NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20740, 6 December 1930, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF.

The average of rainless days in London annually is 200.'

Last May was the wettest experienced in the South of England for 44 years. British M's.P. will draw £229,100 in salaries and £35,000 in travelling expenses this year.

In an effort to stamp out bubonic plague, Argentina is to spend £IOO,OOO on a rat-killing campaign. Mr. D. H. Lawrence, the novelist, who died without leaving a will left £2438, " so far as can be ascertained."

There are 1956 private golf clubs in the United Kingdom, and several hundred other clubs that use the public lirrks. Jamaica's banana exports last year totalled 22,000,000 stems, valued at £2,484,000, each figure being a record.

English waiters are so greatly in . demand that they are gradually, ousting: the foreign variety from the London market.

The unicorn in the Royal Arms was substituted by James I. for the Bed Dragon of Wales, which was introduced by Henry V. Earthquakes on the ocean bed of the East Atlantic have, caused so much upheaval that 200 square miles will have to be recharted.

Of the 80,000 tons of blended butter sold in Great Britain every year, 60,000 tons contain a proportion of inferior butter from abroad.

The safest place in Great Britain last year, where road accidents are concerned, was the Isles of Scilly, where there was not a single casualty.

Having been a bellringer at Dawlish, Devonshire, for 50 years, Mr. George Marchant was presented with an easy chair by his fellow-ringers.

The average cost of a year's golf in Britain works out at about £1 a week. Irt America the corresponding figure is about eight times as great.

The Mayor of Southampton has requested that at all official luncheons with which he is associated Australian wines, if any, shall be used. x Entries in the telephone directory of tha Irish Free Slate are in three " languages " —English, Erse in modern lettering, and Erse in the old Irish type.

The oldest assembly in the world is thought to be the Welsh bardic congress, the Eisteddfod. The nam-3 means a " session," or " sitting."

London's policemen are all to become first-aid experts and must get a certificate equal to that held by the members of the St. John Ambulance Brigade. Every telephone call to America which coines from Europe, Stockholm, Paris, or Berlin passes through an exchange in Queen Victoria Street, London. While travelling at 50 miles an hour on the Canadian National Railways passengers can now ring up either their home or business addresses by telephone.

Although the physical standard for the British Army recruits has been lowered, there were only 28.131 recruits taken last year, compared with 30,185 in 1928. Fined 40s and' costs for selling milk with water added, a Belfast milkman said his son put too much salt on the hay, and the cows developed a thirst.

Retired naval officers adopt many and varied professions, from boarding housekeepers, schoolmasters, and insurance agents to rabbit breeders and coal dealers.

Hie harvest mouse is generally thought to be the smallest of British quadrupeds. It is so diminutive that-two of them on a scale will weigh one copper iialf-penny. An artisan is a mechanic or handicraftsman. The word is derived from the Latin «' ars," meaning art. An artisan, therefore, is one skiled in some art.

The atmospheric pressure on the body of the average man is 32,4001b. 'lhe ordinary rise and fall of the barometer will increase or decrease the pressuie 25001b.

Among the novelties in footwear in England for this year are shoes made of t;he°skins of frogs and baby sharks. The latter leather is so costly that it is bought by the inch. After being lost to its owner for 12 years, a malacca cane 'bearing a presentation inscription was found in a British train last year, and returned to, its original owner.

Sixty visitors''from Melbourne, Australia, recently made an official.-call at Melbourne, Derbyshire, after which the Australian city is named, and were welcomed by the villagers.

In one eight-roomed house in " Paddington, London, there live 17 adults and 19 children under 10 years. The rooms are let separately at a combined weekly rental of £4 10s 6d.

France's submarine fleet, includes 52 vessels built and 47 building, including one of 3250 tons surface displacement When finished this Avill be the largest submarine in the world.

Fox hunting is becoming almost as popular in the Eastern States of Ameiica as it is in England. There are now 88 recognised hunts in North America, three of these being in Canada. At a dinner of a group of Esperanto speakers in Paris a conversation took place with comrades in Holland in order to demonstrate the possibility of the exchange of international conversation.

A section of a Ronlan waterrnain, some seven tons in weight, has beerr laid bare near Cologne. Its form indicates that it was originally laid in the first century and enlarged a--century or two later. . .

A well-preserved tomb of the bronze age has been unearthed near Morges, between Lausanne and Geneva, Switzerland. The skeleton in the tomb is also well preserved, and the skull bears three distinct scars.

Sun glasses fitted with canvas nose shields are now being. worn'by sun and sea bathers at some of the fashionable French resorts. They are intended to prevent freckles and to stop the nose from peeling.

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 ex-service man, and they turned out over 31,000,000 poppies last year. The United States lines announce that contracts have been awarded for the construction of two passenger ships of 30,000 gross tons, each tor the New York-Soutn-ampton service. They will have a capacity for 1300 passengers. Originally, a " grocer" was one who dealt in tno gross in quantity. I here were " grossers of fish," ' grossers O f wine," " grossers of spice." The spieor of those days was the antecedent of the grocer of these days. The durability of wood iO f ' vo circumstances is almost ' len of wood, wooden caskets, wooden articles have been tJ^'^aooPyßars■ catacombs constructed Jwti before the Christian Era. Three limes a week Scotland Yard pubpUt° STo™ crime detection. As a I