NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19798, 19 November 1927, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Wireless is taught 111 100 London County Council schools. Milan is claimed to have set the fashions prior to Paris. Honco the name "milliner."

In Deptford, London, there are 3COO houses condemned as unfit for human habitation.

The British birth-rate last year was. the lowest since 1860, except for that of 1918, a War year.

A person with normal hearing should be able to distinguish the ticking of a watch five feet away. The purple finch is not purple but is a rich rosy red. The female is streaked with grey and olive brown. A five-valve portable set, with loudspeaker, is at the disposal of travellers in a motor-coach in Monmouthshire.

Laughter in excess may lead to a disease which causes the patient to remain in a cataleptic state for a short period. The Coronation Spoon, in the Tower of London, is believed to be the oldest English silver spoon still existing. A greyhound racing track in which the hare will take hurdles and water jumps is to be opened at Southampton.

Oak trees take so long in attaining profitable size that it is not considered a business proposition to grow them. The black python or dormidora—snoring snake—-so called by the natives —when breathing makes' a loud snoring sound. A man suing his employer at Eastbourne for wages in lieu of notice admitted that he had had 288 situations since 1913.

The largest halibut efer landed at any West Coast fishing port was brought to Fleetwood recently. It weighed 3291b. /

At a depth of a mile the ocean bed is well illuminated by the luminous organs of the fish living there, according to one scientist.

Card-.indices are replacing the famous shipping; ledgers at Lloyd's Exchange, London. The ledgers measure 2ft. 6in. by Ift. 9m.

Less beer is being drunk in Great Britain, the decrease in the year ended last June being 4 per cent, compared with the previous twelve years. A motor-driven " seasick chair" which reproduces the roll and pitch of a ship is used in France to test applicants £(>• naval and merchant.marine posts. The Death's Head moth, common in England until about thirty years ago, but now very rare, emits squeaks almost as loud as those of a mouse.

There is now more than one doctor to every thousand of population in Britain and Ireland. Only America, with one doctor to every 753, beats this figure. In the New English Dictionary, which after fifty-three years of Vork is nearing completion, fifty-two columns of references are.devoted to the word "put." Artificial heating of the ocean is to be tried at Westerland, Germany, to provide bathing all the year round. Hugo electric heaters will raise the water's temperature.

As it is of no use for church purposes, the crypt of a church in Gray's Inn Road, London, is let as a fruit store. Before that it was a book store, and a wine cellar.

It costs Britain £6O a year to educate a blind child; a physically normal child costs £l6 at an elementary school, £27 at a central school, and £4l at a secondary school. Mr. L. Davy, an Islington licensed victualler, lately received a picture postcard, sent to him by his brother on September 12, 1908. The writer has been dead for fifteen years. Scientific workers live to a good old age, on an average. This is supposed to be because they know how to take proper care of their physical systems' and usually lead quiet, even lives.

Although there are 42,000 pay accounts fewer to handle now than in 1913, the Accountant-General's Department at the British Admiralty has grown from 347 in 1917 to 610 to-day. Fitted with sleeping accommodation for four people, a new luxury aeroplane has been built for a Belgian millionaire. There is also a toilet room complete with wash-basins and mirrors.

A peacock is unable to distinguish one colour from another. It is said that birds thai fly by day 6ee everything a bright reddish orahge. - Night birds, however, see blue and violet. There are more than 207 people in America who pay tax on net incomes of over £300,000. Of these,. 96 are in New York. Three women reported incomes of from £600,000 to £BOO,OOO each. There are just over 48,000 inspectors employed by the British Government, which works out at more than one for every thousand of th 6 population. They cost more than £12,000,000 a year.

Over 20 languages are spoken in the diocese under the Bishop of Fulham; it spreads over North and Central Europe from the English* Channel to Moscow, and from North Italy to the North Pole.

A new wireless tower is to be built in Berlin. When completed it will be twice the height of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, and the light on the top of the tower will be visible for one hundred miles.

An inmate of Runcorn workhouse, who possesses £2OOO, has been permitted to stay as a paying guest for 25s a week. The man has no relatives and says he is glad of the company in the workhouse. Seagulls' eggs, similar in size and shape to hens' eggs, but dull sea-green in colour, with brown splashes, are imported to England in small quantities from Denmark. They find a ready sale among hotels and restaurants.

There are 300,000 Jews in Britain, but only one Jewish theatre, and that is in London. New York has a Jewish population of 1/250,000, who are catered for by fourteen Jewish theatres and eight Jewish music-halls.

Budgerigars, the prettily coloured "lovebirds" so long popular in England, are now having a "boom" in Japan, with the result that pairs which sold for £5 or so a year ago have fetched as much as> £240 apiece. A boy living at Headley, Hampshire, saw a falcon swoop down on a young •rabbit at play in a field. The bird had not risen far before a stone from the boy hit it and caused it to drop its prey. The boy secured the rabbit and took it home.

Articles made from stone, bone, and ivory, including a beautifully carved little effigy of a Polar bear, and all believed to have been made by Eskimos of 1000 years ago, have recently been discovered on Mill Island, in the Hudson Strait.

What is believed to be the first aerial season ticket has just been issued by the Royal Dutch Air Lines. It was bought by Mr. dee Heer, a stamp dealer of Amsterdam, and is available for twentyfive return journeys between that town and London.

A light ray with a beam of 1,380,000 candle-power, which is visible for a distance of 250 miles, has been installed at Charlottesville, Virginia, to guide pilots of air mails. If the light were shining towards a man "St a distance o 50 miles he could read a newspaper \y ' • A scheme is under consideration for heating the whole of Keyknmk the capital of Iceland, by water derived f,om subterranean "hot springs. 1 said to be twenty-nine vdMHOes on island, r eluding die h h ; temperature of .t an accessible depth.