NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19061, 4 July 1925, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF.

London's prison vans cost about £l7lO to maintain. About ,one-fourth of the world's gold production goes into coinage. Of Canada's population of 9,250,000, nearly 2,200,000 are attending school. Cocoa,nuts take ten years after planting before tlicy begin to give a paying crop. The steamer Aquitiania burns 33,000 barrels of oil a day on her trans-Atlantic trips. Of the world's cotton crop, the United States of America grow more than twothirds. Dirt weighing,about fifty-four tons fell from tho sky on to the City of London last July. If anyone cuts down forest trees in Denmark he must plant an equal area with new trees. Long-logged men have tho best, brain capacity, according to the theory of an American' scientist. Smoking cars reserved for ladies are to bo run on thi express trains between Seattle and Chicago. Stockings ornamented with " clocks " that have a phosphorescent glow in a dim light are a new fad in Pu Out of every ten Bibles sold by tho British and Foreign Bible Society in 1924, roughly four were sold in China! • More than 50,000,000 acres of land in Western Canada have been opened up for settlement and cultivation since 1870. Pilot and lightship service is substituted by a new Finnish law for compulsory military service in the Aaland Islands. The site of the Mansion House, London's official residence for its Lord Mayor, was formerly a fruit and vegetable garden. Stone by stone, a church in a deserted village of Lancashire is being transported to a newer and more thriving community. In the Bow County Court an American, woman confessed that she had " probably fifteen " hats in the course of a year. Members of the Swedish Authors' Union are asking for compensation from the radio service for the broadcasting of their works. " Robinson Crusoe," the famous classic for boys, was translated into Latin nearly one hundred years ago by a French professor. An anvil, bearing the name of John Bunyan and the date 1647, has been discovered. It is believed to have been Bunyan's. Spain has at last allowed a woman barrister to plead in its Courts. The first woman to take a case there is of English descent. Earth-worms can produce musical sounds according to a German scientist. He even claims to have discovered rhythm in this strange melody. Two rams belonging to a Maryport farmer had a fierce £.uel, charging each other so violently tha£ one animal had its neck broken. Out of seven and a-half nillion families in England and Walds, nearly half contained no children at all under 16, accord--ing to the last census. There are 19,360 officers and men in tho Metropolitan Police Force, who cost something like £35,120 in medical, dental, and funeral expenses every year. When the London County Council completes its building schemes it will bo housing 250,000. Already the council has a rent-roll of £680,000 a year. " Poor Willie " is the epitaph chosen for his own tombstone by a Sheffield man who left a fortune of over £15,000. He was a dealer in human hair. Two human skeletons belonging to the Palaeolithic Age, and believed to ba more than 50,000 years old, have been discovered in a cave in the Crimea. Among the Mumbettus, a dwarf tribe of African natives, the heads of newlyborn infants are bound with grass ropes, so as to make them as long as possible. During his thirty-six years of ministry the Rev. Edgar Ball, recently appointed to a Willesden Green Church, has never asked a bride to promise to "obey.' 1 Hidden beneath the water of Lake Antrona, Switzerland, for nearly 300 years, the houses of a submerged village are once again visible, owing to the water re ceding. Miners are stated to head the list of large families, while at the ether ones of the scale come professional workers, whose families are 29 per cent- below tho average. Inmates of Maidstone Gaol can do either ninety minutes mental work or have a task in their cells, in addition to their eight hours' work in company with other prisoners. Tho number of fishermen catchine fish for consumption in-England and Wales i.s 40,000. They ply their trade from the Barents Sea right down to the Atlanticcoast of Morocco. Seals have become so numeronh around the Wash that they are said ti account for a scarcity of fir.fi. About 150 were killed there last year: but as many as 200 are reported as having, been seen together. Tho magistrates at Rochford, Essex, had a shock when four defendants and two witnesses admitted that they went they had attended school; one left only unable to read the oath. Two admitted three years ago. The first cross-word puzzle book in French has just been published. Such books are now numerous in England. In America, where the pu/.zles originated, the sale of such books is said to have , reached ten millions. Members of the Oxford University Arctic Expedition found that they could pick up tho British broadcast on a fourvalve set so clearly that they could hear the shuffle of the dancer's feet at, the Savoy Hotel, London, approximately 2000 miles away. An American engineer has completed a survey of the three largest waterfalls available for power: the Zambesi in Rhodesia, the Santa Maria in Southern Brazil, and the Parana Falls in Paraguay. He reports that Niagara easily beads the list for usable power, with Parana second. The population of the world by race is estimated as follows: Aryan, or white, 812,000.000; Mongolian, or yellow, 645.000,000; Semitic, 75,000,000; Negro and Bantu, or black, 139,000,000; Malay, and Polynesian, or brown, 40,000,000; American Indian, or red and half-breed 28,000,000. The importation of Shetland por.ies from the United States, and the closing of so many collieries, have grattly affected values of Shetlanders. The animals are making £lO each less than they wero a year ago. There is a growing craze for piehald ponies, which are scarce, and these are readily purchased at enhanced prices. Britain's Unknown Warrior, whos« grave is in Westminster Abbey, rests on earth brought from the battlefields of Franco; now an urn of earth from the Italian battlefields has placed on the Unknown Warrior's grave in Rome. In the presence of tho King the urn was confided to the care of war veterans fielding Italy's highest war decoration, the Gold Medal. In tho United States thirty-six broad- ( casting stations are owned and by religious bodies, including Baptuja, Catholics, Methodists, &'ent Mormons, and Presbyterians. Now the members of a new sect have applied a licence for a big station. p-.ni,. " > what are known as " Flat g t ' who believe that the earth is as flat a* a pancake. I 1