NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18879, 29 November 1924, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF.

A turban requires from t«a to fourteen yards of cloth.

An international society of women doctors has been formed at Geneva.

Life insurance statistics show that college women have a death rate of 2.77 to each 1000.

Seventeen vessels, aggregating 44,772 tons, were iaunched on the Clyde during September.

The Hull City Council has rescinded a resolution to purchase 1500 tons of Germanmade tram rails.

A diamond of exceptional value has been found in a fowl by a French farmer near St. Etienne. When first introduced into England, sugar was used only for making medicines more pleasant to the taste. A porpoise weighing about 350 pounds was recently landed at Brighton and deposited in the aquarium (here. The family of Mr. C. Bowles, of Sujibury, Middlesex, have been chimney sweeps in the villaga since 1700.

It is claimed that of the 100,000 cripples in Britain to-day, could have been strong and whole if treated in time.

Half a million people arrive in London every morning from north of the Thames, and 300,000 from the south of the river. The White Star liner Olympic recontly crossed the Atlantic for the hundredth time. She has steamed over 850,000 miles.

Captain William Cardell, of Southam, Warwickshire, Fire Brigade, who has celebrated his 82nd birthday, still attends all fires.

After an appeal from the vicar at St. Faith's Church, Lincoln, the collection Lag was found to contain a lady's gold watch.

Experiments are being made with aluminium wheels for buses in London. Some have already done 30,000 miles of, service.

A team of four girls recently beat a team of men in the annual competition for the Goulding Life-saving Shield at Grimsby.

Over a million people have visited the Queen's Doll's House at Wemblev, and over £25,000 has been thus raised for charities.

A fishmonger summoned for his rates at Rochester said that business was so bad that to pay_tho last rate he had to sell his false teeth.

There have now been about a million licenses issued in Britain this year for wireless receiving sets, compared with 180,000 a year ago.

The knowledge of a doctor of 300 years ago compared with to-day, says a professor, is like the knowledge a savage would have of a motor-car.

Horse chestnuts have been used as food for horses, sheep and goats, and in France some factories have been established to make starch from them. It was stated at the launch, at Glasgow, of a new Canadian Pacific liner that in 25 years the company had spent £22,000,000 on the Clyde.

In 1808 there was a circular railway in London in what is now Euston Square. Admission to the closed area was Is, including a ride as passenger.

A means of welding small diamonds together into one big stone is said to have been discovered. The joints cannot be detected with the naked eye. When Albert Bowman, a Deptford gipsy, was fined for keeping dogs without licenses, it was stated that one of them was a performing dog with six legs. An English railway company has pointed out to its workers that if every station and depot used one foolscap sheet less a day £500 a year,would be saved.

Certificates for ambulance work have been presented to 56 London girb employed by the London, Midland and Scottish Railway. Most ,of the girls are clerks.

It was reported to the Arclid (Cheshire) Rural Council lately, lihat at Church Lawton a family of 12 were living in a room formerly used as a shelter for canal boatmen.

A postman at Glenkindie, Aberdeenshire, who has retired after 35 years' service, has covered about 166,000- miles in one of the most mountainous areas in Scotland.

The nearest known star to the earth is Alpha Centauri, 4i light years away. A train travelling at sixty miles an hour would take about fifty million years to reach it.

A man of 78 who has tot seen his wife or grown-up family for o) years and does not know whether they are alive or dead, has been granted relief by the Amphill Guardians.

The swans on the moat surrounding the Bishop's Palace at Wells are famed for their sagacity in pulling a string which rings a bell and upsets a receptacle containing food.

In memory of the 140 British librarians who fell in the war, an oak screen with their names inscribed has been placed at the entrance to the British Museum reading room. A labourer; giving evidence at Bamber Bridge Police Court, said: "lam at present a rag gatherer, and at this trade fortunes are to be made. I have earned as much as £60 a I week." A recent discovery by, a Norwegian chemist makes lit possible i to remove the disagreeable taste from cod-liver oil and thereby render it suitable for use in a variety of food products. An interchange of correspondence between school children in England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland and those in America is being initiated by American educational organisations.

Olney, Buckinghamshire, has been served with a demand note by the Ouse Drainage Board assessing the liability of the parish at three farthings. The area is rather more than 13 acres.

In a recent wild flower competition among schoolgirls at Carlton County School, Bedfordshire, ore girl, Doris Smith, aged 11, gathered 182 different kinds and named them correctly. After the foreman of a jury had been sworn in at Merioneth, Wales, the Court was informed that he could not speak a word of English. He was discharged from any more duties in the Court. The first passenger locomotive in the world is to be removed from Wembley at the close of the Empire Exhibition and sent to York, where it will be on show for a time for railwaymen's charities.

The Rev. William Waitkin, of Liberton, Edinburgh, who retired 30 years ago from the ministry of the Free Chu/ch of Scotland, celebrated his 100 th birthday on September 26. He enjoys good health.

A Manchester policeman lost an eye in stamping out a firework lighted in the street by a youth, who was fined £1. The police reported that several dangerous forms of fireworks were on tho market In many parts of the world, such as Japan and China, and even in some parts of France and southern Europe, the octopus is used as food. The cuttle-bone is pounded up and used for polishing jewellery.

The Japanese Government is having a survey made of the slopes of Japan s famous mountain, Fujiyama, with a view to giving permission for the bu Idin<r of a cable railway to its summit. Fujiyama is over 12,000 ft. high. The salute of guns fired for the King is said to have originated in the idea that the peaceable visit of a king rendered it unnecessary for guns to be kept <&?JSf d * wd so they were fired off u« evidence of good faith and trust. The veloped, arid the number of guns£ fired varied according to the importance of the person saluted. A.