NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20366, 21 September 1929, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Id Britain 400,000 boys and girls leavo school every year.

Every day Barnardo's Homes have to provide 24,000 meals.

British death duties have yielded over £60,000,000 in nine months.

A Bath policeman climbed a 70ft. tree and rescued a kitten which had 'been there for three days.

Letter-boxes are to bo attached to tram-way-cars and omnibdses in Birmingham to permit later posting. Tho first aeroplane made throughout in China has recently made its trial flights. It is called Cheng Kung L No fewer than 7300 corpses have been cremated in Moscow since tho opening of the crematorium in 1927. There are still fifty thousand nonies in British coal mines, about 1300 mines being now worked by ponies. A bride and bridegroom passed under an arch of milk bottles at their wedding at Busbridgo Church, Godalming. Under the British Workmen's Compensation Acts, £12,000,000 was paid out to workmen and their families in 1927.

Five new Paris streets are to be named after famous war leaders, among whom are Marshals Petain, Jofifre and Lyautey.

For shooting a great crested grebe, one of Britain's rarest and handsomest birds, a man living at Addlestone, Surrey, was fined £l.

Only two London hospitals—the Royal Free Hospital and University College Hospital—now admit women' as medical students.

The weather was so hot recently in Washington that horses collapsed in tho street and eggs wero fried on the hot pavements.

Every year tho British Post Office receives many more applications for posts as telephone operators than there are vacancies.

Up to the end of June over £1,000,000 of tho Mining Distress Fund had been spent, £BOO,OOO goitij* in providing boots and clothing.

Lord Coventry, who is ninoty-one years of age, has been a peer for eighty-six years. Ho succeeded to his title when he was five.

Jews are said to bo practically immune from tuberculosis, owing to racial immunity, more care about food, greater sobriety, and caro in childhood.

The National Children's Home, which has reached its Diamond Jubilee, has educated 20.000 orphans and has at present 4000 in its big family. The Peninsula and Oriental. Company has 324 vessels, and these during last ? year have carried 2,000,000 passengers 17,000,000 miles without mishap. Canada is immensely prosperous. Salmon fishing has the biggest boom, and the output has increased from 773.000 to 1,336,000 cases in'the past year. There are said to be about 50,000,000 mouth organs sold every year, most of them being made in Germany, where the two chief makers employ 6000 men.

The City and South London Railway was the pioneer "- frubo ' railway, and the first electric railway in Great Britain. It was opened on November 4^1890. Twenty years ago the gramophone companies produced about 700 records a. week; the number produced in an ordinary week is nowaabouti t half-a-mjlliou. A fox terrier, E ten Aristocrat, has just been sold by Mv.'Tre'd. Robson. of Carlisle, for £1250. Ihe highest price previously on record for a fox terrier' was £IOOO.

Snuff-taking is increasing in Britain, especially among workmen whose employment prevents their smoking. Tailors cutters, in particular, are heavy snufftakers.

At a recent musical " Olympiads "in Moscow there was an orchestra of 2000 bandsmen, all using brass instruments, a choir of 2500 men, and 400 dalalaika players. So much freight has beeu air-borne be-, tweeu London and Berlin recently that special " air lorries " are under construction. These planes will not carry any passengers. Man's brain attains its maximum capacity at 30. but a monkey's brain reaches its greatest weight between the ages of two and three, and after that remains stationary.

" Out of 28 borouph councils in London fifteen have, done nothing to build new houses or launch slum schemes for thi last seven years," said the Bishop of London recently. As a result.no doubt of the recent ouW cry against the destruction _of - rural amenities by unsightly hoardings, "riposting has been banned in the village s of Dfton, Warwickshire.

Southampton is a comparatively small seaport, with only four miles of quay, compared with thirty miles in London and thirty-seven miles in Liverpool; yet it is the premier passenger port of Britain. Among tho women engineers who attended a recent conference in London was one who is employed in research work on motor gears, and another who is sales manager for a large firm of tool dealers. The oldest clergyman in England, the Rev. Dcnham Rowe Norman, of Lichfield, recently passed his 101st birthday. A few vears ago Mr, Norman took part in «n impromptu danco with a tiny tot of four years.

How to uso the telephone is now one of tho subjects taught in tho schools of Lincoln. Eight telephones have been installed in the local senior schools, for practice work between one classroom and another.

Teachers of ballroom dancing have now decided that there wilkbo only one new dance introduced each year. This jear 8 novelty is the " Six Eight, consisting of a walk, chasse step, reverse turn and side step. Thirtv-fivo thousand people leave -property on the railways of Great Britain m the coarse of a year, and only 35 per cent, claim their goods. False teeth, bicycles and mail carta figure among the> " forgotten." Rain water collected at Watford, Hertfordshire, England, contains more chemical matter—i.e., sulphate—than that collooted at Westminster, proving that London air is, at times at least) purer thau 1 the air in the suburbs.

The credit of being the most intelligent dog in the world is given to Fellow, a German sheep dog, owned by an American. He is said to understand 400 words, and obeys all sorts of orders given -in quiet, conversational tones, The latest aviation novelty is a hangar one can carry in his piano's cockpit and set up wherever he lands. It provides complete shelter for an aeroplane, besides leaving adeouate space for working. When taken down the fabric shelter rolls into a compact bundle and weighs only 1101b.

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 three goddesses pf the Shinto faith, ono of the prominent religions of Japan. Words concerning sport and holidays are a stumbling-block to the .Germans, so now they are simply borrowing theta as they stand. " Week-end" _is • iW.a commonly-accepted pfcraso » » f < while the newest addition , / language is " dirt track, ljv> & . 1 which the races are, run being kuoym as • "dirt-track bah*-