.

Sponges are likely to be dearer. Thers is, it is said, a fortune awaiting the lucky, individual who discovers a new sponge area. "/ ■.'....:, ■.'/'/,■

Successful experiments have been mada in Paris with a funeral tramway-car. The vehicle is built to carry the coffin and the mourners.

The provincial general elections in Prince Edward Island (Canada) have resulted practically in a clean sweep for tho Conservatives.' . '.;-.';'". *-,' At Emmanuel Church, Hastings, a basketmaker named Taylor, who is blind, was married to a woman named Dunk, who is both blind and deaf. ' ; -~ The office of tho Criminal Identification Bureau at Ottawa has., records, fingerprints' and photographs of no fewer thai* 6500 murderers and thieves. ~./;./' ./■ / ' According, to the Canadian Labour Department, . the loss in working days through strikes during the month of November in Canada numbered 140,000. The picture of - Saint : Job by Girolamo del Pacchia, the famous..., 16th-century; master, has . been stolen from the Church of St. Sebastian at Siena, near Florence* At a meeting of the Belfast Corporationit was reported that < the death-rate from all' causes during the past /was;-17.2 per 1000, the lowest tho history of the citv. ... .■.'-. ...•;' :•-,.' ■-" /■"■ ■ . ; ,'•.■„ '•■'>.,':' I <■-■..: "■.-"■ The latest fashion in neckties is styled the "King .-George''' finger-print pattern, embo&ying a clever imitation of an actual-finger-print on a background fof whorls ' andi loojis. '.-.; i . .;,- .:.', /J '/."[■■ : .:- -. , . The wife of a song writer, in Pittsburg," who * was probably forced to listen- to her husband's A compositions, has ( obtained ; a separation ; on the ■ ground of inhuman, cruelty. ■';' , ' l", ' <l ">, . ' The lowest of the tenders for the construction of two 27,000-ton battleships for! the. United States Navy is that of the New V; York v Shipbuilcfing ! Company— £1,185,200 a ship. ,;* .; ,' * v■ "^ i Eels have lived ■; in. captivity for 60 years; the age of venerable salmon baa been estimated at 100; carp live to be 150, and there ■ have been , pike whose age was Estimated at. 200..'i.,1", i: ..'.''.,'; ':";■'■"'/ .' For - some y reason i.ot stated;, the prefect of police of St. Petersburg has protested against the grant made iby the"St. Petersburg Municipality/ ior ' £10,000.[for the relief, of.the famine-stricken.-. * ■ ''■ ' - *.. In -; a three-act play staged recently in New York ' by the Equal Suffrage Association all the heroes \ were women suffragettes, and man was ; pictured fas a "brainless, unconscious villain." There will shortly ;be considered by. the Paris Municipal Council a scheme for the creation of garden suburbs in the whole 61 the outer .circle Jof the city, in connection with the purchase i of the fortifications. ; Mr. ; J. : P. Morgan is reportSßd, according to the New* York Heraid, to have bought for over '£200,000 the ' collection ?of enamels, -Ivories, and sculptures» which belonged to M. Georges Hoenschel, of -Paris. .With the sole, exception of the small piece of { track between Harrow and -Enston, the London and '; North-Wester railway was on New Year's Day for the first time run entirely without second-class; carriages. , ' - The Suffolk hounds, while ,* drawing a wood, at Rushbrooke, came /upon/aV fine badger, which '- took \ refuge in / a drain pip©. -~ The badger was believed to •■ be extinct in the county, as one had notbeon seen for 20 years. * ~,.',;

The Indian police, north-west .» are procuring some :| . bloodhounds ■•>,« from ] Mayor Richardson's kennels at Harrow for tracking border raiders. The dogs * will also be r used to assist the sentries and pic* r : kets on the u frontier. , 4 ■ As a wedding was " being-solemnised at Grantham• Parish;' Church ;; thei'r; clergyman observed > that ;. : the ; bridesmaids were not wearing any. head-dress,'and the service had to be delayed until some suitable covering wan procured. ,- ; ',' * , With bread and; butter and. tea as hi* only nourishment a young kitchen porter.; named John ;Haipin, of Queen's Square, Bloorosbury, completed a cycle tour from. Loud qji to * John 6'» Groats and back, ; a dis-«: tance of about 1600 miles. ' In West and North Yorkshire,: owing" to. the increase of railway fares and passes,' associations of season : ticket holders havo•been formed, the members 'of which have*' decided to walk and use the tramcars in* l stead of the railway trains. . "At"; Norwich Infirmary a woman has dietfi as the result iof running a : fish bone into* her. hand. i, At .first no serious injury was apprehended, and she kept at her work* 1 I but i septic : pneumonia ~ arose, ""< \ and" deaths ensued c from blood poisoning. ' " , ; -„".. • The surprising fact is brought/ out bin' I Blue Book that; there are still 362 ships which were built sixty or more years ago still •' in service ■in the • British mercantilei marine. All but i nine are; sailing vessels, j the . bulk being under 100 tons.".. • ' Twenty-six bags of mails have. been lost from I the -British <: steamer Aragon during* transhipment at Monte Video ; (capital of Uruguay). The General •• Post 'Office' has. received : notice of the loss. i Divers willattempt to recover the mailbags. ■~ .; An inmate of the Chelmsford | (Essex)' Workhouse applied for* an extra ounce 06 tobacco a week, and remarked that,unless this was allowed ho would "work- accord-' ingly." The man was receiving two ounces of tobacco a week, and the; guardians; re* fused any addition. Owing to the changes ,;in, navigation routes which will probably, result from 1 the opening of the Panama Canal English firms are making arrangements to -open coaling stations in the Pacific on Pitcairct Island and on one of the Friendly Islands, states '. the' Hamburg ansa. Dr. Wynn Westcott, : the coroner for North-East . London, held 1068 '■ inquests during, 1911. There i , were; three;: murders and one manslaughter case. j; The suicides numberedV 64, of which 14^wero ; women* Drink was the direct cause- of death in the cases of 44 men and 20 women. At Market Drayton recently- the Ale Connor of the Ancient Order of the Court Leet visited the several hotels and publichouses in Drayton Manor and tested the ales to v see if the same were-fit* for all classs of "people to drink. ■ Inquiries from the' Connor show that every house had very good ale on tan., , . The obituary list for Lincolnshire for the past veer includes five centenarians, these,] { . • c„.„i» Foster; Grantham, . £-6. Brown Ain «•»»■ Ann Speed, Hoighing-•. ? mii-and John Beecham, Lincoln, ; So"' Mrs. M Ko"/of Holbeach fit 99tb.yeaj* ~ ■ , ■ . • •>:., ~: : v