NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19833, 31 December 1927, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF.

| Motor-cars now average one for every ! 26 persons in Great Britain. ' ' In a butterfly's eye, scientists state there are SGOO different lenses and 50,000 nerves. Within the London area there are 29 poor-law infirmaries and hospitals,, with 17,479 beds. Between eighteen and twenty million British women are bobbed, shingled, or Eton-cropped. New motor-cars are expected to appear on the British roads at the rate of 3840 a week nexl year. Britain consumes about 15,000 tons of pepper, or about pen head of the popijlation, annually. There are more old people, in proportion to population, in Chelsea than in any, other London borough. ' As many as 400 different samples of tea may Be tasted in one specially busy morning by a tea-taster. The legal definition of madneiis r now generally accepted was laid down by a committee of judges in 1834. Damage amounting to about £30,000,000 annually is done to grain and other food products in Britain by mice. It is estimated that in Europe and America alone an average of 100,000 persons commit suicide every year. Domestic fires are claimed to be responsible for depositing 3,000,000 tons of solid matter on the" soil of Britain every year.NO fewer than sixteen men called in one week to see to an alteration "in the telephone of a British member of Parliament. Britain's bilk for alcoholic liquor for 1926 is estimated at £301,000,000. This year's is expected to bo about £5,000,000 Beauty culture, including face-lifting, manicure, 'and hairdressing, costs women in Britain something like £4,000,000 a week. There are three kinds of hospitals ia Britain—voluntary, municipal—which are the isolation hospitals—and poor-law infirmaries. Out of 59 ships found to be insanitary during a recent period of time, 53 were British, although most of the defects were not serious. Among America's queer trades is that of smeller of hams, professor of languages to parrots, and inventor of names for newly-designed articles. Girls of twelve years are old enough to bo manned under the British, law; but there have bear- no such marriages in that country for twelve years. Goats are perhaps the easiest of all animals to train,'according to one expert. They possess the quality of being able to imitate human actions. An organ, a century old, in the chapel and wireless are the only me&ns of musical recreation available to the 643 patients in Guy's Hospital, London. The increase in the cultivation of rubber is affecting the supply of pepper; robber plantations come 'to maturity much more quickly than pepper. First-class potatoes should, according to the British Ministry of Agriculture, have a minimum girth of l|in., and no potato should exceed 3£in." in circumference. Signal-towers for regulating traffic in London streets would, according to one expert, result' ultimately in a yearly saving of £150,000 in police salaries and other expenses.. ' Rad'io waves will penetrate 500 ft. or ,more of rock strata. This fact was dis,qovered in tests conducted by the United States Bureauf of Mines in a Colarado metal mine. , ■ Men are better provided for in London in the way of public lodging-houses than women; 91 per cent, of the accommoda- , tion is male, and only the remaining 9 per cent, female. , Tipped with a tiny disc of touch-paper, which on being struck against the prepared side •of the packet, a cigarette which lights itself has been invented by #' retired business man. By writing tha Lord's Prayer 11 2-3 times in a space the size of a threepenny bit, a member of the Ordnance Survey Office, Southampton, is believed to have ' won a world's record. After building up a good business as a ladies' hairdresser, a Cawpbelltown barber now refuses to hob- or shingle his customers. He bases his change of mind on a passage from the Scriptures. A bottle of sherry is presented to the clergyman preaching on Sunday morning in St. Paul's Cathedral, London. The custom is centuries old, and the wine is the gift of the City Corporation. Women who borrow money from one charitable institution are better at repaying thin the men; 68 per cent, of the women returned the borrowed cash as compared with 20 per cent, of the menOne of the loneliest white men in the world is a young Briton who has charge of a cocoanut-plantation on an island m the Solomon group. It takes anything up to 10 months for him to get letters from home. i The Historic Sites Board of the Canadian National Park Committee is erecting a granite shaft at Nanaimo in commemoration of the discovery of coal on Vancouver Island. It is 7£ft. high and 3ft- square at the base. The first form of telegraphy was. invented in 1836 by Charles Wheatstone, who also invented the concertina. His system of telegraphy was the "Single Needle," still in use on some of theBritish railways. , A police dog recently exhibited at Columbia University, has . learned to understand between 300 and 400 words. The animal obeyed such orders as picking a coin off a table and taking it to various persons indicated. England's oldest bridge crosses . the River Barle, near Dulverton, in Somerset. It is 180 ft. long, with an average width of sft., and is built with great slabs or stone, some of them as much as Bft* 6in. in length ' J" The growth of the British film industry is helping tho building industry. Itl is estimated that at least £10,000,00u will be spent during the next 12 months in building new picture-houses and improving those already in use. Trout can move through the water at the rate of 30 miles an hour. Sharks art) estimated to be able to travel 50 miles an hour on occasions, while the turpon, the most speedy fish of all, is able to move at the rata of 80 miles an hour. Although bedridden and living in a side street, a Portsmouth woman lias collected 161 farthings in a year for tho Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals; she saves all her farthings and asks for one from every visitor who goes to see her. A female witness in one of the Courts in Berlin who tried to freshen her appearance with lipstick and powder was severely reprimanded by the Judge, and fined for contempt of Court. Women in Court made a demonstration against the decision, but the Judge did riot relent. The total quantity of timber cut for sale on Indian reserves in Canada in the fiscal year 1926 was approximately ninety million feet board measure. In addition to this the Indians cut for their own uss about seven million feet of timber fop building and fencing purposes and twenty thousand cords of wood for fuel, besiyc-s an unreported quantity of ash, hickory, etc., for the native manuffcitfire of snowshoes, baskets, axo handler Mid similar product^