NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVII, Issue 17483, 29 May 1920, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Ordinary white bread contains 40 pet! cent of water. "-.:.: The wedding ring was originally won! ':'■■". on the thumb. An ounce of tobacco will fill ihe average pipe, sixteen, times. • -'■'".' Silver is trie earliest currency mentioned in the Scriptures. "■':'. ;. There'are more than ,90.000 trainednurses in tho United Kingdom. -~.-.. .. > ■ Oarsmen in the . early, days ,'.'o-f- : tnfl, . . University boat races. re wed in top-hat?,. ' .'• Since Hh.e start- -the. war; shillings to. -,"v the value of £8,156.668 have en. .■■ coined.'/ • America's,motor-car manufacturers- now.. have a,capacity, .7250 motor-cars per . ■ day. ';. ■•'."' America,, in. 1916. produced two-third*'- " of the'' total amount .of oil. in the whole'' world.' ' ?; ■ ''. ._'.-" ~,}(' -. Women ■ are ■ said, to ..be. riot only pro-..,, .' posing in America, but.,even paying thg'-' marriage fees. .In proportion to. its weight ..the ' wing ;.',,-• of a bird is twenty, times' stronger, Ivan ; ,.'",.:;.., the arm of a man. '"•■. A silent, keyless clock,, which .contains-, only, four wheels and no-springs,'. reV>-" '' . cently been patented ; : ;'.>y;'-; ; ■ -.'"■': >. , Krupps (Essen employed -80,000 hands' ' before the war. This grew to 11.5,000. and now stands at 45,000. In one night recently 46 fishing boats caught 1,200,000 mackerel off: the Cornish, coast, breaking all records. Alexandra Palace, London, has a Grand Hall which ■ will seat 12,000 persons, in addition to an Orchestra of 2000. ' : ' Tobacco weighing 35*000 tons wilt ha accommodated in new warehouses b<v ng | built in. the Victoria Docks, London.. Nearly. forty per cent, of the babies born in England are now exempted from Vaccination because their parents object. Glycerine weighinng 2130 tons was recovered from the waste fat of army food in England in the three years 1916—1918. The natives of, the Andaman Island*, Bay of Bengali average three feet eleven inches in .height and weigh under seventy pounds. - The world's; babies born every twenty- ;.'■ four hours are- more than sufficient to repeople Bournemouth they number,, in ; fact, 82,200. -~ The longest word in English in which, - ;.-:'■ i the vowels i, e, i. o, and u -all. "occur, • • ■ i once each, in alphabetical order,, is ;£ Abstemiously., '.'.'.'.. i In Canada's 3,730,000 square miles. ■ there is;. room for the world's, pop* • i lation, allowing nearly one. and one half acres for each person. ' London's daily, water, consumption, is.. 1 2o9,,)00.000. gallons, and. an expert esti- : ' mate* that at least 4,000,000 gallons a day are absolutely wasted. ..., '■.-.'/ , A starfish', seized by one of its. arms, i I surrenders, this to the captor and ..escapes. '■~:_-. "(with the. other four. ..regrpwuig. the -miss- :-.. i ing part at its infinite- leisure. . . , ;■-. ■:. ' The Chinese drank tea. in the fourth ■ centrYv valuing it. for. ''relieving fatigue, '" delighting . the soul, strchetheriing. "t-ho ' ■ 3 will, and repaying the eyesight■"'..• j Predatory fishes can reach the speed of a :\ : ' torpedo-boat, and;. porpoises have been , seen at play whilst keeping pace with a ' t' steamer running at fourteen knots, I Tho residences of foreign ."ambassadors iin England are : free from rates and taxes, e and the ambassadors: and their ..attendants 1 are not ruled by laws of the, country '.■: '■■ 7 Sound passing through aiv si., the free? , *". ing point of water reaches 1085.42 fee 3 per second, andincreases. 2 feet per second 1 r . with every rise oil deg. C, m iafflwr'a- •-' turn t ■-:

