NEWS IN BRIEF

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 15930, 29 May 1915, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF

TRERii i.: no wax in sealkg-wax Short sight is very rare in savages. Farthings used to be made of silver. Bagpipe.3 are commonly played in Italy. Newfoundland is the oldest British colony. Telegrams to Benguela cost ten shillings a word.

Assassins were first heard of in Tcrsia about 1090.

The Simplon railway tunnel is abou6 twelve miles long. German officers are forbidden to patronise matrimonial agencies. The largest single sun spot ever recorded had a diameter of 143,000 miles. Australia and New Zealand aro the greatest wool-producing countries. More people travel first-class than second-class in the Tinted Kingdom. Of the many kinds of catarrh, one is entirely due to the pollen of daffodils. Dettingen was the last battle in which an English King commanded in person. Buttons covered with cloth were prohibited by a statute in George I.'s reign. Egyptians in the third'eentury used to burn butter in their lamps instead of oil. The Primrose league, which ha? over a million and a-half mcmbeis, was founded in 1883. According to the latest figures, one run in every forty-eight in England and Wales is a pauper. * Stars apnear to twinkle more in stormy weather than when the atmosphere is in a, normal condition. Inhabitants of the United Kingdom consume an average of over 26 gallons of beer each every year. The date when the horse became a domestic animal is unknown, so long age did this take place. Seventy-two thousand criminals wera executed during the thirty-eight years' reign of Henry VIII. Branding for crimes is still performed in some countries, and was not abolished in Great Britain until 1822. Dartmoor convict prison was originally built to receive prisoners o'.' war during Britain's struggles with Napoleon. The Emperor of Japan is the representative of a dynasty which claims to have possessed the throne since B.C. 660. The official inventory of the clocks at Windsor Castle fills two largo volumes, and contains entries of 230 timepieces. The heaviest rains occur in equatorial regions, and the smallest quantities fall in the desert districts of Asia and Africa. The phrase " Entente Cordiale" was first used to express the friendly relations existing between Franco and England in 1843. It requires no fewer than 1550 miles of great embankments to preserve, tna Netherlands from the incursion of the sea. Muslin was first made at Mosul, in Mesopotamia, and was introduced into England in the middle of the 17th ceni tury.

The term "capital punishment/] refers to the obsolete punishment of beneading, which affected the head, or " caput,'' of % person. Men between the aces of eighteen and twenty in the Royal Navy draw, instead of " grog," a money allowance of Is 5d a month. Sixty per cent, of English words are of Teutonic origin, 30 per cent, am Greek and Latin, and 10 per cent, come from ' ot(ifer sources.' ■ -The time 'which elapses between the utterance of a sound and its return must* be more than orie-twe'llith of a second to* form an echo. , „ • Bluejackets: and marines cannot be arrested for debt unless the debt was contracted before • the 'debtor joined His Majesty's Service. King George has the constitutional right to make a treaty with any foreign Sovereign or Power without the consent of the Houses of Parliament. The Court )f Exchequer is so named from a chequured cloth which anciently covered the table where the judges and chief officers used to sit. In the Russian Army, a. " chief singer," who receives extra pay, marches in front of each company of soldiers, and gives the opening lines of the verses. So powerful is the jaw of the swordfish that it ha 3 been known, in attacking vessels, to pierce through copper sheeting and oak planks to a depth of ten inches. . , The Haymarket : Theatre, London, in which have appeared most of the.great British actors and. actresses, has existed in one form or another since 1702. . * With the exception of Jewish marriages, all marriages: in -England must be celebrated between the hours,of eight in the forenoon and three in the afternoon. Among the regimental trophies of the Lancashire Fusiliers is a " Life of Marlborough," presented to the regiment by Napoleon when they were guarding him in St. Helena. ' .". ' Nicholas, the Christian name of .the

Tsar, means victorious;' George moans farmer; ..'Albert, illustrious; Peter,-'a rock: William, a defender; Francis, free; and Joseph, may He add. The agitation among the Hungarian soldiers for an increase of pay is assuming .disquieting proportions, says a Berne message, which adds that the men in "crack" regiments only receive 6d a day. The German Reichstag has appointed a commission to consider the food question in relation to the human body, with a view to determining the exact limit of what is absolutely necessary for the nourishment of each individual. With a total population of 241.C00, Newfoundland has already sent 2300 troops to the front. She is ready to raise* further contingents if needed. In addition, she has 1000 naval reservists, of whom 900 have gone on active service. The Naval Rescrvo differs from the .Army Reserve in the fart that its members need not have served in the navy. Practically every able seaman, or man with equivalent qualifications, can join the Naval Reserve, on specified conditions. Four out of the five great ports of RusF'etrograd' (formerly St. Petersburg', Rcval, Libau, and Riga—are situated on the Baltic Sea. Of these, only Libau is an open port all the year round, tho others being ice-bound for from four to five months. A new Army Order makes provision for the keeping of'soldiers' wills by the officer in charge of records. Wills will be taken from the pav-books, and in the case of those who die will he forwarded to the i AVar Office. By means of the particulars given in the pay-book any mistakes or omissions in the wills can be rectified. The meat ration of tho British and the 1 German soldiers is about ljlb a day; thafc jof the French soldier only Jib. But the I French soldier has nearly twice as much bread as the Englishman and about lOoz more than the German, The mainstay of the Kaiser's soldiers seems to or potatoes —31b soz a day for every man of them. The Tzar has approved the decision of the Cabinet regarding the employment of prisoners of war at work in the fields. Tho Imperial ukase authorises the Zemstvcs to engage principally prisoners net of German or Magyar origin, paying them such wages as thev shall third? fit, and retaining the cost'of their food and maintenance.

It is common knowledge that tho birthrate in France has fallen much,' but it is not generally realised how rapid'and great has bean the fall in tho binh-ratc in Germany. during. the last decades. :An emin- ,j cut German scientist has. discovered v that, J •<" thou the , number of marriages hag practically not''changed,tho: birth-rate has ~'c fallen by more than'2s per cent., and the mortality by 35 to 40 per cent, ■ - m