NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19221, 9 January 1926, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF.

In demolishing Lathom Hall, Lanea shire, sixteen explosions were necessary.

Bicycles are so popular in France that there is one for seven persons of the population.

Records of the rainfall in the British Isles are now taken at 5000 different places.

Canada has no fewer than twonty-thrcc universities, six of them being State-con-trolled.

Gibraltar has 110 public debt, no tramway, 110 railway, and no land capable of cultivation.

Of the population of the British Empire in 1921, only about one-seventh is of European descent. During 1924 the London Fire Brigade attended 4819 fires. This was eighteen fewer than in 1923.

St. Dunstan's has provided the fust blind student to win a Rhodes Scholarship at Oxford University,

Foxes were so numerous in East- Kent last yea r that they have been soon in broad daylight in the lanes. Each copy of the London Telephone Directory contains 1200 pages, and weighs nearly four and a-half pounds. During the Prince of \Ta;es' voyage on board the Repulse over 1,300,000 cigarettes were sold in the ship's canteen. Championship lawn-tennis was recently played by artificial light for the first time at Queen's Club, London.

Every year two and a-half million tons of silt and mud have to be cleared away to keep tho Port of London open. Constructing all the woodwork himself, including tho doors and windows, a blind ox-soldier has just built his own house. Mr. A. M. Cast, of Deptford, is to have a telephone on his coffee-stall. This will bo the first London stall "on tho 'phone." Two aeroplanes now make a special ascent every day at Duxford, Cambrideshire, for the purpose of reporting tho weather. Although only thirteen months old, Roland Wildash recently crossed thd Atlantic from Canada to rejoin his parents in England.

Script writing is condemned by the Lowton (Lancashire) Education Committee as being too slow for modern business methods.

Every dish, from hors d'aouvres to dessert, including the ices, served at a dinner in a London hotel recently, came from Canada.

Even in tho event of a prolonged summer drought lasting threo months, London now has sufficient stores of water always in hand. From foundations to roof, a bungalow has been built by a betrothed couple in Essex. The bridegroom even made most of tho furniture.

One of the first causes of British overseas trade is said to have boon tho exchange of native wool for herrings caught in tho Baltic Sea.

Wireless sots are under a temporary ban of the Venezuelan Government. It is claimed that listening-in interferes with tho work of tho nation.

Of the "Big Bertha" tvpo of gun, which was used to bombard Paris in tho Great War, seven were made, but only threo were actually fired. Carcases of mutton to the number of 3,500,000 can bo storod in London nowadays. Forty years ago there was accommodation for, only about 500. Of the enormous quantities of herrimrs caught off tho English coasts, only fivo per cent, is consumed at home. Tho remainder is exported to various countries. One oyster will produco as many as one million new ones in a year, but of these more than ninety-nine per cent., from various causes, perish in infancy. "Willow-wood used in making cricketbats is of two kinds," says a veteran batmaker. " The male wood wears .well, but the female wood has better drivingpower." »

During the twelve months ended last August, 140,000 houses were built in England and Wales. Altogether, 400,000 houses of all types have been built since the war.

Blind ex-soldiers who have been through St. Dunstan's are now working as sales manager, correspondence) manager, chartered accountant, coal merchant, barrister, and hotel proprietor. Within the next ten years the motorcars in Britain are expected by Sir Henry P. Maybury, Director-General of Roads, to increase till there will bo one car to every twenty of the population. The food value of dried and evaporated milk is quite different from that of fresh cows' milk. The dried milk appears to approach fresh milk more nearly in quality than does the evaporated. At the beginning of the can-manufactur-ing business in America, tho work was done by hand and 60 wero considered a good day's work for one man. , Now a largo factory can turn out 9,000,000 a week.

An electrical safety device, which not only warns a train driver of an obstruction ahead, but automatically pulls tho train up if the driver is incapacitated from any cause, has been invented in America. . .

An accumulator small enough to be carried in the waistcoat pocket, and ycfc with sufficient power to drive a motorcar for ten days, has been invented by a. Russian scientist. As yet it is only in the experimental stage. Just a tiny particle of dust, hardly as large as a pinhead, is blamed for a recent railroad wreck in Europe. The engineer of an express train, it is said, was temporarily blinded when dirt lodged in bis eye, and he failed to see stop signals.

As a guide .to investors, the London County Council has suggested to the Institute of Patentees that two subjects needing attention are a cheap form of non-splintering glass, and tram rails that will stand the weight, speed, and braking of modern rolling stock. A Danish schooner recently arrived at Aberdeen with a meteoric stone found in Greenland. It weighs about seven tons. The find was made in 1918, when it was lying on the edge of a rock about 400 ft. high. It is the third largest meteoric stone known, and is worth £IO,OOO.

The earliest military hook in the War Office library is dated 1573. It is entitled : Certayne Waves for the Ordering of Souldiers in Battleray, and Setting of Battayles, after Divers Fashions, with Their Maner of Marching; and also Figures of Certayno Newe Plattes for Fortification of Town, etc." For the past two years the night staff at Brandamore Station (United States) have been hearing European wireless programmes by listening at one of the ordinary railway telephones. Apart from the five-mile stretch of wire acting as an aerial, and an ordinary telephone receiver, there is nothing wireless about, the equipment. La Marguerite, once famous as a crossChannel steamer, and later for her war service, is in the hands of the shinbreakers. The first troops she carried across the channel, in March, 1915, wore the 6th City of London Rifles, and this regiment now possesses, by way of souvenir, the ship's bell of this historic steamer. In an address on the subject of spirit guardianship, the Rev. G. Vale Owe told a story of John Wesley, who, having in his possession a sum of monej, waA waylaid by thieves, whoso intentions w frustrated by their pereeiving.asty thought, that he was accompanied Dy horsemen, presumably bw ng * A who had assumed human torau .