NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 16621, 18 August 1917, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Scarlet flowers stand drought ' better than any others.

A horse has been known to jump 37ft m a steeplechase.

Few insects live more than a year ill their perfect state.

Over 8805 soldiers have been supplied with artificial limbs. Some £51,000 prize bounty is being distributed in the Navy.

Dead people in Germany are being interred in paper shrouds. °

A lion is able to make marks with his teeth on a solid iron bar.

The army of Brazil consists of 40.000 men, besides 20,000 gendarmerie. A man's hair, as a rule, turns grey five years sooner than a woman's.

Sheep thrive best on land which is infested with moles, because the soil is then better drained.

The tip of the minute-hand of an average watch travels nearly four-fifths of a mile every year. • ' Canada will be able this year to pay her war expenditure up to * £14,000, out of surplus revenue.

The village of Penshurst, Kent, contains only one man, all the remainder hiving joined the colours.

Eagles are said to rarely change their mates. When one chooses a mate the partnership is usually for life.

The shark, which holds the record for long-distance swimming, has been known to cover 800 miles in three days.

The Sultan of Turkey has conferred the Medjidje Order and the Iron Crescent upon Herr Krupp von Bohlen.

Pistols . are said to have been named from Pistola, a town in Italy, where they were invented, or at least first used. In Asia and Africa, in places where grass will not grow, most beautiful flowers and shrubs attain almost perfection. Swallowing twenty-four raw eggs in. two minutes, a man won a bet recently in Cuba. He broke five into a glass at a time. Sierra Leone schoolchildren - have sent i£69 8s 5d to the Children of the Empire Fund for disabled and blinded soldiers and sailors. The hairspring of your watch weighs but one-twentieth of a grain per inch. ■ One mile of such wire would weigh much less than half a pound. Seven hundred and fifty thousand tons of Norwegian shipping have been sunk during the war, representing a third of the entire Norwegian tonnage. An ostrich in California has been harnessed to an automobile, and has pulled it up a slight incline, at the same time carrying a driver on its back. So many negroes attended the funeral of the Rev. R. B. Williams, of Macon, Georgia, that it was necessary to hold continuous services for four days. I Brazil is immensely rich, and the minerals are very considerable and valuable, comprising -gpld, silver, iron, diamonds, topazes, and other precious stones. A second member of Sir Ernest Shackle.ton's recent Antarctic expedition has been killed on active service. This is Timothy McCarthy^who-.was one of the WeddeLL Sea party,-. During 1516 the Austrian Lloyd Shipping Company lost £125,000. The reserves are now exhausted," Sfid- the company's total deficit amounts to £I§2-,{JQO at prewar rates. "~"-v i. If an express train moving at the rate of forty-five miles an hour were to stop v suddenly it would give the passengers a shock equal to that of falling from a height of 54ft. A bullet was successfully extracted from the heart of a Russian officer. The surgeon who performed this delicate operation was Professor Gaudier, chief surgeon of the Nice centre. Snow and ice are melted in Siberia, 1 not directly by the sun, but by the ~ ! south winds. Even up to the beginning of June, the burning sun scarcely produces any thawing effect. - The first map of the world which included both hemispheres was published by Sebastian Cabot, the celebrated Venetian navigator, who for years was a resident of Bristol, England. The ears of most defenceless animals, such as the rabbit, are turned backwards, because these creatures constantly expect pursuit. Hunting animals, on the other hand, have their ears turned forward.Aircraft which, owing to stress of weather or other causes, have been obliged to descend on Dutch soil and have in consequence been interned, are being bought by the Netherlands Government. Italians of the poorer class are noted for their general good health. This is by many authorities attributed to the fact that they eat less meat than the same section of any other European nation.

The present pact between Austria and Hungaria expires <fa December 31, 1917. This date explains, to a certain degree, the growing nervousness of the governmental circles in Vienna and Buda Pesth,

Record takings by the Glasgow tramways are announced. For the year ending May receipts totalled £1,245,000£96,000 over the previous year. Passengers totalled 388,000,000, or 26,000,000 over last year.

Three hundred years ago, in England, it was customary to- add beer to mortar to produce the required consistency. It was asserted that the beer rendered the mortar more durable than if it were made with water.

Brazil is the naval power of South America, and its navy consists of three Dreadnoughts, two old battleships, five protected cruisers, and other smaller craft, including eleven torpedo-boat destroyers and four submarine.

Mice cannot exist on Papa Little, an island in St. Magnus Bay, on the west of Shetland. To test the truth of this statement several mice at various times were taken there, but the soil proved so uncongenial that they soon died.

Knives and spoons are of great antiquity, but the use of forks is comparatively modern. Indispensable as these adjuncts of the table may now appear, they had not become at all general at the beginning of the eighteenth century.

The French Government lias conferred the gold medal " des epidemies " on the Queen of Roumarjia, who since Roumania's entry into the war has devoted herself entirely to the hospitals, and has daily visited the hospitals for contagious diseases.

! Marvellous cures have been effected in a | Liverpool (England) military hospital in the treatment of wounds by the saline pro- [ cess, in which a current of electricity is passed through a solution of salt t and water, the resultant solution being applied to the affected parts for prolonged periods. A dead Hungarian soldier found by the Italian troops had in his hand a letter, which read in part: "May he who started this wax lie cursed, even if he is an emperor! May God punish him and our cowardly officers who keep away from the firing line and spend their days drinking!" Tea-drinking is a constant occupation for a Thibetan. In every tent and in every house the tea kettle is always on the fire. The laws of hospitality bind all to present tea to their guests, and every Thibetan woman carries with her a wooden bowl of Himalayan maple* by way of a teacup. The number of War Savings Certificates sold in Great Britain during the,' week ended February 17 was 8,151,180, making the total 74,789,456. The figures for each day were: Monday, 908,217 Tuesday, 990,180; Wednesday, 990,401; , Thursday; 1,315,484; Friday (last day of tha loanLi 2,755,981* SatßP&tf, a*19Q,917». *