NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVI, Issue 17336, 6 December 1919, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Persians shave themselves as a sign of mourning. Photographs of women are very rarelytaken in China. France is confonted with a shortage of 41,000,000 tons of coal. The largest orang-outang ever shot, measured four feet ten inches. The largest oak in England is one in Lord Bagot's park in Staffordshire. There are more muscles in the human body than bones. They number 527. There are fewer daily newspapers in Spain than in any other country m Europe. Every fifth doctor of those who have just completed their training in England is a woman. In some cantons of Switzerland all the dead, rich as well as poor, are buried at. the public expense. The crold production of the British Empire in 1916 was 14 229,8440z, or 64 per cent. of the world's totaL Lobsters are said to have a great dread of thunder, and when peals are very loud will swim to deeper water. The increase in the cost of living in Great Britain since 1914 is 160 per cent, and in Franc e 292 per cent. The fleeces of ten goats are required to make a cashmere shawl, which takes three men six months to complete. Wasps are influenced by colours and smells. They favour yellow, black, red, blue, and white in the above, order. Th greatest tea-drinkers in the world are the Australians, who consume about 81b per head of the population every year. The giraffe is said to pass over the ground at the rate of about 50ft a second, while the kangaroo covers 10ft to 14ft a second. The highest price ever paid for beefsteak was paid at Circle City, Alaska* During the Klondike rush a steak brought £10 a pound. Even pianos have been made from paper, and one specially manufactured for the late Sultan of Morocco cost over £1000 to put together. It is estimated that one seed of cotton, given the application of all possible care and skill, would produce 40,000,000,000 seeds in six years.

In the Argentine Republic, if a man engaged to marry hesitates beyond a reasonable time in leading his fiancee to the altar, he is heavily, fined. Italy's -wheat crop is estimated at 4,000,000 tons, 800,000 tons less than the average crop. This will necessitate the importation of 2,000,000 tons. The real estate mortgage is the oldest investment known. The Babylonian banking house of Egibi records a land mortgage on a brick made in 600 B.C. , Census figures show that £43,000,000, worth of cigars and cigarettes, and £35,000,000 worth of chewing tobacco is consumed every year in the United States. Altogether 80,000 pigeons were used by the British Army, Navy, and It.A.F. Ruling the war, and no aircraft went to sea without carrying one as an official passenger. Yachting came to us from Holland, and our first yachtsman was the Merry Monarch, though Queen Bess is beiieved to have had som e kind of please-boafe built for her at Cowes. The Financial Secretary to the British Treasury stated in the House of Commons recently that the number of members, excluding Sinn Feiners, who are refusing to accept their salaries is six. There is, or used a Persian carpet covering the whole floor of the pavilion of the Ohehel Situn Palace at Ispahan, Persia, which has been in use since the sixteenth century reign of Shah Abbas. The deepest coal pit in England is ftie Pendleton Colliery, in Lancashire, where the shaft, three-quarters of'a mile in sheer deoth, cuts through some 16 different seams, with an. aggregate thickness of 70ft. England has 2.571 miles of road to every square mile of area. France, 1.75 miles and the United States, .739. There are 108 French citizens to every mile of road, 239 Englishmen, and but 41.81 Americans. In Brazil there is a variety of magnolia which, lor a few weeks in the year, opens and closes at th came hour every day, regardless of both light and temperature. Certain of the natives, who know neither clocks nor watches, invariably gauge the time by this flower. For a period of 17 months, which was the time America was in the war, railway accidents produced * toll of 2088 killed and 9980 wounded, which means that for every 24 United States soldiers killed during the war the United States railroads alone killed one citizen. All the 35 public swimming baths in Manchester are now fitted with apparatus by > which the water is exposed to th© atmosphere to be re-oxygenated, filtered, and used over and over again, instead of fresh water being used. By this process nearly 2,000,000 gallons of water a year are saved. The Shantung coalfields of China are worked by most primitive methods. Most wasteful* of all is the method of '* nnwatering" a mine. Skins, which cost £10 each, are attached to iron rings to form buckets. One of the skins lasts about 10 days. They are raised and lowered by hand, and it requires about seven men to operate one of the hoists. Steam or electrio power and electric lights are taboo. The average daily circulation of the 400 newspapers in continuous publication in China is only about 3000 copies apiece, but in actual practice is very much larger. This is due to the Chinese habit of never destroying a newspaper, but of selling it again and again after it has been read. One copy, indeed, does service to many readers, and only ceases to be read when it falls to pieces.

Anyone who believed that the submarine was a modern invention had not read an interesting old manuscript written by Wang Kia, a Chinese priest, who lived in the fourth century of our era. and who therein declares that the submarine was employed by the Chines.' 300 years Before the birth of Christ. Writ about the history of the Emperor Shi-IToang-Ti. of the Han dynasty, who reigned from 221 to 210 8.C.. Wan? Kia save ;—" The people of Yupn-ku came to Chi'in. having made the vr.V'-p m a- 10-chau (which is literally n shir? mi the shape of a .spiral ran-sc!). This sh'P is capable of passing quite close to th". bottom of the sea without the water penetrating inside her." After growing for ten years the Japanese cypress, the Peter Pan of th e horticultural world, reaches the size of a 2"lf hall. .As if exhausted with this tremendous pffort, the next ten years see it increase onlv by a fraction, when it practically ' storis growing altogether. It is evergreen ! and lasting, and. so the story goes, was discovered by the world's laziest gardener, ■who produced it by crossing th fi two slowest-growing plants he could find. Very romantic is the story of the Braganze diamond, a stone of 1680 carats, and " as large as a goose's egg," which, for more than a century, has been the proudest possession of the Portuguese Crown. This amazing stone, which Mr. Streeter, the great authority on gems, has valued at £58.000.000, was picked up by three Brazilian outlaws in the half-dried bed of the Abaite Pviver, in the province of Minas fleraes. The outlaws took the gtone to the nearest village priest, who obtained access for them to the -Governor, into whose possession it was given. The diamond, the largest and finest hitherto found, was despatched to Lisbon, with the reeult that the three outlaws received the Royal pardon and a rich reward, while the padre to whose friendly offices they owed their good fortune was given high preferment in the church.