NEWS IN BRIER

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15748, 24 October 1914, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIER

There are 50.000 Germans in England. Lancer regiments ware first organised in i the British Army in 1815. ' A cavalry man carries a rifle, a sword, > revolver, and sometimes a lance. 1 The energy at the muzzle of a battle- . ■ ship's" gun is estimated at 45,000 -tons. I Units of the Dreadnought class carry 1 ! 800 projectiles, whose total weight is 242 ; i tons. ', With the exception of Germanv, Great ; , Britain was the last naval power to adopt 'the submarine. j | Only about one-third of the entire l I length of a submarine is ever visible j. I above the surface. •; j Scotland's magnificent response to the ; i call to arms has resulted in a dearth of . labour for the harvest. I Napier. Gordon, and Kitchener, in ' j their early years, were officers in the ! Royal Engineers' Corps. Krupp armour was first used in a ; j British warship in 1897. It still furnishes 5 j the protective element in warships. 3 A very much wider area cf broadside . armour is always disposed below the I water-line of a ship than above it. British rifle regiments carry no colours, ■md instead of carrying their" rifles at the | slope they carry their arms at, the trail. I The masts of most battleships are cor,, :' structed of tripod steel tubes, at the 1 | apex of which the fire control platform ia 5 mounted. ' Three sons of Lord Selborne are sriv--5 :ng in His Majesty's forces—Lord Wol- '- mer, M.P., the Hon. Robert and Lewis Palmer. L j Two Italian acrobats were charged at v Morceambe with failing to register under . the Aliens Act. They were "ordered to , pay costs. •> A company of British infantry consists . I of 120 on a war footing. Eight companies I form a battalion, and four battalions con- > stitute a brigade. The guns which form the defence of j batteries commanding important British . harbours and rivers have an extreme range . of over 10,000 yds. [ The bursting charge of a torpedo consists of 2001b of guncotton, fired by a i fuse which explodes on impact. A tor- ' pedo is worth about £500. 1 The howitzer is so constructed that 1 it can be fired at almost any angle. It • throws a projectile .weighing" over 1001b, and has a range of 5200 yds. ( British infantrymen at the present day . are armed with Lee-Enfield rifles, -which . will carry about two miles. The rifle also i carries a bayonet 17in long. > The shell with which the British. Boyai ■ Field Artillery is armed contains 354 bul- : lets, which have a striking energy up to ' 200 yds from the point of burst. In a campaign -involving the emplov- . ment of 50,000 men and lasting tor three months the weight of food and forago ro- ; J quired would be about 50,000 tons. The British cavalry consists of nearly • 50 regiments. Each regiment carries two ! machine guns, which fire the same cart- > ridges as are used in the Government rifle. 1 No fewer than 75 per cent, of the < members of the Honourable Artillery Cora- ; pany, the lineal descendant of the Trained ' Bands of old, have volunteered for foreign ' service. D [ About 1000 Poles and Russians resident j. m Liverpool have offered their services j to the British Government, either as , members ef the Tegular forces or as * 5 separate unit. r An "A" class torpedo is 20ft long, 18in .- in diameter. Its silvery-looking, cigar- , shaped body travels through the water a at 40 knots. It has an effective range of i over 7000 yards. Passports given to Germans emigrating 5 I to Great Britain who were due to return . I to the TiV*'wiantl for military service in • 19io bore this enau^ v .. .-' '"Ht-.!~- «*;>r f takes place in September, 1914." I The French Government have placed i large orders for khaki with a Wellington i (Somerset) firm of manufacturers, whose . men were already -working at high presi sure for the British War Office. ' The Royal Engineers rank next' aft-... the artillery, and in front of the infantry. In war they have charge of all engineering apparatus connected with the army in the 1 field. They do not carry colours. . Battleships and cruisers invariably discharge tffeir torpedoes from "flats" bei neath the water-line to obviate the risk , of annihilation by an enemy's shell striti, ing the torpedo before it leaves the ship. i The Mayor of Lewisliam, London, who ■ » has succeeded in reaching home after a i holiday in Germany, declares that the > war is popular with the masses of the » German people, but not with the better • classes. _ Captain Theodore Schlagentweit, fort merly German Consul in Manchester, was 5 fined for going beyond the five miles j limit of his office, and was subsequently , arrested by the Manchester police as "a • prisoner of war. A polo pony belonging to an officer at i Aldershot performed a remarkable feat, 3 when it cleared an eight-foot hedge beside <• a railway embankment. The animal took .' fright in the village of Weybourne while s being ridden by a lad. J In a single day harvesters near Bishops Stortford, who wished to take advantage 5 of the present high prices, gathered in a whole wheat crop, after which it was threshed and ground, and, the same night, ' sent as flour to London. . The barbette—the most efficient means . | of protecting the guns and gunners in a , j warship a circular fortress of steel 1 | with a bomb-proof roof, the whole revolv- . i ing upon a cylinder which goes right down . I to the bottom of the ship. 1 The course of a torpedo under the '■> [ water is controlled by means of a gyro- ' j scope, a most ingenious device, the °lemen- : j tary principle of which is exemplified by 1 i a child's humming-top with balance rings, ! j which will spin at any slope. . j Flora Heberson -was granted a divorce - ; at Jersey City on furnishing the court : | with a written statement, attested by two ; j witnesses, that her husband returned. , j home intoxicated 6105 times during ■ seventeen years of married life. >! Henry Pearson, who has died at) Wat- ■ j mer. aged 72, had' sailed on every sea, j and assisted hundreds of vessels of all j nationalities into port. Forty years ago ■ he was placed aboard the first Chinese warship, and took her to Copenhagen. ; The biggest guns ever made for the British Navy were the 110-ton weapons ( mounted on the Victoria, the Sans Pariel, and the Benbcw, which had bores of . ] 16Hn, and were 43ft 6in long. They ; i were so ponderous, however, that thev ' I had to be rejected.. 1 ! The classification of the executive i J branch of the British fleet is as follows :— > 1 Admirals of the fleet, admirals, vice- ; . admirals, rear-admirals, commodores, cap- . j tains, commanders, lieutenants, sub- > j lieutenants, chief gunners, chief boat- ; j swains, midshipmen, and, naval cadets. ' | " Death through an act of war" was the r ' verdict at Hull at the inquest on Charles ; Crquhart, one of the five victims of the ' I Scotch herring drifter Barley Rigg, which ,' i was sunk by a mine. It was stated that j the vessel was going at eight knots. The " I explosion split the fore port and she sank ! immediately. i j " Calling a man German who is not ,* > , German is one of the most serious and -;.. '.;J;. I criminal at the present -time," f i said the solicitor defending Arthur Smith, r l . gipsy, at Blackpool. Smith wa* charged ' with splitting open the head of John: 1 , Stevenson with a beer bottle after- a digi r-ussion on the war. He said that when. j called a cad he did nothing but when ['called a German he struck Stevenson. / Smith was sentenced to two-months hard i labour, and ordered to forfeit a &* J surety, ' " . . f ■ '"'■'"