NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 20130, 15 December 1928, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Big Ben takes thirty-eight seconds to strike twelve o'clock.

Croat Britain owns half the oceangoing ships of tho world.

Tlicro are nearly 30 million molor-cars in tho world, ono for each 64 of the population.

Japan possesses fifty-ono active volcanoes, more than any other country in tho world. Tho first fabric-covered coach is now in uso between London and Bournemouth, on tho Southern railway. Tho longest ropeway in tho world is in Argentina, and during its course of 21j[ miles it rises 12,500 ft. Tho British Post Office makes a profit of three-farthings on every letter and onefartliing on every postcard posted. Nervous diseases aro much more prevalent among brain workers than among other sections of the community.

British aeroplanes aro gaining great favour abroad, ono firm alouo having sold over 200 'planes to foroign buyers. A grandmother of 73 years and her grand-daughter are among the pupils of the British lustituto of Physical Training in London.

Greater London has increased in population by nioro than 2,000,000 since 1889, when the London County Council cariio into being.

Lavender is a vegetable, according to one High Court judge; so it is not necessary to hold a pedlar's licence for selling it in the street.

In the year ending last March tho British National Debt was reduced by less than seven million pounds. It then stood at 7714 millions. As a user of telephones, France comes twenty-fifth in tho list of States; she is now below Japan, Iceland, and the Hawaiian Islands. 9 ' * Tho Mauretania recently crossed the Atlantic from Cherbourg to New York in 5 days 3 hours 17 minutes, thus establishing a new world's record. Tho population of Great Britain and Ireland at the end of last year was estimated at 48,393,000; an incrcaso of 205,000 on the previous year. Somo 2500 new motor-cars are delivered to owners every week for tho whole country in Britain, about one-fifth, of these going to London. Announcers of tho British Broadcasting Company tako singing lessons regularly to help them in producing their voices for speaking into the microphone. War pensioners in Britain number about 1,000,000. Since the Armistice, the Government has spent no less than £787,000,000 on war pensions. A woman graduate of Glasgow University, Miss Vera M. Findlav, has become Scotland's first woman minister. She is only twenty -four years of age.

No women are allowed to remain after 4.30 p.m. in the Kliyber Pass, Northern India. Even men are not permitted to travel through it after a certain hour. The. famous flagstaff in Kew Gardens, London, is 214 ft. in length. It is a pole of Douglas fir, and was presented to Kew by British Columbia twelve years ago. By talking over the telephone from London to New York for ninety-five minutes, an American visitor to the metropolis set up a new world's record. It cost him £285.

Sir George Grierson, who has made an exhaustive study of the languages and dialects of India, has reduced no fewer than 179 languages and 554 dialects to writing.

New motor vehicles to tho number of 15,100 were added to London's traffic •during 12 weeks in May, June and the beginning of July. Of these about 6000 were private cars.

Modern fashions, •which call for less sewing-cotton, and the fall from favour of embroidery and crochet-work, are having a bad effect- on the sewing-cotton industry in Britain. Girls leaving London elementary schools go mainly into factories, warehouses and shops. The proportion who take up domestic work at this age is only half of what it is in later life.

Small enough to pack away in a cigarette tin, a model railway only half-an-inch in height was recently exhibited in London. It is driven along a track of gin. gauge by an electric motor. < Last year saw a " boom " in early marriages in Britain; out of 308,370 couples who were wed, 58,000 were under 21 years of age. Twelve bridegrooms were 16 years old, while 34 brides were only 15. Four giant airships have been ordered by the United States Navy Department. They will have a cruising radius of 9000 miles, a speed of over seventy-two knots, and each will carry five aeroplanes. A woman graduate of Glasgow University, aged twenty-four, has been appointed minister of a Scottish church with 500 members. She is the only woman in Scotland in solo charge of a church. Tho girls at tho Cornish Hall End School, Essex, are learning to weave on hand-looms which aro made by the boy scholars. All this manual work is taught by the headmistress, who is an expert carpenter. The Canadian city of Winnipeg claims to have more golf courses in proportion to population than any other large city in tho world. There are twenty-three courses, which works out at one for each 12,000 inhabitants.

The problem of the supply of fresh drinking water during long aerial journeys on Zeppelins, is to bo solved by freezing tho supply into an ice block, which will be served in small fragments to the passengers. Tho question whether women, contrary to custom, should bo permitted to go into church hatless is raised by the action of tho vicar of Idle, England, in telling two hatless girls at a wedding not to ccme to church without hats in future.

Although only a few minutes separate their birth, a pair of twins in Manitoba have their birthdays in separate years. One was born just boforo midnight on December 31, and the other shortly after,midnight, and therefore on January !. One London chapel lias now been converted so that it can bo used for ordinarycinematograph performances through tho week and special " cinema services " on Sundays. It is fitted with a proscenium, a well "for tho orchestra, and u pulpit . In tho course of a football match at Bo'ness, Scotland, recently, between Bo'ness and Greenock Morton, Captain liarrv Mackay, an enthusiastic supporter of Bo'ness, was overcouio by excitement and collapsed in tho grandstand and expired. ITo was 72 years of age. Policemen havo been the victims of so many traffic accidents at night time recently at Mulhousc, Alsace-Lorraine, that tho municipality has supplied them with red " tail-lights," which they wear suspended from their bolts at the back. iiic> arc powerful lamps and aro three in number. A thief at Brighton, England, has been caught blue-handed in the act by the, uw of a chemical dye which only beha-s its presence when the liiuids which have touched it arc washed. There are few pigments which cannot be removed by the use of chemicals. Tho trouble of the thief in such cases is that ho does not know what chemical to use. The project of sending apprentices back to school in their employers' time is being kept steadilv iu view by Glasgow Education Authority, who is to erect tirades School at a cost of between £BO,OOO and £90,000. The school will be of modern typo with a flat roof, and with incstnp, laboratories and stores, rooms and reading rooms for the studenu^-.