NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 20058, 22 September 1928, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Horses have no eyebrow:;, and fishes no ; eye-lids. There aro now 521,147 boy scouts in tho British Empire. Camels and pigs aro said to be the only animals that cannot swim. There were 143,923 aliens in London when the last census was taken. The longest railway run is from Riga to Vladivostok a total of 6300 miles. The first lightning conductor was invented by a Bohemian monk in 1754. Natives of the Solomon Islands wear necklaces of beetles' legs as love tokens. Flowering plants known in the British Isles include more than 250,000 varieties. Good horsemen make tho best air pilots but expert racing motorists do not excel as airmen. A woman at Acton who returned a lost purse containing £ls to its owner, was given sixpence as a reward. One of the longest canals in the world runs from Leningrad to the frontier ox China, a distance of 4500 miles. The silence in tho Rocky Mountains is so great that the flapping of a partridg'e wings may be heard for several miles. Kings in the earliest days were merely tho " fathers of families," and the word is derived from the same source as " kin." The first paper mill in England was erected at Dartford, Kent, in 1590. It was built by Sir John Spielmann, a German. A black poplar felled at Littleton, Surrey, 116 ft. high and 36ft. in circumference, was believed to be the biggest in England A postman's pet hen at Epping walks regularly into the kitchen, turns out the cat and dog, seats itself in the armchair, and lays its egg there. A beam of light shoots through space at a speed of 186,000 miles a second, occupying eight minutes in making its trip from the sun to the earth. Starting off in a race from Worcester over two years ago, a homing pigeon returned a few weeks ago to its owner's cote in Little Drayton, Shropshire. The wettest day ever recorded happened on June 14, 1911, at Bagino, Phillippines, when .46 inches of rain fell. This is more than Auckland's average annual fall. " Pug - pups " —pick - up-glass-pick-up-paper—is the name of an organisation formed among Limpsneld children in an effort to clear the common of litter. There were 5000 fishes from all parts of the world, including the famous treeclimbing fish of tropical Africa, at the late British Aquarists Exhibition in London. " Jumping beans" are one of the curiosities of Mexico. Each contains the pupa of an insect whose spasmodic movements cause the bean to hop and roll about. Five hundred acres of moorland between Eebden Bridge and Denholme, in Yorkshire, caught fire during the recent heatwave, destroying all grazing prospects for three years to come. A holiday census taken by the London County Council shows that half of the 400,000 elder schoolchildren go away for a summer holiday, 80,000 owing their holidays to charity and 120,000 going with friends. One of the hens exhibited at a Southend poultry show had good reason to fackle. It laid two egga wniJ<s being judged and another before going home. Three eggs in one day is a record in Southend poultry circles. A vast new scheme now in progress for reclaiming land from the Zuider Zee, by means of a vast dyke, will add an area of 552,504 acres, larger than that of Leicestershire, to Holland within tho next 30 years. An increase in world shipping of 1,761,749 ions in twelve months is shown in the new Lloyd's Register. Great Britain and Ireland lead with a 566,323 tons increase, while Germany follows with 414,205 tons? " Keep a quiet heart, sit like a tortoise, walk sprightly like a pigeon, and sleep like a dog," are the rules of life of a resident of China, who claims to be 250 years old, and yet, says he has a number of friends even older than himself. Boys at Birchington, Kent, have built a - large clubroom, which contains a stage and seats 150. The work took them a year and four months. Local contractors lent them scaffolding, ladders, arid barrows, and the total cost was £315. " ' Pictures' two or three times a week, watching games instead of playing them, too fond of holidays, and does not value money, because lie gets it too easily." That is how one expert sums up the English schoolboy of to-day. The consumption of tin has increased enormously with the popularity of silk and artificial silk. Ten years ago British silk companies were using 800 tons of tin a year; now they are using 8000 tons —for weighting and dyeing purposes. A novel camera, already in use in New York, and devised by an American policeman, can be set to explode flashlight powder, take a photograph and ring a warning bell if an unauthorised person meddles with the object the camera is set to protect. All the world is mapped out on thai same scale in the new atlas being compiled, in which each nation will do its own area. Although the work was begun in 1909, it will not be completed for many years yet; it will comprise about 1920 sheets. In a recent Civil Service examination in Britain, out of over 1400 girl candidates for typists, only 360 passed,. In arithmetic scores failed to get more than ten out of a possible hundred, marks, while in English one candidate d.d not earn one mark out of a possible 300. During the three months ended May I last, 107,049 new motor vehicles wero registered, including 136,136 cars and 36,019 motor-cycles. A sum of £19,884,801 was received in payment for licences for road vehicles 'during the six months end■ng May 31. A mansion near Bradford, Yorkshire, which was formerly the residence of Sir Milton Sharp, M.P., is now a tramps' home. It was started as an experiment to try to learn how many tramps were actually genuine and how many were just ne'er-do-wells. An official investigation conducted in certain American states showed that out of 14,815 persons interviewed, all over 65 years of age, only about-25 per cent, were dependent on relations or charity, and that less than two per cent, received aid from charitable institutions. Locusts on the line were responsible for a delay of two and a-half hours to an African goods train at Gilgil, Kenya Col- ! ony. A swarm of the insects settled on tho track, and when the engine to plough through them the oil from their crushed bodies covered the metals and wheels. One exhibit at the recent British General Post Office horticultural show was a " garden," 2ft. by Ift. 2m. 3t is tho work of Mr. J. Hales, of the Inland Revenue Section, and has in it a " house" and a " gardoner's cottage," with electric lighting and a lawn of moss from the Surrey hills. Mankind only began to get civilised when people discovered tho art of agriculture, which allowed them to settle down and cultivate the arts and crafts, instead of roaming about and food. That is the theory of a J h professor, who puts the date of t i of civilisation at about 4000