NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVI, Issue 17270, 20 September 1919, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Chinese wag their clenched fists instead of shaking hand;..

Five is considered a sacred number among the Chinese.

Nearly 70,000,000 wild animais are killed yearly for their fur.

The first pillar-box in London was placed in Fleet Street in 1355.

When two Arabians meet one another they rub their cheeks together.

Pigeons have been known to fly 600 miles in continuous flight in ten hours.

In 1885 the Swedish inventor, Lundstrom, patented the first 'safety match."

Cochineal insects provide us with the finest, colours of carmine, crimson, and scarlet.

Between the years 1896 end 1911 there were 7.000.000 deaths from bubonic plague in India.

Eighty-two U boats, it is stated, went down in the North Sea, and 72 in the English Channel The skin of an elephant when tanned is very expensive, the tanning taking about six months. Ninety per cent, of the armour plates fitted to British battleships and cruisers were made in Sheffield. London's telephone and telegraph wires extend 73,500 miles overhead and 921,000 miles beneath the ground. Last year 6,000,000 pairs of stockings were made in the United States from silk manufactured from wood pulp.

The Danube flows through countries in which 52 languages and dialects &ra spoken. It is 2000 miles in length.

The Crown of Portugal is valued at about £1,7.50,000. Of course, this diadem is not now in use, Portugal being a republic

A geological computation, based on measured rock strata, stows that first forms of life on earth appsai-ed 45,140 000 years ago. '

The aggregate age of fourteen residents of Tunbndge Wells who have died recently was 1195 years, or an average of just over 85.

A curious butterfly exists in Indifc, The male has the left wing yellow and the right wing red; the female has these colours reversed. The best rubies com© from Burmah. Big rubies aire rarer than big diamonds, and fetch great prices when they are of a perfect pigeon-blood colour.

Silkworms coma from the eggs of the silk moth. Each moth lays about 200 to 500 eggs, about the size of a pin's bead. It takes 440,000 eggs to weigh a pound i Two rare pearl ear-rings, low-necked blouses, oblong collars of gold, set with jewels, and false, red hair, were some of the things Queen Elizabeth wore is. her 67th vear.

There are about 600,000 persons in the State of New York who cannot read, write, or speak English, and about 350,000 of these sire unable to read or write any language at all.

Bread is used by Swedish brides to avert misfortune. She fills her pockets with pieces of bread, which, on her way to church, she disposes to everyone she meats to prevent, as she thinks, ill-luck in her future.

In China very member of a family is responsible for order in that family. If a younger son should commit a crime the older son is likely to be taken into custody and made to nay • the ■ penalty for thV offence.

Because the lion is brave and daring many African tribes eat its flesh, and think by this means to prove as courageous as it; and, just for the same reason, certain of the hill tribes in India eat tiger's flesh. Probably the most remarkable linguist in the world is Alfredo Trombetti, a schoolmaster in the Italian town of Cuneo. Though entirely self-taught, he is intimately acquainted with no fewer than 58 languages and dialects. The name of a ship counts a lot with a sailor, for a great many sailors won't Fail on a ship whose name begins with " S," while the letter "C" is another initial which is disliked; and a female name is preferred to a male name. Since the sale of vodka was prohibited in Russia many illicit stills have been unearthed which have been engaged in recovering the alcohol in shellac- The shellac is divested of its alcohol by distillation and a crude beverage is then made. Inns were originally very few in number. In the time of Edward L there were only three " houses of call" in London ; in 1552 forty only were legally permitted to the metropolis, but just after 1600 there were 400 inns in the City of London.

Teaching swimming strokes by moving pictures is a suggestion pat before the English Board of Education. Expert swimmers are photographed in action, and after studying the strokes, the pupils imitates them until the teacher is satisfied. Then the motions are practised in the water.

The geophonej invented during the war to determine the 6xact location of sounds above and beneath the eurface of the earth, will soon be used extensively in mining operations in the United States, either for sounding .purposes or in determining the location of men blocked from escape oy cave-ins or explosions. On the backs of most gloves will be found three thin stripes. These marks correspond to the fourchette pieces between the fingers. In earlieg times gloves were not made so neatly as they are today, and the stitching of the fingers was carried down part of the way on to the back of the glove, braid being used to conceal the seams. There are poisons which are rapidly fatal to man, yet which have comparatively little effect upon animals. Dogs and horses can take ten 'times as much morphine in comparison to their body weight as man can. The pigeon can take 500 times as much, while a frog is unhurt by a dose a thousand times greater, weight for weight, than one which will kill a human being. The late Tsbj of Russia had as many crowns as a fashionable lady baa hats. This is explained by the fact that, regarded as he was by his subjects as a' religious as well as a oscular monarch, ha had a crown for every possible State occasion. Besides the Russian Imperial Crown, he was also the possessor of the crowns of Astrakan, Crimea, Poland, Kief, Kazan, Siberia, and Finland. In dealing with his annual report with errors in certain clocks at the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh, the astronomer-general lor Scotland says:—"A suspicion has often arisen that tfce clocks mutually influence each other, but it is difficult to obtain a demonstration." He then gives figures in citing a case, which he says is the most striking one so far noted, and ran hardly be a mere coincidence."

| The most notable haunted house in London is St. Stephens, which is alleged to have several ghosts which occasionally visit its precincts. The most famous and sinister of these is Big Ben, who is said to walk when & death is impending in the royal family. A number of folk declared they saw him on the evenings before the deaths of the Prince Consort, Princess Alice, and the Duke of Clarence. Each of these appearances was on the 13th of the month at midnight. One seldom considers what would happen if everything that is born on the earth were allowed to live and multiply unchecked for a few years or months or even days, and what providential things disease and death are to ns after all. So prolific, for example, is the common or domestic fly that in a single season one industrious female conld count her progeny to 20,000,000, if all survived and followed her example of maternity. At the end of the fifth season her living descendants would be counted in 27 figures, a*J4; the sky and the earth would bo btacfcT:with them ■ ; , v