NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20217, 30 March 1929, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF.

There are more than 166,G00 aliens in Loudon. Cumberland is the wettest county in England. Five million people in the United States are unable to read or write. Influenza, as a word, is derived from the Italian, and means " the influence." The first " horseless carriage" was patented in 1619 by a man named Wildgoose. Duelling still takes place in moot German Universities, although it is forbidden by law. A silkworm spins three hundred yards of fine silk around itself -when it is cine weeks old. The largest Bible in the world is a manuscript Hebrew Bible in the Vatican. It weights 3201b. Practically the only fish that pays any attention to its offspring is the popular " tiddler," or stickleback. The unemployed in Britain at the end of December numbered 1.520,700; this is 184,GC0 above last year's figure. About 6 per cent, of the coal burned in the ordinary domestic grate goes up in the chimney in the form of soot. Under the Workmen's Compensation Acts, £12.000X00 was paid out to workmen and their families in Britain during 1927. The fozhorn of a first-class lightship requires -m engine of 72 horse power to work it. It can be heard at a distance Qt 20 miles. With a growing population, Dursley, in Gloucestershire, has no unemployed. _ Its great industry is the making of agricultural machinery, A company with a capital if £1.000,000 has been organised in America to finance sales of all classes of aeroplanes on the instalment plan. When tea was first used in England it was infused in bulk and kept in barrels to be drawn like beer. It was then warmed for use. The London County Hall was to cost £850,000 when the designs were passed in 1908. By the time it is completed it will have cost at least £5,000,000The deepest canyon in the world, as well as the longest, is the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River. In places the gorge is more than a mile deep. Among articles to come under the hammer at a sale, of lost property held by the Southern Railway were 8000 umbrellas and 6000 pairs of gloves. Two giant airships, to ba, built for tha American Government, wQi be 735 ft. long, and each will carry a crew of 45 men as well as five scouting aeroplanes. There were 458,410 industrial accidents in Britain in 1927; of these the greatest number occurred among miners, compensation being paid in 205,382 mining cases.

Out of 504 samples of illicit drink tested in New York, 55 contained a dangerous poison, 70 were unfit to drink. 362 were synthetic but harmless, and only 17 were pure. Trees are larger in diameter in summer than in winter. They also vary in this respect from day to day, being larg?r from noon to twilight than from twilight to noon. It was an .Englishman, Joseph Wilson Swan, who nn 1883 took out the first patent for making artificial silk by squirt- , rug a pulp of wood and cotton through small holes. Within the eyes of ground birds are tiny periscopes, 'reflectors which enable them to observe the approach of enemies from behind, says Professor Arthur Thomson. The British Air Ministry is planning the construction of large troop transport aeroplanes, each with accommodation for fifty infantrymen with machine guns and full equipment. Roast whale has been introduced to Liverpool and seems likely to become a popular dish. It retails at frotn 3d to fid a pound. When roasted it tastes not unlike salt beef. More books were published in England last year than ?ver before. The actual number of new books and new editions was 14,399, an increase of 559 over ths figures of 1927. Although most peoplfl may know only two varieties of banana by sight, there are numerous others, the Philippine Island.; claiming 57, Malaya 13, Spain 10, and Burma eight. Man's brain attains its maximnm capacity at thirty, but a monkey's bratn reaches its greatest weight between the* ages of two and three, and after that remains stationary. At the. age. of seven girls are of f ea better than boys at writing, spelling, and arithmetic, but after that age the boys make, up for lost time and then surpass the girls in learning. Now that lifts are so efficient and chutes are prodded for carrvine letters to tne ground floor, offices on the nppor floors ot |,j.- n»w- buildings are letting as readily as those nearer tne ground. '•Out if 23 borough councils in London 15* have done no'thiDg to build new houses or launch slum schemes for the last seven years," said the Bishop of London in recent circular letter. V new world's record for continuous barrel rolling i.i an aeroplane has been set up at Lambert-St. Louis aerodrome by Dale Jackson, who made 417 rolls. Tha previous record is stated to have been 233 roils.

In the Palm House in the Botanic Gardens at Leningrad, the palms are watered, from above by a system worked by an electric motor. By means of a single switch the whole house can be watered as by a gentle rain. On the sacred island of Miyajima, in the Inland Sea of Japan, human beings are forbidden either to die or be born. This rule is made by the priests who control the island, which is sacred to threa goddesses of the Shinto faith. The Irish bogs are almost as great in extent as those of While tha latter arc from 9ft. to 2Qit. deep, the Irish variety often reaches It has been calculated that each ere of bog contains 18,231 tons of peat?tuff. Claimed to be the highest in Europe, a chimney 476 ft. high has been completed at Bitterfeld, Germany. Its weight is calculated to be 8000 tens. Previously a 463 ft. chimney at Bochum held the record for being "the highest in Europe. In opening the new nurses' home at Middlesex Hospital, built with tne neip of £200,000 given by an unknown man, the Queen placed under the foundation stone a glass vessel containing an envelope with the unknown name inside it. Statistics of voting at the last London Borough Council elections show that tne highest proportion of electors voting any metropolitan borough Woolwich (47.6 per cent.) and the bwest in Holborn, Kensington, ana Westminster (all 25.9 per cent.). Fire engines in Rochdale have <--i fitted „i.h wi ages can be sent and rece xchich it quarters while travelling. million cubic feet of gas will also bo grch duced* \