NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 16020, 11 September 1915, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Jet is fossilised coaL There are no railways in Iceland. Ireland has no divorce, as in England. Hearts beat 30,000,000 times in a year. There were only 354 days in the yea* Lord Kitchener speaks Arabic like a native. Cranes dance and make bows when love making. There are about a million houses in London. March 25 used to be the first day of the year. The greatest known depth of the sea is 82 miles. Brighton has an elephant-bone bed off its beach. Echoes are sound-waves thrown back by an obstacle. "Hay soup" is sometimes eaten by vegetarians. Dandelions fold np their leaves when rain is at hand. Guineas were so called from being coined from Guinea gold. Animals indicate rain by uneasiness, lethargy, or cries. Hippopotami are polygamous, and seize their mates by force. Cornelians, jasper, and agate are found at Clacton and Cromer. Crossbelts are worn by the 7th Hussars over their left shoulder. Bombay duck is made of dried fish, a delicacy of Anglo-Indians. Charlemagne was the first person to assume the title of Kaiser. It was Oliver Cromwell who first instituted the Board of Trade. English motorists not infrequently insure against police court fines. Gold weighs nearly twenty times as much as its. own bulk of water. General Sir lan Hamilton has published more than one volume of poetry. Birds are hot-blooded and warm because they breathe very quickly. Landaus were originally made in a town named Landau, in Germany. Birds go on singing at the front, unperturbed by the heaviest shell fire. Fewer than one person in every 550,009 in England is killed by lightning. One airman at the front always carries a tiger's whisker with him as a mascot. There is an average of about 350 births and seventy deaths a day in London. The United Kingdom prodrces only fifth of the wheat which it ci nsumes. Sir Hiram Maxim's many inventions include roundabouts and mouse-traps. Half-a-million letters are sent to our soldiers on the western front every day. "Penny" is really a survival of the English ,; pun," r, corruption of "pound." Sir Edward Carson once referred in Parliament to " the gentleman I see behind me." Flies dislike mignonette, and will not enter a window where pots of that flower are. jEsculapius is reputed to have written comic songs to promote digestion in his patients. , England-is several degrees warmer than it was, owing to better drainage and cultivation. Nelson's last words in the cockpit of the Victory were, "Thank God, 1 have done my duty!" >' * - Mi

About half a ton of whalebone is obtained from one whale, its' value being, roughly, £1000. ' \ . V.J -/?££&.'- In the time of the Napoleonic wars, Heligoland was used as a drill ground "for British soldiers. ' •_.-'■.- r. V: >- -•" • , ; "Dumpies'* is the name of the 19th Hussars, the original /regiment being men of small stature. v'.' : . 4- ..;.•'. .";>/ . " Gentlemen are requested not to comb' their beards at table "is the notice posted in an hotel in Switzerland. /- . -,; ; H the > wind is in the right direction,": a sort 'of cold, smell s gives ! sailors warning of the proximity of an iceberg. •'*' ** " j The war lance of the Middle Ages was about sixteen feet long. The present-day lance rarely exceeds eleven feet. > :--; \ Yarmouth, in former seasons, has mads between £2000 and £3000 a year i out of letting "pitches" 'on its sands. ■'.-. "' '■*:■ : ~\."' '*••. In ordinary, times Douglas spends more money in catering for the. tripper than anyother seaside resort outside Lancashire. The tusks of the African elephant sometiroes weigh as much as a hundred pound* each, and reach a length of eight or i>ine' feet. ' ' f ' :M l' : '.- James Carrol, of Tacoma, Washington,. once drove a motor-car weighing a ton and a-half down " a wooden ; staircase .of ; ,700 steps. ; ' '- i '[''J-Z-, : ?-~'\'--';;-'* "J-.';"-'.';' \'-;"" In order to hide his ignorance of the art of writing, ".Charlemagne, was wont to usa a . monogram stamped on:, a seal % as "lis signature. V'-"-^-.>■?>"«• 'V-Y'-A' "> *d ' Type-writing - machines . that r print syllables of two and three letters by a single pressure of the key have been put on the market. <A- ■---*•'" :-,■■--.-:'■.■•*.:.•';._ Our Budget is so called from the old French bougette, a bag, x which . was formerly used for bringing papers to the House for inspection. j To-day the British Navy bears practically the same relative proportion to the existing fleets of the world that it did. in Nelson's time. During the first three centuries of the English Parliament, all who served in ib were paid. In the - fifteenth "century the amount was two shillings a day. During the latter years of George Hl.'s reign all performances of Shakespeare's "King Lear" were banned, in consequence of the madness of the King. A motorcar fitted with a horn, which warned pedestrians of its approach by playing, We won't go heme till morning," was heard in London not- long ago. At an "orphans* picnic," in Pittsburg, a raffle was not long ago held for a bride, a blonde, of twenty years, who consented to marry the bachelor holding the lucky ticket, i Mr. W. T. Goy, who was born without arms or legs, can write perfectly by holding the pen in his teeth, and has been secretary and treasurer of an English labour union. Although he is nearing his 3000 th performance of The Only Way,".Mr. Martin Harvey still plays Sidney Carton in the same light coat with many capes in which he appeared on the first night. If multiplied by 2, 3, 4, or any other integer less than 9. the number 1,176,470,588.235.294 will produce the same digits in the same order, simply beginning at a different place in the set. Most of our battleships are defended against the attacks of torpedoes by means of torpedo-nets— crinolines, which can be suspended at some distance from the side of the ship at the ends of booms. Children may not be seen in the streets of Bergen, Norway, after a certain hour, which varies with the season. The church bells of the town peal a signal for them to return home, and the police see to it that they obey. The " Hohenzollern Luck" is a plain gold ring, with a block stone, in the possession of the Kaiser. Frederick the Great received it from his father with aYj note, declaring that so long as it remained in the family the race would. prosper. - .' Germany's secret police are ' furnished j with "police eye-glasses." These have tiny concave mirrors on the side next the;, face, which may be extended sideways or folded back so as; not to show, and giveg the wearer, if Ihe - has normal => sight, an «j image of what is going on directly behind £ him. . ;>'...'