NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19412, 21 August 1926, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF.

The Straits of Dover varies in depth from 36ft. to 174 ft. Every year Britain imports fruit worth more than £48,000,000. Every penny put on the income-tax in Britain brings an additional revenue of £5,000,000. Cinema performers unemployed at Hollywood number 22,000 and there are about 200 new arrivals daily. Alsatian dogs live, on an average, to the age of sixteen years, and cost about ten shillings a week to keep. In Quebec Province there are over 3000 miles of motor roads, of which 2700 miles are in excellent order. A farthing fay beside a £I.OO banknote in a collection at the stone-laying of a church hall at Catford, London. The first quarter of 1926 had a birthrate in Britain lower than any other similar quarter except, in 1918 and 1939. A giant mushroom, weighing 310z. ( and one yard in circumference, has been grown at Ilumberstcne, Lincolnshire. Among London districts, the largest number of child offenders are to bo found in Holborn, Fins bury and Shoroditch. Passengers on an Atlantic liner, J ISO miles from New York, recently saw a Polar bear adrift on a mammoth iceberg. Mr. Charles Milner has just joined tho Sheffield police after taking (he degrees of B.A. and LL.B. at Cambridge University. For fifty-seven years, Mrs. Saunders, of Wallingford, has cut her husband's hair. Both husband and wife aro eighty years of age. After having worked for 61 years for tho Butterley Ironwork Company. Derbyshire, Mr. A. Gibson, of Ironville, has retired. The fashion for bobbed and shingled hair is said to have led to a decrease in Britain in tho number of sufferers from headache. There are three " Maiden Lanesin London, and one, at least, is said to have derived its name from a "midden 1 " or refuse heap. Parties of Scottish schoolboys under tho age of sixteen aro brought to London weekly during tho summer at a cost of £4 10s a head.

Measuring six feet in width and ten feet from front to back, a house at Conway, Carnarvonshire, is claimed as the smallest in Britain. " There are people in the House of Lords who can only uso a signet ring," said Lord Darling, discussing illiteracy in a recent law case. Sinco tho beginning of the coal stoppage tho imports of foreign coal into England have risen from 50 tons to about 200,000 tons a .week. While repairing a second-hand suit of clothes she had bought for 25s a woman at Cray's Hill. Billericay, found 800 dollar notes in tho lining. Ballet dancing is becoming so popular among children in Britain that it in replacing the old-time lessons in bnll ropm dancing and deportment. Special rubber suits, which enable a man to float upright in tho water, wore recently tested before official experts in a London swiniming-hatli. Every baby born in the City of London for nearly forty years has been registered by Miss Komm, tho registrar of births and marriages for tho City. No income-tax and no public debtu help to make thd State of Florida unique. Last year this State collected over £1,500,000 from a motor-car tax, Every purchaser of , a certain popular brand of motor-car through the London agents will in future be entitled to a series of free lectures on driving. A glass and a-half of milk, a tablespoonful of cooked oats, a sardine and a piece of toast make up tho usual meal of Mr. Edison, tho famous inventor. The charming little African parakeets known as love-birds are selling well as pets in England. Prices for tho rarer breeds riso to as much as £8 a pai^, Attached to Bow Street police station, London, is a young constable whoso father was an admiral, and whose mother has rooms in Hampton Court Palace. Two gallons of English milk are sent by air every day to some Americans staying in Paris, who believe in its purity. Tho cost works out at about 2s a pint. Cassowaries havo a tremendous powor in their logs. Those at tho London Zoo, merely by kicking, have bent and even broken tho iron railings round their enclosures.

Invented by ft blind Englishman., a typewriter has been designed to print in Chinese, using forty instead of the 14.000 letters, of which that language is composed. Of the 7500 blind persons in London, 1040 earn their own living by making mats, baskets, chairs, and by knitting. • It takes, on an average, three yearn to train one of these sightless workers. Horse-riding is again growing in popularity in Britain. One jobmaster, who owns more than forty sadiiile horsesi; in a * Kent residential district, has had them al! engaged for a considerable time past. Scales so delicate that they will weigh the writing of a few letters in pencil on a sheet of paper, and which are affected by the heat ,of the body several inches away, were recently shown in London.

Printed words are transformed into musical notes, which can be " read " by blind persons, by a new machine. The cost of it is, however, £l5O, so that only .very wealthy people can afford to buy one. Mr. John Robinson, a native of Mansfield, the oldest Oddfellow in England, has died at the great age of 105 years: He made a 20-minutc speech at an Oddfellows' Conference shortly before his death. Steel and " fabric " are replacing wood as the materials for making motor-car bodies. The second material has many advantages, including lightness, cheapness of manufacture and pleasing lack of rattling. Wood from an oak tree 3000 years old is being used in restoring the ancient parish church of Bakmvell, Derbyshire. The oak tree, when* cat down, weighed fifteen tons- and measured jeighteen "feet round tho butt. Thanks to Queen Mary's interest in toys as gifts for her young friends, the British toy industry is experiencing a " boom " in the United States, where playthings similar to those bought by her Majesty sell rapidly. Telephone subscribers in Paris are now told, "The number you ask for has been changed'; consult the telephone book," by means of a machine which is partly gramophone and partly ioud speaker. The operators switch this ingenious machine on, whe» needed, to save themselves trouble of explanations. Dr. Barnardo's Homes celebrate this year their diamond jubilee, In th*> sixfv years ,of work they have received 100,700 destitute hoys and girls and babies into their familv. It is tho largest family in the world, and it continues to grow at the rate of five new admissions every day. It to-day numbers 7636 children. When a baTtv is born in. one large .London hospital, where hundreds of '• little strangers " arrive every year, it is ticketed at once with an ordinary luggage label, beating its mother'* name and address. This is tied wynl the . infant's neck. .Within the hour, however, this label is exchanged for u tape, similarly marked, which is lustcried round wrist.