NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20768, 10 January 1931, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Britain imports every year foreign fruit to the value of £24,000,000.

This year Franco is to spend an extra, £6,000,000 for military purposes.

Calico gets its name from Calicut, in India, whence it was originally imported.

A new light bulb developed for use in talkie studios is of 6,000,000 candle-power.

There are about 3000 railway seasontickets issued between Brighton aqd London.

English fishermen landed 479,200 tons of frsh in the first nine months of last year.

More than fifty per cent of the world output of gold comes from South African mines.

-Mechanical failure is the rarest of all causes of aviation accidents in Great Britain. Miss M. Clark has left £20,000 to Glasgow Infirmary in memory of her father and grandfather. Soviet Russia's population is now 150,000,000, and is growing at the rato of 4,000,000 yearly. In the first six months of last year 964 aliens were refused leave to land in the United Kingdom.

A huge blast displacing 30,000 ions of limestone has been made at Bricrlow Hill, near Buxton, England.

Captain Lethbridge Abell has given £IOOO for a university scholarship in commerce for Croydon boys.

More than 11,000 cases of heart disease have been notified among the pupils in London Elementary schools.

Church bells thrown into the river during the French Revolution, are to ring again in the church of Charry-sur-Seiue.

Over 180,000 people have signed a petition to the British Parliament, for the abolition of the use of ponies in mines.

The largest clock-face in Britain is believed to be that on the Royal Liver Building in Liverpool. It is 30ft. in diameter.

A dock scheme costing a million and a half, and providing work for thousands of men for three years, is to bo begun at Grimsby. Tobacco is now the main revenue producer among commodities, wringing into the United States Treasury more than 1 £200,000 daily.

While the British unemployment figure stands about the 2,000.000 mark, Germany has 2,715,000 unemployed, and America, 6,000,000-

A pair of swans from the Thames have been sent to the corporation of Bloemfontein, South Africa, as a present from the Vintners' Company. Ihe British Territorial Army strength now stands at 6,765 officers and 123,593 other ranks. This is a total decrease of 1,433 on the 1929 figures.

v No sovereigns have been minted in England since 1916, but flew coins emanating from Australia and South Africa, are in circulation.

Monograms in colour, silver moons on black, hearts, spades, diamonds, and clubs, are among the latest "freak" decorations for fingernails.

A treaty between Great Britain, France, Italy and Abyssinia, relating to the importation of arms into Abyssinia, has been signed in Paris.

Paul Splingaerd, a Belgian, gave up his country and became a Chinese. After 40 years he rose to be a mandarin of the first class and a general.

Lord Roberts was only one of the famous naval and military leaders who had lost the sight of one eye. Others were Lord Wolseley and Lord Nelson.

Foreign ships sailing from British ports for New York carry larger crews than for any other voyage because of the high percentage of desertions on arrival.

\7hile Britain's national stock of cattle and pigs showed a decrease last year compared with 1929, they have 223,111 sheep more than they had in 1929.

Pedro Lascurain was President of Mexico for 40 minutes in February, 1913. Mexico had three different Presidents in one day, thus establishing a record.

The fortune left by the late Mr. Thomas B. Slick, the wealthiest American independent oil operator, is estimated between £15,000,000 and £20,000,000.

Finding that cows grazing in parts of Washington State, United States, had gold-tinted teeth has caused quite a minor " gold rush " of miners in that district.

There were 97,494 persons married in the first quarter of last year in Great Brtiain. This was a decrease of 67.'694 on the figures for the last quarter of 1929.

The title of " earl " was the highest in the British peerage up to the fourteenth century. To-day " duke " comes first, " marquess " second, and " earl " third

Men and women from practically every corner of the globe are to ( be found as pupils in the famous London schools of flying,- which now have an international reputation.

Shoe-factories under the Soviet Government will, according to plan, produce 120.000,000 pairs of shoes this year, to meet the requirements of a population of 150.000,000.

Although a group of women may vary quite a lot in their individual height, therfe is said to be a surprising uniformity in the distance between their elbows and the ground.

It costs almost as much to feed a baby as an adult in New York city, one expert stating that an increase of £l4O in the family income is necessary to provide for each addition.

The population of the world is now estimated at over 2,000,000,000. If it continues to increase at tho average annual rate of 1 per cent., this figure will be doubled in 70 years.

The German Post Office is to spend £10,000,000 more than its ordinary expenditure, providing work for 125,000 people for at least a year, so as to reduce unemployment.

Fourteen lads and 582 girls in Britain, married at the age of sixteen in 1929; at the other end of the scale, there were 83 men and 9 women who married at the age of eighty and upwards.

1 here is no single test we can apply to a drunken person," saiu a doctor at a meeting of the British Medical Association. "If you want to prevent accidents, let the motorists have no alcohol."

Britain's most powerful electrical machine has been installed at the superpower station of the/Bristol Corporation. It is rated at the equivalent of 67,000 horse-power and weighs 140 tons.

Fruit and milk canning is a growing British industry; there aro now more than twenty factories at work and £2,500.000 has been invested in the industry during the last twelve months.

Shamrock V., Sir Thomas Lipton's challenger for the America Cup. was insured on a value of £IB,OOO. at a rate of £lO per cent. Risks covered included sea perils, fire, partial damage, and collision. Although more than half a million women are registered' as unemployed in Britain, more than 4,000 women were brought in from k various Continental centres to fill domestic postis daring 1929.