NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18577, 8 December 1923, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF.

j London's rateable value is £49,229.617. Water pipes of lead' were first made in 18J9. , Bombshells were first made in Holland in 1495. Boiled parrpt is considered a luxury by certain Mexicans. The Icelander believes that whistling is as sinful as profanity. There are 62 miles of tunnels in ifco fortified rock of Gibraltar. Chrysanthemums were first taken to Europe from China, in 1790. Gold and silver coins have been in use for nearly three thousand years. A polite Chinaman considers it a breach of etiquette to wear spectacles in comi pany. ! The material of which meerschaum pipes are made is used in Spain as a building stone. ! Many plants protect themselves from abnormal sunshine by growing thicker I leaves. | One-sixth of the people of Great i Britain live within 15 miles of Charing I Cross, London. In proportion to its weight, the wing of a bird is 20 times stronger than the arm of a man. | ©ripples are seldom sech in China. ! When a deformed child is born, it is at ! once put to death. | The shipyards of Great Britain, all i working together, could turn out a large steamship every day. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, there were over 300 different lib. weight standards in use. An 1847 penny vermilion Mauritius stamp was recently sold in Paris for 122,000 francs (about £1770). It is said to have been proved that the farms in the neighbourhood of Pretoria are rich in coal, copper, gold, and diamonds. The-total population of Alaska, with an area of 590,884 square miles, is less than that of a town like Barrow-in-Furness, ! England. In view of the popularity of the sheath dress, English women who aspire to be considered well dressed aro cutting down their rations. Telegrams connected with horseracing represent nearly 17 per cent, of the whole telegraphic traffic of the year in Great Britain. Canada has forests which, at the present rate of consumption of timber for paper, would supply tho world with paper pulp for 840 years to come. . There is a Hebrew Bible in the library, of the Vatican for which £20,600 - has' been refused. It is probably the most valuable book in the world. By means of an electric motor, dry air is now pumped into hayricks to dry the hay and prevent fermentation or combustion setting up through damp. The trap-door spider constructs a trapdoor which closes by gravitation, the edge being specially weight ad to close the door automatically when r,Le spider goes in or out. ■" '>■ . . It is probable that the Nile has & greater variety of fish than any other river in the world. An expedition sent bv tho British Museum brought back 9000 spsbimens. The Order of the Thistle is the smallest of the four great orders of knighthood in point of numbers. It consists of the Sovereign, British , princes, and sixteen ' knights* i

. There -were many curious ways of paying rent in England a -on® period. Chaplets iof rosea, peppercorn?, ginger, fur gloves, were all common offerings in lieu 'of money. ■ ' • • ; Among the Burmese, football is as popular as it is in English-speaking conntries. But the Barman tscorns to wear boots. He kicks and ijjiflota goals with his bare, feet. ' - V.. .. .. • '; The record for the heaviest fall of rain in Britain probably belongs to the Kensington district of London, where four and a-half . inches fell in two hours, on June 16, 1917. ' ' It is understood that the structural . alterations at Buckingham Palace include the provision of an entirely separate pud independent "apartment'' Jor the Dnko and Duchess of York. V /■ There is an influential movement in Britain to start an agncul -.irtl party on the lines of those which now form such a prominent feature in American, Canadian, and Australian politics. - „ One divorce is granted every .four minutes in the United States. There is one divorce for every nine marriages, and the number of decrees ia . increasing three times as fast ,as the population. . » What is called the "vegetable boa constrictor," a species of climber which, it id said by . romancers, twines about great trees so tightly as to strangle them to death, has been discovered in India. v.,,,, . During 1922, there were 97.986*- accidents in the factories and workshops'of Great Britain, and of i these 843 '-were fatal. The figures show an increase 'of 5421 over those of the previous year. The St. John, New Brunswick, dry dock is now an accomplished work and was officially opened on October 29. It is the largest dry dock in North America and capable of accommodating the largest ship in the British Navy. A man's greatest height is reached between the ages of 28 and 30. Different statistics give slightly different figures, but the following seem to be about tke —Englishmen and Scotsmen, 67.4 inches; Irishmen. 67 inches. The Shansi (China) coalfields cover an area of 14,,000 square miles, and contain, it is estimated, more than 600,000.000,000 tons of anthracite— to suffice for the wants of the world at the present rate of consumption for over 2000 years. The output of salt from all source* in Canada daring 1922 totalled 183.438 tons,of whi>lF quantity approximately 09 per cent., or 181,794' tons, was marketed. Compared with the sales of the previous year, the 1922 records show an increase of 10,811 tons. The Province of Quebec received 10,917 immigrants in the course of the summer. Divided bv nationalities, the immigrants were classified as follows: English, 2538; French, 118; Irish, 672; Scotch, 1936; Belgians, 71; United States, 2890; other countries, 2692. The United States of America, it is estimated, now holds 45 per cent, of the . world's total of gold money. Of the remainder, the British Empire holds about 12£ per cent. France 11 per cent.; Jap&a 6 per cent. Spain, 5 per cent; and Germany and Holland, about 2£ per cent. each, , Over 14,000.000 bushels of grain were shipped to Montreal via the Lach : Canal in September. This figure is slightly, above that for the same month last year, when the record grain ru3h was at its height, the respective totals being 14,317,422 bushels for September, 1923, against 14,013,958 for September, 1922. At the present rate of exchange, the salary of the United States President ia about £18,000 per annum. He is allowed a yearly travel fund of £5000, and lives rent free at the White House, his official residence. He also has a yacht for his private use, which is maintained by the i State, and three motor-cars in addition. Statistics issued by the Provincial Automobile Bureau covering the first seven months of the automobile year, which opens on March 1, shows that there has been a still further increase in the number of cars in the Province of Quebec. > For the whole province the figures are as follow:—Touring cars, 66,728; trucks, 8551; auto buses, 240; motor-cycles, 1585 i j total, 74,801. Last year there WW > total of 60,940 cars registered m mm J**" i™"*' •. £ r'il