HEWS IN BRIEF

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 15948, 19 June 1915, Page 1 (Supplement)

HEWS IN BRIEF

Canada was originally called New Franco,

An infant does not hear until the third o; fourth day after birth.

There are about 4200 European plants, of which only 420 are scented.

When you refer to the " boss " you ar« using a low Dutch term, meaning "master."

The cost of German military administration is said to amount to £3,000,000 per day.

Martial men, good fighters and of choleric temper, have red and spotted finger-nails.

Darwin raised from 6jjo?: of mud attached to the feet of migrating birds 537 plants.

Some of the newer automatic pistols are powerful enough to kill a man 1000 yards distant.

Tho Siamese Navy League has raised the first million ticals—£77,ooo the purchase of a scout cruiser.

Dutchmen are the heaviest smokers in the world, and they are followed by tho inhabitants of the United States.

The Turk's equivalent of our handshake greeting is to cross his hands on his breast and make an obeisance.

German mothers believe that if they lose the heel of a shoe one of their children will die beforo the year is out.

Watches were at one time called " Nuremburg Eggs," because they were oval in shape and made in that town.

Out of over 160 inmates of a lunatia asylum only one had red hair, and only four wero of light hair and complexion.

At tho battle of Neuve Chapelle as much ammunition was spent as in the two and three-quarter years of the Boer war.

A quarter of a million Jews are with the Russian forces— largest Jewish army ever gathered since the fall of Jerusalem.

Of all the feathered tribes, the humming bird is tho smallest, and in Mexico its egg is said to be scarcely larger than a pin's head.

The driest place in the world is that portion of Egypt between the two lower falls of the Nile. Rain has never been known to fall there.

A woman's brain on an average weighs five ounces less than a man's; but a woman's brain is larger than a man's in proportion to her weight.

The term "Blue Stocking" arose from ft club to which females were admitted, and which was so called owing to a mala member wearing blue stockings.

Shaving was introduced among the Romans about B.C. 300. The first shave was deemed the entrance to manhood and celebrated with' great festivities.

To enable a motorist to smoke -while driving, a New York inventor has patented a perforated metal shell to inclose a cigar and retard the draught.

In Southern France the fig tree is now cultivated almost exclusively for the production of the fresh fruit, which, always has a ready sale in the large centres.

The phrase "to. lionise a man"—to stare at him as 5 wonderful personarose when a show of lions was the great attraction at the Tower, and everyone went and stared. Another Bulgarian general has joined the Russian forces in the person of General Saravoff, who greatly distinguished himself in the . Balkan . campaign against the Turks.

..... r ~ Your : salary is • - your "salt . • money." ' Soldiers once received salivas part ;of . their pay. When the salt -wan commuted for cash, the, latter was called "salerium," ■ salt money, or "salary." V " Hurrah !■', was originally . a fighting. exclamation, and is v derived from' the . Slavonic " Huraj "To Paradise ,-j the belief being that valiant fighters went ' . straight, to' Heaven if .killed. v-,

In the /firing of a 12in gun '3001b -.of powder is required. One shot of a 12in i; gun requires; as much powder as 42,000 : shots •of i the rifle an infantryman uses,. ' or 150 shots from an ordinary field gun.

1 Some natives declare there are ; only 25,000 -words 'in the Chinese language; . others persist.. there are 260,899. Any- 1 way, as was recently - pointed out by a ' , traveller, you must (if you wish to bo: V at all clever) learn 260,000 odd characters. / by heart. - . ' *,• ,•■' • ♦ (V

The expression "pigeon English" arose from the Chinese -attempt to pronounce the word - "business," Js which, vthrough various forms, became " pidgin,' tind then " pigeon.". ' " Pigeon I • English" •is!; a strange jargon of many languages, but "business" tis carred on. by tit. 'r: ii-j * Mrs. - Duffy, of Massey Street, Burnley, who ; celebrated her eighty-fourth birthday ■recently, has nearly .a hundred direct descendants, serving in ' the King's forces. Her grandfather , was a soldier ; and her father fought at • Waterloo. « She herself was : born "on the strength" in 'Egypt.'

The Red* . Cross ; have v recently inaugurated a system of fast non-stop ambulances, which convey the wounded from - the advance dressing-stations near the firing-line right back to a principal field hospital;' The intermediate 6top at the field ambulance clearing-station is thus avoided. ' :' -v XiA;

The Prussian Ministry ;of Railways - have ordered all village stationmasters to, v plant sunflowers on every bit 'of available . ground • around their stations. *■ • Sun-'; flowers, which are easily grown, are said to yield oil, which can; be used in the' manufacture of margarine and ' other, ■ butter substitutes. • '; v v

"Pip Squeak" is the name which the British soldiers have given to the latest - / German gun, a small trench cannon. "This creature," writes a'private in th# London Scottish, " squirts abomination in . the 6hape of scrap-iron, ginger-beer " bottles, and apparently any odd refuse that is at hand."

Lisbon papers announce the invention by a Portuguese engineer, Carlos Carvallio, of a torpedo for sinking submarines only, its shock not fleeting other vessels. Carvalho claims that his torpedo will destroy submarines if it strikes them either on the prow or tho periscope. Ha hopes to sell his invention to the allies.

la an old book dated 1816, much curious information is given about tho gipsies. It mentions a report commonly circulated* at the time that a Member of Parliament had stated to the House of Commons that there were not less than 36,000 gipsies in Groat Britain. At that date, not one gipsy in a thousand could read.

''Sporting one's oak —i.e., not at home to visitors —canio to bo used . ' tho universities because the rooms fiavo two doors, tho usual inner door and arcther made of oak outside it, and when the oak door was shut, or "sported," it denoted that the inmate was either out or* did not wish to be troubled with visitors!

In the time of Edward VI. publichouses wero restricted as to number in certain places by an Act of Parliament. There were to be forty in London, eight in York, four in Norwich, Hull, Chester, Gloucester, Cambridge, and Newcastle-on-Tyno; three in Southampton, Westminster, Oxford, and Ipswich, while Bristol was allowed six.

The borough ■ engineer, of Scarborough ■ has been compiling a most interesting chart, whereon, on large-scale sheets of the town and surrounding _ land, every single shell which dropped in tho naval s bombardment is plotted. '■ There .'are-;now; rather over 500 of the little red crosses which show whoro a projectile fell. They. j- | are still being found, <■ and - many, pro- | bably, never will bo found, for 'eoma / g dropped far out in the'country, 1 i • • ;. I