NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20602, 28 June 1930, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF.

There are nearly 1700 banks in the London area. ,-•••.•• Lincolnshire l has the record for being tho most sober county in England. Three million tons of steel were imported into Great' Britain last year. British railways- spend £13,000,000 annually on enginei building and repairing. Sunday stoppage has been_ adopted by the largest tin-mining group in Malaya. Britain's largest battleships contain lending libraries, comprising 700 volumes.

The laundry of the Great Western Railways handles .3,000,000 articles annually.

The London Water Boafd supplies 7,500,000 people through 7000 miles of mains. \ '■ ; ' V: V

Tho construction of a new dock, to cost £500,000, at Belfast Harbour, has been authorised.

Croydon, England, now possesses the most complete aerodrome radio equipment in the world.

Germany's census, which was to have taken place this year, has been postponed until next year.

Last year 2100 aliens were refused permission to land in the United Kingdom—--119 more than in 1928.

Owing to the popularity of fencing for women, a Women's Fencing Union i 3 likely to bo formed in England.

In 109 houses in the Harrow Road district of London, 1665 people vresa recently living. Of these 1192 were adults.

Thirty-five jjiillion- rabbits, weighing 40,000 tons, are caught every year iti Great Britain, states a report on food supplies.

" Griddlers," or street hymn-singers, may make as mUch as ss, a day in London, while half-a-crown is a" big day" for a match-seller. .

"Mr. John Arthur Selkirk, whose greatgrandfather was a brother of - Alexander Selkirk, the original of Robinson Crusoe, has died at Dumfries. When a colt was born in a district in Sussex, licld it was taken to a stable in a perambulator/ witji its anxious mother following close behind. For a monument to Marshal Fech in the Chapel of St. Ambroise, in the In slides', Paris, the French Government is to ask for a cerclit of £20,000.

Tea growers have agreed to a crop limitation scheme By which Great Britain will receive at least 60.000,0001b. less tea this year than in 1929. W • Nearly 75» per cent, of the women in clerical grades of the British civil' service leave sooner or later to be married, the average age of such retirerhents lieing 28.

A court at Sunderland, England, decided, on appeal, that unemployment benefit should be disallowed to a labourer on days when he receives payment for football. '

Alabaster vases found in a tomb near the Sphinx, in Egypt, still gave forth a sweet perfume, the result of impregnation with some secret preparation over 4600 years ago.

Constable Chislett climbed to the-top ' of a telegraph pole, 60ft.-high, at Swansea> Wales, and rescued a cat which was being chased by a dog, but he was badly, bitten by the cat. - » 'The Profes'sorof Public Health at Edin- ' burgh' University has discovered that among a- number of children of the sam® ! . age the taller ones showed a .higher, cle-,-gree of intelligence. •.■;• . .. Motor-car factories . and . railways in ■> ■ America now consume mbre than 340,000,0001b. of copper annually, accord- .•■•', ing to a-report issued by the Copper and Brass Research Association. - - ' Thrown into the sea U months previously for experimental purposes at Norfolk, Virginia, United States, a bottle . was lately picked up near Eye; Sussex, more than 3000 miles away. .

So ingenious is the system at the New Empire Hall, Ofympia, Lcindon, that 30,000 ft. of fresh air enters through the ceilings and goes out from tho floor level every minute. It takes about a year for the Bishop of y the Upper Nile, the Rt.* Rev,. Arthur h. ; Hitching, to A'isit ' his diocese, which covers an area of 264,000 square miles and has a population of. 4,500,000. ' Among new church bells shortly to be - dedicated at Aston Abbotts Parish Church, Buckinghamshire, is one, given by an American, descendant of a inan who left Aston Abbotts in 1636. Mr. Thomas Alexander Bams, the Anglo-American explorer and naturalist, who was born at Bletchingley, Surrey, England, in 1881, has died in Chicago of injuries received in a. street accident. The first attempt to reach the North Pole by air was made in 1897. A balloon was used, but the attempt ended in , tragedy, for it was never heard of again, and no remnant of it has ever been found. ' Jersey was the sunniest spot in Britain last year, with 2084 hours-of sunshine. Among tho cities London mado a good ; show, with 1317 hours, compared with 1127 hours in Manchester and 1162 in Bolton. , Schoolchildren in Dumfries were asked . what sort of films they liked least; Ninetyeiglit per cent, of the boys answered > "Love and ninety-four per cent!'; of the girls replied: " War, murder, and fighting." « : . 1 The average weekly attendance at American cinemas is estimated at 120,000,000. The population of the United States at tho last census was 105,710,620, > so very many people must go at least twice a week. f . . Blind people have won many honours in music. Thomas Marshall, a brilliant y ' pianist, was recently made an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music, England, a distinction which has been twice gained by a blind person. . ' v r "The first quarter of an hour after birth is tho most dangerous period of . life," states an expert recently, adding that the mortality figure for this fifteen minutes was as great as that of any subsequent month. Where moving : stairways have replaced lifts in tho London Underground Railway stations tho result has been an in- • crease in the number of passengers, the figures at Charing Cross showing a jump : of 2,000,000 the first year. British lifeboats in need of repair are usually sent to London, where,. the repair depot in Limehouse employs 70 men on tho work. Spare parts and stores for every typo of lifeboat are always in stock . there, ready for instant despatch. Tho ideal man, as described by a number of women art students in Brit- J ain recently, must be a good dancer with intellectual leanings, send flowers, treat his wifo as an egual, and never wear red ties. In appearance, he should be tall and dark. Probably the world's most thrilling' . broadcast was made by Buddy Bushmayer, a "stunt merchant," in America) who transmitted his emotions ' during a.' 12,000 ft. parachute jump at Roosevelt Field. A small wireless transmitter was strapped to his waist. j Scrap metal, including portions of a spade, a ploughshare, a pistol barrel, an : r , : , old file, and a wheel from a winnowing machine, have' been used' to manufacture a clock now working successjullv iri a. : , Gloucestershire cliurch. ! This, Strang® - ' timepiece was, made by a local whe«l- ; WTight - and clockmaker as a memorial to v a) local" Army officer; " " • V ' ■ ' : ' ..: .