NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19298, 10 April 1926, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF.

The Swansea Corporation has voted £SO to restock the local reservoir with 3000 trout. More than 1,800,000 people, who paid over £75,000 for tickets, visited the London Zoo last year. Sixteen people were lately found to be living in one small coUage in a Vl '" lake near Market Drayton. An Uxbridge resident, who has secured ■ the tenancy of a bouse after a very long wait, has named it Atlast. The area planted with sugar beet in England' and Wales increased last year from 22,600 to 56,200 acres. A French astronomer estimates that the stars surrounding the earth number approximately 35,000 millions. Seven thousand square miles of hitherto unexplored territory have just been added to the map of Alaska. Rubber mats provided for policemen on point duty in Birmingham have greatly reduced liability to chills and colds. The Great Seal of Ireland, a massive piece of silver weighing 2000z., has been placed in the National Museum in Dublin. Just under a million and a-half acres were sown with wheat last year in England and Wales, the lowest figure recorded since 1904. Tim Number Two, thfl money-box dog at London Road Station, Manchester, has just died after having collected £7O a year of ten years. Bangor and Holyhead have celebrated the centenary of the Menai suspension bridge. The bridge was opened by the Duke of' Wellington. A Great Western Railway signalman of 48 years of age, has just obtained the B.Sc. degree of London University after three years of study. Inspector Crack told the Hull stipendiary that foreign seamen visiting ports and aspiring to speak English always learned bad language first. A request that its orders shall be put into plain English has been sent to the British Ministry of Agriculture by the p revvkerne Farmers' Union. A small organ built, for George 111. in 1760 has been presented to Eton College by Mr. William Wyndham, of Orchard Wyndham,- Somerset. A young swan, striking two overhead electric wires while flying, caused a short circuit and stopped work at a Nottinghamshire colliery for half an hour. The Finland Government is proposing a pension for every convict who receives incurable injuries while in prison, and in case of his death his family will benefit. • A diver on the bottom of the North Sea off Heligoland recently broadcasted his impressions to distant hearers. The transmission was heard plainly at Hamburg. Through the opening of the highpower wireless station at Rugby it is now possible to send a message to any large ship, anywhere in the world, for Is 6d. Wreaths in the shape of horses' heads, collars, shoes, and whip and cart wheels were laid on the grave of a Doncaster horse dealer at a funeral at Doncaster Cemetery. An earl's son, trying to beat a bricklayer, has laid a' thousand bricks in England in a day-—far more than bricklayers lay to-day, but not more than in pre-war days. Apparently disappointed at finding that an offertory box in All Saints' Church, Rotherhithe, contained no money, thieves defaced the woodwork of the organ and tore away parts of the instrument. A lady of Montgomeryshire some years ago offered £50.000 to the Presbyterian churches of Wales if they would . raise another £50,000. They have now 1 done so, and the lady has kept h<y word. While they looked at a photograph thrown on a screen, representing the heart-beat of a patient, 1500 doctors recently'listened to a physician's diagnosis coming over 1000 miles of telephone wires. Although January 28 was the 120 th anniversary of street lighting at Bradford, the city still lights its 17,000 street lamps with matches. The lamplighter climbs a ladder and strikes a match at each lamp.* Romain Rolland, the famous French author, was presented with a volume of memorial letters by readers all over the world when he cefebrated his 60tB "birthday recently. He now lives in Switzerland. Morecambe, the Lancashire seaside resort, is at last to scrap what is believed to be the last horse tramway system in England. Two-decked and singledecked motor-omnibuses will in future be used. Over 500 tons of old tin cans have been collected and sold to British firms by the Huddersfield Corporation during the past two years. In this way about £825 has been collected for the town s rates. The British Co-operative Holidays Association has passed a resolution urging upon local authorities the desirability of passing by-laws making the scattering o jitter in "public parks and open spaces a punishable offence. As a Hull woman named Annie Kingston was going on an errand carrying a jug she fell and the jug was broken. One of her arms was severe!v a vta! artery beinc severed, and she bled to death on I the way to the Royal Infirmary. By the death of.Sir Thomas O'Connor Moore in Cork one of the oldest baronetcies in Ireland becomes extinct. bir Thomas was the eleventh holder of th«» title, which was created in lt>Bl. He died in poor circumstances at the age of 83. The Camberwell Public Service Committeo has forbidden the placing of wreaths with glass coverings in the ceme- ■ terv, and is removing any now there, as many have become broken. Accidents to men cutting the grass have resulted. Policemen controlling traffic in Birminchain have been supplied with rubber mats to ensure them from cold and damp, and to help them resist colds and influenza. Since these mats have been used colds have become much fewer. The death has occurred at Minkstoncombc, near Bath, of Mrs. Bright, widow of Mr. John Albert Bright, eldest son of John Bright.. She was 64. Her husband, who died a year ago, formerly represented Central Birmingham and Oldham in Parliament. A new oil electric train, which was tested recently by the Canadian National Railways, ran from Montreal to Vancouver a distance of 293/ miles, in less than three days. The actual running time was 67 hours, and the average speed 43£ miles an hour. The death took place a few weeks ago at Lumley, Sierra Leone, of Mrs. Sally A. Colo, at the remarkable but wellauthenticated age of 115 years. She had thirteen children, thirty grandchildren, thirty-five great-grandchildren and five great-great-grandchildren. A machine has been invented for limbering up the muscles of pianists' fingers. The natural tendency' is for all the fingers to work together. To counteract this, an apparatus has been devised that makes every finger move separately. Five minutes of machine exercise, the inventor claims, is equal to half an hour of technique practice. Two semi-circular flasks, a foot ,^ ee ? and about an inch thick, were Ponced in Glasgow Eastern Police Court; wh® James Eraser was fined £4O s i( Jg liquor without a licence. f om){ ] stated that the flasks, which ns t0 in Fraser's- house, were rn fitfcin g fasten round the . Sw could haW closely to the con. 10s gllk of wbiskj