NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20626, 26 July 1930, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Britain's daily ooiunmptJon of petrol ia about 2,000,000 gallons. Eight of London's ehurchea cont&ln work of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. There are now 3,000 tnsules in Britian in which gas ia used in industrial processes. Outside the London area there are nearly 9,000 fewer taxicsba than there were a year ago. The amount invested in British National Savings Certificates !s over £900,000,000. In California there is an oil well that is still producing steadily after 60 years. It is known as " Old Faithful."

It is estimated that the damage by fire in Great Britain and Ireland last year amounted to nearly £11.800,000.

The city of f/ondon still contains 32 churches designed by Sir Chistophor Wren, the architect of St. Paul's Cathedral.

Captain Scott's last diary, which ia preserved at the British Museum, Ixmdon, is one of the most asked-for exhibits especially among schoolboy visitors.

There are now approximately 2,027,000 motor vehicles licensed in Britain. Of these 918,(XX) are cars, 670,000 motorcycles, and 88,000 motor hackneys.

There are about 3,000 acres of commercial glasshouses in the British lilea. Of this total 875 acres are devoted to tomatoes and 275 acres to cucumbers.

Cats now form part of the staple diet in Turkey, by order of the President. Turkish authorities ntato that cat meat in very tender and agreeable to the palate.

At the rate of mora than 400 tons a week, the steel framework of what i# claimed as London's largest office building, is being erected in Grosvenor Road.

The first road motor service was begun in tho far west of England in August, 1903. It was not until some months later that motor buses appeared in the streets of [,/ondon.

Constancy, loyalty, truthfulness, honesty, intelligence, humour, and ambition are the finest qualities in ft man, according to a recent ballot taken m a famous American women's college.

In 1884 Cheshire, England, was producing 2,000,000 tons of salt a year. The output has since dropped, but it is estimated that the supply will not be exhausted for another thousand years. A total amount of £12.000,000 was paid in England in 1923, the latest year for which statistics are available, in respect of all workmen's compensation under the Workmen's Compensation Act of 1925.

The Kin? has given a diamond tie pin to Mr. 11. T. Ferrier, radiographer and a pair of gold sleeve links each to Messrs IJareham, Glenister, and Done, orderlies, who attended with the X-rays car during his illness.

One of the largest employers of disabled labour is the British Legion. In its poppy factory alone every one of the 267 employees is a disabled ei-servica man, and they turned out over 31,000,000 poppies last year.

Wireless waves transmitted from s newly designed apparatus fitted to a motor-car will start a motor which opens the garage doors without the motorist leaving his seat. Tho invention is tho work of a Swiss engineer. Stuttgart, until recently holder of the record for the greatest proportion of motorvehicles of all German cities, has now been passed by Munich, which lias ono to every 24 inhabitants, against one to 29 for the Wurtembcrg capital. Berlin has about one motor vehicle to 40 inhabitants.

A Paris hotel hes inaugurated a private aeroplane service for the convenience of clients, particularly those arriving from foreign parts. Two planes are constantly at the disposal of guests—to meet linen at French ports, to carry departing clients to ships, or take them anywhere in Europe at standard rates.

Average cash earnings of all wars* earners in the English mining industry for the last three years show some variation. In the year ended September 20, 1927, the figure was £132 2s sd; in 1923 £ll3 lGi sa, and in 1929, £ll7 4s 3d. In addition, there are certain allowances in kind, which are appreciable in some district*.

A Paris insurance company demolishing old houses on an estate it Lad bought for construction, found progress held up, by a sixth-floor lodger, who refused to leave his room. When he was last beard of he was still in lofty isolation on the scaffolding perched like a bird in its nest in winter surrounded by desolation.

Some curions tasks fall on the " special investigators " of one of the big railways in Britain, who have to test all the goods supplied for the company's use. '1 ney may have to count the number of bristles in a broom, separate wool from cotton in carpets, or discover how much vibration a gas mantle will stand.

A talkie apparatus is to be installed in the Royal School for the Blind at Leatherhead, in Surrey. The idea is that the totally blind will be able to follow the story by sound; the partially blind will bo able to 6ee and hear, and the deaf and dumb, of whom the school contains a number, will be able to see tho film.

Miss Helen Ernestine Fullerton, of Lymington, Hampshire, England, who left £222,777, bequeathed to her maid, Julia Matthews, £7lO, her wearing apparel, except furs, and 300 ordinary shares in tha (Iramophone Company, Limited. She left £lO to each other in or outside servants ir> her service at her decease if of three years' service.

A circus 'ion saved the life of his trainer during a performance at Kokomo, Indiana, in which 32 lions and tigers were taking part. The trainer wns attacked by a young half-wild tiger. The leading lion of the troupe sprang on the tiger and held it till the trainer escaped from the cage. The man was sent to hospital seriously injured. Labour saving houses, priced at £I,OOO each are being sold at Surbiton Hill, Surrey, complete with garage and a fourseatei touring car. Although it seems unlikely that this arrangement will be adopted generally by house agents, it has been suggested that it certainly provides a possible solution of the problem of the disposal of second hand cars.

An Italian husband who has applied to tho Rome Tribunal for fhe annulment of his marriage has been informed by tho Courts that the validity or invalidity of n mairiag* celebrated with religious as well as civil rites, even previous to tho Concordat between the Vatican and tho Kingdom of Italy, is entirely and exclusively a matter for the jurisdiction of tho ecclesiastical tribunals.

Having in the past supplied Germany with armaments, Krupps, the great steel firm at Essen, now propose to supply at least a part of that country with cauliflowers. other vegetables, fruit and flowers. Armaments have slumped, tho stool trade is slumping, but horticultural produce has been and always will be in demand Swords are of the past ; ploughshares aro of tho present arid future.

The birth rate in England Mid Wales for 1929 was 16.3 per ICO?, find is tho lowest recorded. It li O.J per 1000 below that of 1928. The provisional figuies issued from Somerset House reveal that tho death rate on the 1929 estimated population was 10.4, arid was 1.7 above that of 1928. This rise, it is stated, was practically confined to the first quarter the y«ar, and was duo to the epidemio iufiueas&i