NEWS IN BRIEF

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 14984, 4 May 1912, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF

Canada's population now exceeds seven millions. , •, , Ireland's census shows a.slight decrease in her population. The population of the United Kingdom is over 45,000,000. . In one night 1785 homeless persons wera found -in London. • There arc 127,000 miners at work in. the county of Durham. j There are thirty-two different kinds of sheep in the United Kingdom. Hydrophobia rarely shows till 60 days after,-the victim has "been bitten. The British army, including territorials, is composed of over 700,000 men. Nearly two million acres of wheat was cultivated in Great Britain in 1911. • The lace trade of France is said to afford employment for 200,000 persons. In the State of California the female vote outnumbers the. male by 80.000. Considerably over 700.000 workpeople in Great Britain belong to trade unions. Australia has 66,000,000 sheep, Cape Colony 11,000,000, Argentina 76,000,000. In one year the United States •of America has yielded 418,000 tons of coal. . During 1911 a decrease of over eight; millions was effected in the National Debt. Last year .convictions were obtained against over 150,000 prisoners in England, ( Sixty-eight out of every hundred publications in - the world are printed in English. ( Families or separate Occupiers of dwellings' in England ' and Wales total eight millions. ; - ■ Three out Of very four pounds weight of butter consumed m England comes from abroad. ■r: .. ■ ' > '' • A ; French physicist, M. Dussand, claims to have succeeded in producing light without heat. 4 - ; . . In one month the yield of gold in Southern Rhodesia exceeded 50,0000z, valued at £200,000. Greater London possesses a population of 7£ millions, and the County of London 4j millions. *? ■ > ' No fewer than sixty-three airmen.' were killed during 1911, of. whom seven were , Englishmen. • ;•■'•; , v ' : . A whale's skin, which in places is two feet thick, is the thickest hide of any liv-. - ing creature. r " * ; A message from Archangel .atates ; that ' j 20,000' seals have been 'captured - otf the Murman coast.,. ~ , , .« t . Pioneer voyages were made-'lait year by 'the first British «ea-goiAg; cargo -fitted / with gas-engines. £..v.'; 1 ■ \;> ; Dutch cheese contains forty-one percent'.' : of water, against only t thirty per - cent, , in. ; : Cheshire cheese.* i' . i ' There are nearly 23,000 locomotives employed on the various railways in'the United Kingdom." ■'yrWj* ( r -', : : ■ '.' to the square mile in the United King- •- • dom there are 372 persons ; in, Can a and Newfoundland, 1.85. ' Sydney, 10,120 miles from ,: -London* as the ; crow. flies, is the most distant ; large town from - England; "* ' * • As many as 140,000 men and about 120; • . aeroplanes', will •; participate in'the ; French. , sutomer- manoeuvres. , , . - : • The giraffe- is the ; only animal .thr-t _is,' really dumb. ; It is , unable to ; express it-' . I; self •by any sound' whatever.' _ # , 1 The jawbone of *an average whale . is 25, feet in length. The jtongue of such a . monster will "yield a ton of oil. p| V T«l thousand officials, whose salaries:soo amount to JG280,000, k year, manage trade nnion affairs .dom. ; . .Motor vehicles to the total of 120,000"' |jfs were' 1 in use in' the United Kingdom in t ; 1911, the number of licensed drivers being 200,000, — / fx;. if r ; . • It is stated at New York that of the 2000' licensed taxi-cab drivers no fewer than 150 are ex-convicts of dangerous description. •'■" ' . ' . „■ " At Redruth a collector has bought 'for ■a few shillings, at i' : sale, a pa.ir of fine' old Nankin china - vases •*. Of the 1 Kang-Hi dynasty.. ' .' :. ( • Death duties were levied .last, yesr upon ; 'the efitates ,of ? eight millionaires, the ag- • gregate amount of the fortunes being over ; • £11,000,000.■>■■■ >' - •■/ •; ', . • Apple trees, known to have been planted • by the French two hundred years ago - aflo v: still "vigorous in the -Annajpolic.; .Valley, ' t v Nova Scotia. * « - j,< ■ _ Tlie Premier's post bag has been a record lately. * The postal , deliveries to his house at 10.. Downing.street, have exceeded' anything known before. - Day and - night permanent speed-restric- : ■■ tion indicators are now installed ,on the * ;' - London and South-Western railway to ' warn engine-drivers where they must re- , duce speed.. *" '- . ; ;■" -A . ■ David Tatchcll, a labourer,, made J his : ;i; 195 th appearance before the Southampton magistrates on a charge of drunkenness He promised to return to the workhouse, and • , j wal discharged.' "' , t j According to the latest census returns there are more women than men in Paris, •; the exact, number being 1,510,108 women to 1,337, men, or a majority of 175?,087, , for the fair sex. , \ ' A peasant in a theatre at Yekaterinoda-r, , Russia, ■ was ' so indignant when the villain ,in the play, shot the r heroine that he fired his revolver at him, injuring him ( slightly.' .; He was arrested. / - 'A convict named Karl Winzin, now - undergoing a sentence of imprisonment in Berlin, has confessed that three years ago . he killed a man in a'wood,- for the mur-. der of "whom a mail was executed. ' . : -

" He" is always fighting,"' said a constable of a yOung man with a heavy jaw who was charged before Mr. Paul Taylor at Marylebone. "If he cannot fight his wife, he fights his brothers and. sisters."

Aged 103, Bridget Coughlin, a native of Ireland, hut. for many ears* resident at Castleford with her husband, a miner, haa died at Pontefract Workhouse Infirmarv. Her husband, a Crimean veteran, is dO years her junior. The first petrol-propelled trapicars used in England on a track have just been inaugurated at Morecambe, when a large number of experts gathered to witness tlia trial of the new system. The cost ot fuel is stated to be only, a penny per mite. A group of British capitalists ha.ro : asked the Portuguese Government for a concession to build dry docks for the repair of shipping at Lagos, where the British fleet often manoeuvres. This I question is to be considered by the Council ?, # of Ministers. - -- . 7; Si am is one of the few countries which, , , beasts of a corps of women police. | The;, k ' members of this Amazon guard are, all;old r;„. and ugly. ' They • wear a uniform, thongj* • they are not armed. Their chief duty til v to act as gatekeepers of the inner, cry $ women's, palace at Bangkok. ' They .follow any stinger who enters the | palace ■ and V.* ■ -$' remain with him until he takeshisdenar-, ture. • ■ They see that there is no mischief done, and that no one makes love to t*h» 1 Royal wives and. Court ladiee. The palace| has - some difficulty 1 in'" recruiting | these • * guard's, ''si' the .work is hard and-the pay - .*; poor. 1 _ . ' At Catallna Island, off San Francisco, % glass-bottom . boats 1 are in great demand, for they reveal to. those . who patronise them an unknown world and new beauties —■the . bottom lof th'« I "sea, They are a•' distinct: novelty, and ply a thriving trade upon * the Bay, of Avalon, which inshore. is. not deep,, whils the' wot<r is as clear as • * crystal. • ; In-the bottom of the boat are , placed largo sheets of transparent floss, arid through this tlie passenger ran. see, . _ as he i.« propelled slowly along, drn»o clus- , .. ters'of seaweed assuming fantastic' shapes, shells, fishes of infinite variety of hue i» their native - element, a* well as aom« *)" the strangest • creatures known to