NEWS IN BRIEF

New Zealand Herald, Volume L, Issue 15482, 13 December 1913, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF

Wealth* Belgians pay about £65 to sub-" stitutes in order to avoid military service. In order that policemen may take shelter from rain and snow, Brussels municipality are erecting large zinc umbrellas round street lamp-posts. The Paris papers announce that a Paris chemist named Oliviero has discovered a sheep serum which is efficacicus against poisoning by mushrooms. In London a motor-'bus proprietor has to comply with between fifty and sixty conditions before he can obtain a license to use it. for public purposes. A dog belonging to a Clacton lifeboatman, on seeing a codfish spring up 20yds from the shore, dived into the water and caught it. The fish weighed 121b. Mme. Alice Descharmps, a well-known French sportswoman, celebrated her 84th birthday by taking part in a lawn-tennis, a golf, and a croquet match at Le Touquet. The smallest conscript in France is probably Eugene Espagnol, of Louines, near Tours. He stands 3ft 7in in his stockings, and turns the scale at 421b, or just three stone. There is an entire absence of all forni3 of tuberculosis, malignant disease, rheumatic fever, and infectious diseases in the Falkland Islands, according to a recentlyissued report. A traveller, who in 1903 journeyed from enu to end of the Chinese Wall, says that " with its extensions its total length is really 2550 miles, and that originally 40,000 stone towers guarded it. " • During a performance at a picture palace at Royston, Hertfordshire, a piece of hob carbon fell from the lantern and set alight to some films. The operator was badly burned. There was no panic. A German aviator has made a flight of 1566 miles in 22 hours sis minutes. He had taken no nourishment, but brandy and sandwiches during his long journey, and was a good deal exhausted. Clapping his hands in enthusiasm at the scoring of a goal in the football match between Guildford and Godalming at Godalming recently, James Holton, an elderly spectator, afterwards fell dead. Erected about 50 years ago by Sir Edward Watkin as a landmark showing the shore end of the Channel Tunnel works, the steel lighthouse, 110 ft high, on Abbotscliff, Dover, is at present being demolished. The lighthouse has been locally known for many years as " Watkin's Folly." In many parts of Herts wasps have invaded beehives, driven the bees from them, and eaten all the honey. So serious has the plague of wasps become that parish councils are applying to the county council to issue instructions regarding the best method of exterminating the pests. Windsor (England) Board of Guardians endeavour to make their cottage homes as much like home as possible. It was reported at a meeting of the board that some girls had been smacked, sent to bed, kept away from a tea-party, and deprived of pudding for dinner and jam for tea. Immense efforts are being made by the Western Canadian farmers to complete ploughing after the harvest before the ground freezes up. Many farmers are. with powerful headlights on' their traction engines, throwing a brilliant light across the fields, ploughing far into the night. Two new trains that are/ now running on the Great Western Railway between Paddington and Windsor are claimed to be fireproof. The carriages are built of steel, the only wood being the footboard, and this has been specially treated to make it non-inflammable. The flooring is of asbes- ! tos. " Like a futurist manifesto" is an artist's description of the latest "creations" of , shirt and cravat makers! But Paris dan- . dies are, delighted with them. An enterprising trader has decorated his windows • with red and black check socks and men's ; underwear of a scaly material like a ser. i pent's skin. i Mrs. Frederic Conrtland Penfield, wife ; I of the new American Ambassador to Austria, will probably be the largest incometax payer in America. The income from - the estate of £14,000,000 left by her father, the late Mr. William Weightman, is £700,000, and the tax at 7 per cent, will amouni to £49,000. . After the cycle-car, the cycle-cab. This . is a new development of the side-car as affixed to motor-cycles, the vehicle having the form of a miniature taxi-cab, which will hold three people in addition to the ; driver of the bicycle. Its cost is only i half that of the ordinary taxi-cab, and. ; the inventor holds out the alluring vision of being able to " taxi" in London at a cost of no more than 4d or 5d a mile. ; A' Pinner tinsmith has devised a novel ' method of carrying on his business with the aid of a cycle. He has fixed on his machine the necessary equipment for grind- . ing knives, scissors? and soldering, etc. He ( is able to cover many miles a day and do I his work by the roadside. The grind- . stone is fixed on the backbone of the cycle ■ and driven from the rear wheel by a pully. ; the machine being jacked up by a stand i such as is used for motor-bicycles. ' Unaccompanied by any relative, two tiny i travellers, a boy of four and a girl of nine,' have just crossed the Atlantic on the Canadian Royal Mail liner Royal George, which arrived at Bristol recently. Tho 1 children were put on board at Montreal - in charge of the ship's officers. They won. t the hearts of all on the steamer, and it _ was with reluctance that they left their '_ new friends at Bristol. South Wales, the scene of the recent terrible colliery disaster, shares with Lanca- ! shire the grim record for the number of serious mining disasters. Lancashire'* ■ record since 1857 is 38 disasters, involving . the loss of 1934 lives, or a death-rate of 51 per disaster, and 25 per 1000 persons employed. The record of South Wales is ' 60 disasters, 2940 deaths (49 per disaster, and 21 per 1000 emploved). In each dis- ; tnet the high death-rate is put down to the age and "g-assiness" of the pits. Certain experiments recently conducted are said to give promise of a time when agricultural England will be covered with crops, of Gargantuan dimensions, with vegetables double the size they are now and when there will be no such thing as barren land m the kingdom. Or that is the belief of Dr. W. B. Bottomley, the professor of botany at King's College, London, who has been experimenting for over seven years to find a scientific manure that shall increase the growth of crops. Professor Bottomley has found that by inoculating ordinary peat with nitrogen-fixing' bacteria and using it as manure he is able to increase the growth of plants and vegetable in some cases as much as 150 per cent. l One of the great evils of the present high price of petrol, an airman complains, is the enormous cost of flying. It is estimated that the fuel and oil costs-of an aeroplane of high power run into about £1 per hour of flight, and when it is realised that whereas two years ago England officially owned one aeroplane, it had 15 last year and now has from 120 to 150, and "that with this increase have also come improve ments which will give about 250 hoursflying for each machine annually, the si?nificance of high fuel costs will becrin to be appreciated. It will be measured" by a fuel and oil bill of about £30,000 a year at retail prices. . A British foundry has made an interesting application of the principle of the vacuum cleaner to carry off the dust raised in the process of rubbing castings. Rub. bmg down castings is very dusty work. But when the work is done 'on the vacuum cleaner" bench, all the dirt and dust is drawn through the clots and carried away A five-horse-power motor, that drives a 15m exhaust fan connected to graduated galvanised troughs under the bench gives the necessary power ard ; draught. All the dust and dirt is % charged into a box just outside the fan, tory building, instead of being stirred un with a broom and breathed by the work men*. -