There was a girl in . Abr-rtieer:. •who was. never absent or late from sens in .14 - . years. Thirty-five other.Aberdeen children had perfect records for over eight ■ years. Canada is. becoming a g?e?t wooUpro- , ... during country. This yvx the clipping of the sheep in the prov'iipa of Alberta albna will yield 15,000.000 pounds of wool,'more .; than twice as much as ten. years ago. ',-■ ■ It is not long since Mr. Joseph Head ley made £200,000 in five' minutes 'by the , : ■.'.'-;' clock on the New York Cotton.Exchange; and before he sab down- to his dinner he , was £800,000 richer than when he cracked bis morning egg.? --.' ■■"'/"■■'' ■ ~.;;."■ In Oregon, U.S.A., hay :is loaded and packed into freight cars by means of an aiir blast. The hay is drawn up to a . deck beside the; car bv.. a. crane, and a : powerful air-blower hnrls it. into the car, pressing it. down , and packing it; .... "■'-..:. There is at the entrance of the -Church of ,San Salvador. in the Spanish city of . Oveido a remarkable tomb, erected, by ...a prince named. Silo, with a. curious Latin . inscription which may be read 270 ways by beginning with, the capital "S" in the centre. The, most extraordinary- tattoonif: idea ever carried out was that of a. French ' ; coachman, who at the time, of the Dreyfus trial had bis body covered with no fewer than 120 illustrations: of the case, including ' portraits of the Reading person- . ages. The work occupied nearly, two ■years. ■,'■'■'■.■':■"'■■'..■'■.'.■" '..-'•.■"■' Every' day but one -in the year anybody may use : the ..little street on, west side of the Waldorf-Astoria ;ho*el, in New York city. One,day every year ' the street is closed because it is the property of Vincent Aster, and if it were left open for a full year it would become . d, public thoroughfare.''. Less than a century ago wives were '■ offered by auction to' the highest, bidder in public places p in -'[different parts of England. Prices ranged upwards, from Is. Twenty shillings .appears to have' been considered, a good price. ' : There was the case of. a Midland farmer who parted ; with,hiswife for 20s and a dog. .'The 'principal source.of ■ the ambn' slip- ■ ■ ply,is the coast of the Baltic Sea, more particularly in the vicinity pi Konigsberg, At this place, amber, which is really a mineralized resin of extinct pine-trees, is freely washed up by the sea. especially after a violent storm. The fishermen use nets with which they, trawl the shilfov ■■waters.. ■..,.■•••',' ..In railway speed, the. I-ake Shcre Fiver | did 100 miles, an'.hour'; I ' the T\r?r.Lie.th I Century Express 'from New York to j Chicago covered. 481- miles in 460 min- ; • utes. .. The Great Western has done from Paddih'eton' to ■ Plymouth, which is 246 ..miles,-in.'275 minutes. ■ British railways have,:-.- however, never maintained thfir utmost' speed, the Government having rightly given warning checks to the racing propensity. i; How mc.ny words does an ordinary .'four year old child know? The ordinary'idea I is that a child's vocabulary is axtre;nelv limited, that fifty, or sixty words'.will cover all.that he knows. But an instigation made recently by following a child of that ; age and noting every word that ; | was- used brought forth the'fact that it had memorised 1271. words, and those words covered ■ practically everything with which the child: came' in . contact. | The list contained . words which the - I parents d'd not know the child, had ever -. heard. Other investigators have found . ; that this is not nearly'- the largest vocabu- . lary' reported. '■ Probably the most remarkable and unique botanical discovery in recent times' I has been made in British.". Columbia,,. : j Canada, where it has been found that .a i.sugar of a very high quality, containing . . j a.- rare tnsaccharide in greater abundance ■.) than any other punt known to, botanists,■:■' , i is yielded in no. less strarire. a .-place than . I j the foliage of the Douglas' : The : sugar will never Vie obtained, in sufficient . I quantities.to play a part. a food, source, 1 I except to: a few Indians: where it grows. i. But/further . investigation' will probably ' I show it .to'.be. of .'value in chemistry and 1 of. medicines, owing to its con-, I; .taming such a high percentage of pure tri- , staining such a high percentage of pure tri- ;. l saccharide.".■■■ . ~ '-. - ■ ' • - ,~ ,7- i-- •=• ' i tjp'i