NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20508, 8 March 1930, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF.

There arc 900,000 Londoners who live more than two in a room. Since 1920, £57,000,000 has been spent on new roads in Great Britain. Tho Swedish State railways have bought 297,250 tons of British coal. Two hundred and fifty million foreign bricks are imported into Britain every, year. ; Among the Port of London pilots are 195 who earned more than £IOOO a piece last year. Rubber is now being produced from the guayule bush, which grows wild in great quantities in Mexico. Most of Great, Britain's bacon comes from Denmark, with the Irish Free Statu and Canada next on the list. The average ago of the members of tliei present House of Commons is' well below; 50. It was 52 in the last Parliament. British lifeboatmen have saved. 62,059 lives to date since the Royal National Lifeboat Institution was founded in 1824., The London County Council employs a total staff of 55,951, which includes 21,683 women. There aro 3311 ex-Service men. Nearly 110,000 passengers—a record—■ were carried by tho Southern Railway to Epsom races last year—nearly 20,000 mora than in 1928. Complaint is made that the staiued glass windows of York Minster are affected by smoke fumes from Leeds, 20 miles distant. Tho Victoria Tower in the House of Lords is 336 ft. high, the Clock Tower of tho House of Commons being 16ft.* less in height. Groat Britain has fewer horses now than in 1927. With the exception ot pigs, the store of live stock shows a . general decline. It is proposed to form a British School of Archaeology in Iraq in memory of Miss Gertrude Bell, who left £6OOO toward:) its foundation. This power capacity of the Passenger Air Fleet of Europe, which comprises some 730 plah.es, corresponds to that of 16 large ocean-going liners. t . Now York's negro population has increased four times as rapidly as the white during the last 10 years. There are now more than 250,000 negroes in the city. A Royal decree has been published in Spain making obligatory the possession of an international motor. licence in the case ; of all foreign motorists entering Spain by car. Rum is losing its popularity in the British Navy, an ever-increasing number of sailors preferring to commute the daily "tot," which is an eighth of a pint, for 4 the Hum of 3d. Trains which carry exhibits and demonsitrators to promote health and sanitation and impart agricultural knowledgo are now being ran on practically all tho railways in India. Tie results of a recent investigation by a British research laboratory indicate that what is known as the common cold may be any one of at least 100 different , kinds of infections. In the United States and its possessions there are roads totalling 3,019,035 miles, which is 13,000 more than those in practically all the 'rest of the world, excluding the Americas. Gramophone records of the voices of famous French singers, actors, statesmen, and other public people stored away in a museum in Paris. The--collection was begun 18 years ago. , Out of every hundred applicants to join. the British army, only about 16 pass the medical examination, the most frequent causes of failure being bad sight, faulty teeth, and fiat feet. The death roll on the British railways for 1928 was 460 persons, an increase of 25 on the previous year; but the number .of persons injured was smaller in 1928 than in 19217. Poultry farming is increasing so rapidly in Norway that that country is now exporting thousands of hundredweights of eggs every year, whereas ' 25,00cwt. of eggs were imported in 1925. Wireless telephone calls to the liner Leviathan when at sea are now possible, from America land stations, the charge for New York calls is 28s. a minute, with a minimum of three minutes. In a certain postal area in the Midlands, England, where over 100,000 packets are posted every day, about 600 cannot be delivered owing to their being carelessly or insufficiently addressed. Snakes are growing in popularity as pets in the West End of Lopdon; they range from grass snakes at ar&hililng or so each to larger and more uncommon varieties at several pounds each. Average cast earnings of all wageearners in the mining industry in Britain for the last three years show a big variation. In the year ended September 30, 1925, the figure was £132 2s sc].; in 1928, £ll3 19s 5.; and in 1929, £ll7 4s 3d. A new method of catering whales 1 provides for a metal line attached to the harpoon and whale ship, through which, when the harpoon embeds itself in the quarry, a strong electric current is passed, thus immediately electf'ocuting the whale. The custom of throwing dice for . Bibles, annually observed under the will, dated 1778, of Dr Robert Wilde, of St. Ives, Huiits, England, took place recently. The cost of the Bibles is defrayed from the rent of an orchard known as'" Bible Orchard.!' - / Among the foods used for the animals at the London Zoo, whose yearly bill for foodstuffs amounts to £15.000. are the following items: —Bananas, 187,000; hay, 144 tons; grapes, 3 tons; milk, 10,000 gallons; mealworms, 3101bs; eggs, 26,000; end 126 tons of clover. « " . To celebrate the, inaugurating of the first 'complete radio-telegraph circuit between London and San Francisco without relay over a wire line system, greetings were exchanged between the Lord Mayor of London and Mr. James Rolph, Mayor of San Francisco, Microphones so tiny that they can ha worn in the buttonhole aro now being used in Hollywood for making " talkies." This means that scenes can be taken in streets or anywhere else. .The microphones are connected by wireless with sound-recording apparatus. Brighton's municipal authorities repaired 110 miles of road and 58 miles of pootpath, collected over 39.000 tons of house and trade refuse, carried oves 24,000.000 tram car* passengers, and used 42,000 tons of fuel in providing electricity in the last financial year. Paper is the chief ingredient in a tire and water proof brick that a Serbian sculptor has prepared. It is suitable for the construction of one and two-storey buildings, according to reports, and nails can be driven into it without damage. Buckets, car wheels, and many other serviceable articles are being manufaotuicd from paper. Graded eggs now bear their age, denoted b V two letters, the first denoting the. week, and the second the day of lajing. Starting with January, each letter of the alphabet covers a week, week of June being Z, when the alph-leU will commence again. I hub, an on January 25, a, Saturday, would be marked D. F. » '? . Prizes offered by the editor of a French farming newspaper for tho best tuft ot ears of corn from a single seed, the best beetroot, and tlie best potato, have been given for a tuft producing 72 ears of corn with 2504 grains, weighing 4p2i., a beetroot weighing slightly over 301b., and a potato weighing well over 21b;