NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18025, 25 February 1922, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF.

The albatross is the largest of sea birds. The great auk has been extiuct since 1844. The first steamship crossed the Atlantic in 1833. Gibraltar is less than two square miles in area. Liege is the chiof cattle market of Belgium. England's high roads cost £800 a mile to construct. The territory of seven nations joins that of tho German Empire. Twenty-fivo nationalities are represented at Oxford University. Thero are about 45,000 different kinds of postage stamps now known. Groats, or fourpenny pieces, were Jast coined in Great Britain in 1856. According to the recent census, Poland has 28,940,000 civilian inhabitants. Type nictal consists of 65 parts lead, 25 part's antimony, and 10 parts tin. No city produces newspapers in so many different languages as New York. The area planted in rice in India is expected to bo about 81,000,000 acres this year.

Since tho reign of George 11. no abbreviations have been allowed in legal documents. A train of goods ears over a mile Ion? was recently hauled by ouo locomotive in Western Canada. At Sussex, a cow is allowing four small pigs to treat her as mother and take her milk. Foreign-born people in the UnitH States number 13.920.692. Of those 6,493,088 are naturalised.

There are eight orders of knighthood in the British Empire, of which the highest is the Order of the Garter. There are now 55,000,000 Americans in the United States who can trace their origin to the United Kingdom. Over 1,000,000 of the 2,500,000 immigrants who entered Canada during the Fast ten years have left the country. A Soviet decree levying a duty of 300 roubles on every match-box containing 75 matches has been issued in Moscow. The Russian Government is about to

dismiss 800,000 Civil servants, according to a report of the Exchange new& agency. A water melon presented to President Harding by a Califomian grower was 30in. long and 32in, round, and weighed 761b

Canadian potatoes exported to the United States amounted to 116,249 bushels in September, and 160,536 bushels in Octobor.

Germans numbering 3610 applied for admission to Britain in the m'st nine months of 1921. All but 118 were permitted to enter.

A greyhound, sold and sent by train" from Boorowa to Muswelltown, in New South Wales, has tramped home the , ■whole 400 miles. The more prosperous regions of Prance have given a sura equivalent to about £500,000 to aid the people of the wardevastated districts. Out of the world's crude oil production of 694,854,000 barrels, in 1920, the United States produced 63.8 per cent., and Mexico 23.5 per cent. It is reported that both Spain and Frano* arc agreed on the practicality of .a tunnel nnder the Straits of Gibraltar, to join Europe to Africa. Hugo Stinnes; the German millionaire, has acquired, control of three Hungarian newspapers with monarchist leanings, according .to v a report of a Vienna paper. ' The Moscow Izvestia anaornces thia't it will receive .advertisements at thrf rate of &0.000 roubles a ]ine~-£SOOO at prewar rates, now problematically worth 3s. { The estimated production of cropi in Argentine for one year in bushels is as follows: —Wheat, 205,266,380; oats, 51,736,390; £ax seed, 34,091,822; and rvc, 1,456,579.

A decree Has been issued by the Dan•ish Minister for Agriculture removing the restriction upon the importation and exportation of sugar or of products containing sugar:

A tarantula, the giant bird-eating spider, has been found alive in Birmingham. It is supposed to have been brought from its tropical home in a consignment of bananas. German workers are to be taken to France to reconstruct part of the devastated region, says the Westminster Gazette. The French labour unions no longer oppose the plas. The steamers of the Canadian Pacific line are being equipped with cinematographs; which entertain the. passengers ' with pictures of Canadian scenery, agiv culture and. industrial life. .

British tenders for the building of two steamers for the Netherlands Company wore 20 per cent, higher than those of Continental shipyards, so British industry lost orders worth about £1,000,000. A Petrograd telegram to Reval stales • that the foreign colony there intends ,to establish an international co-operative association to supply food and other necessities to all foreigners in .the North of Russia.

Though Germany has not yet joined the League of Nations, the International Labour' Bureau has opened an office at Berlin, of which tho former German Minister for Labour, Herr Schlieke. has taken charge. Twenty years ago China had only two cotton mills, with 65,000 spindles. According t<? latest reports, her total has risen to 63 mills, with 1,422.832 spindles. British-owned mills in Shanghai have 248,756 spirdles. Three hundred and sixty-four men wera murdered in Germany within tho last two years without the murderers being punished, states Dr. Gumbel, a pacifist author, in his book, "Two Years of Murder," just published. A loan of £3,000,000 has been floated in London by the Government of. Nigeria. a British Crown colony. The proceeds of this loan will be used for the construction of railways, harbours, and other public works in the colony. Tokio reports state that the output of Japanese pottery has fallen off about 30 per cent, in Nagoya and the industry remains in a depressed state. The glass industry is in even worse condition, several, of the larger plants having practically shut down; The Armenian Governmert has handed over to the Near East Belief Committee three large barracks at Alexandropol, formerly the property of Tsarist Russia. (American relief workers in Armenia are providing for over 20,000 refugee and orphan children.

Booksellers and publishers In tJ..ft United States are setting aside one week in the year as Children's Book Week, with the idea of broadening general thought about children's reading and encouraging more intelligent and enjoyable reading among children. The United States* financial grip upon Central America grows firmer. New York bankers have offered San Salvador a loan of about £4,000,000 on condition that it is secured on customs revenues, whose receipt is to be supervised by Americans. Nicaragua and Santo Domingo are already under similar tutelage. A great discovery of Turkish stamps is reported from Constantinople, where * packet numbering 15,000 examples, of Hie earliest issues has been-found inl tie archives of the Finance Ministry, inc. 9 earlv Turkish stamps are wi- io . : ?* r a a | and'much sought after by WftgKhfg it is believed that the Sg a quantity at one Urn ynu\ anew ... stamp market.