NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19328, 15 May 1926, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Among British voters there are eleven men to every eight women.

The tone of a piano is best when tilt: instrument is not near a wall.

Byron's first gold watch has just been presented to his old school at Harrow.

Jhe average number of hairs on »n adult's heat! is from 129.000 to 150.000.

London's tube railways cost from £BOO.OOO to £1,000.000 a mile to construct.

Glycerine has the property, extraor dinary among liquids, of not evaporating

Ihe London General Omnibus Company's vehicles cover 801 miles of roads. London's Tube railways cost from £BOO,OOO td £1,000,000 a mile to construct.

Measles is said to occur in waves in London at intervals of rather less than two years. At Liskcard a house fell down half an hour after the occupants had removed with their furniture. Over £700.000 has been collected in various parts of the world to honour Lord Kitchener's memory.

-V Sunday survey in the city of Washington found 7000 people in church and 50,000 in the theatres.

There are now more than 5000 war memorials altogether in Great Britain and on the battlefields.

American visitors to London are estimated to spend about £20,000,000 in the metropolis each year.

Dancing is now so popular ths.t it is estimated that about 50,000 Londoners enjoy this pastime every night. Widows' war pensions granted in Britain between August, 1914, and March of last year amounted to 248.367. London telephone users are responsible for nearly half the total average number of daily calls in the United Kingdom. The famous Johns Hopkins Medical School at Baltimore has started a farm to raise monkeys for experimental work. An octogenarian cooper stated in England the other day that he had knocked nails into barrels "all day long since 1859."

Ice, harvested from a lake at Asliton-under-Lyne, is stored in underground cellars, where it keeps for six or eight months.

Jewels belonging to the public can be submitted for tests as to their genuineness to the Museum of Practical Geology in London.

One of the most regular attendants at Ilelpston Council School, Northamptonshire, is a jackdaw, which acconyjanies one of the, scholars.

The longest walk ever performed in 24 hours is 127 miles 1210 yards. The feat was accomplished a good many years ago bv a walker named Howes.

A couple, fined 5s each at Enfield, were singing in the street, the -woman having a " baby " —which proved to be only a bundle of clothes—in a perambulator.

Dental tests for candidates for the Royal Navy are pretty severe. Five missing teeth and faults in others will mean rejection in the case of boys under 17.

Exercises to gramophone music are employed at St. Thomas' Hospital, London, for improving the muscles of the feet and legs and curing such aihnents as flat feet.

The flying lemur of the Indian Archipelago, which is only about 30in. long, can leap fully 300 ft. by ihe use of the membrane connecting its limbs with each other.

Some of the best mannequins in the leading Paris dress salons are English girls, who have taken French names, just as British dancers fancy Russian stage names. 9

The motor vehicles of Great Britain have increased by 140,394 in the last year, without counting trams aad trade licenses. Motor-cycles account for 50,000 of the increase. Four blind shorthand-typists, engaged in a temporary capacity by the London County Council in 1924, have done so well that their transfer to the permanent staff is suggested. High above the River Thames, in one of tile arches of the Tower Bridge, there is a cosy flat of four rooms, occupied by a bridge official, who has to climb 86 steps to go home. The first potatoes were cultivated in the Andes, somewhere between San Diego, Chile, and Lima, Peru. Potatoes still grow wild in the mountain districts of South America.

Oranges have many claims imade for them, including those of improving the complexion, easing sore throats, soothing the nerves, helping to cure influenza, and curing insomnia.

What is known as Shetland wool is said to come principally from Hucknall. Nottinghamshire, where there are six factories employing nearly 1000 people engaged in this industry.

Among those who pleaded to be excused from serving 011 a Grand Jury at the Old Bailey recently was a middleaged raa.n, who said. " I can't, read or write —if that's any excuse." Holiday lists are being brought up to date in the British General Post Office, with the result that postmen and other employees are now receiving vacations really due to them years ago. A new violet has been discovered in China, at an altitude of 10.000 ft. _ The species was found by Mr. P.. C. Ching, after whom it has been named, while on an expedition in Western China. The price of a reel of cotton in Britain, which was 3d in 1914, rose ns high as 10d in February, 1920. In October, 1921, the price had fallen to 6d, and by a recent reduction it now stands at s|d. An ingenious machine for time recording has just been put on the market. It is an automatic door recorder, which furnishes a printed record of the time a door is opened and closed, and by whom. The greatest known depth of the sea is said to be 32,088 ft., about 40 miles north of one of the Philippine Islands. At this point the ocean bottom would be about llJr miles lower than the top of Mount Everest. Fressingland, in Suffolk, has acquired a fire engine for Is lid, the cost of a telegram and confirmatory letter. A firm in the country advertised that it had no further use* for the engine and offered to give it to the first genuine applicant. Such colours as those of verbena, rose, violet, carnation, and sweet briar are recognised in butterflies hy an English naturalist, identification by the perfume seems to be possible. The large white garden butterfly, for example, is known by the odour of lemon or balsam. A pair of ancient soldier's boots, which were found in a cupboard of a very old building in Bagshot Park, Surrey, England, weighed about 101b. each, being made of the thickest hide, lined and padded, with very thick soles, and large rowelled spurs attached by steel chains. It is a mistake to suppose that the tip of the tongue is the most, sensitive part of the body. Those engaged in polishing billiard balls, or any other substances that require a very high degree of smoothness, invariably use tho cheek-bone as their touchstone for detecting any roughness. Out of nine young men who offered themselves as recruits for the army at Aldershot in one day, three were unable to read or write. All three were stalwart, men of intelligent appearance, their ages ranging from 181 to 21 yearss. _ were stated to be of respectab e p . age, each being an only son, al ? , ' . pass-" the fifth standard, at school.