NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20851, 18 April 1931, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Londoners eat 25,000,000 half-quartern loaves every week.

Photography was discovered by Niepso and Daguerre in 1829. A stream still runs only two feet below the Royal Albert Hall, London. An old stage coach has been sold by auction for 5s at Worksop, England. The most usual age for marriage in Great Britain is 24 for men and 23 for women.

The " father " of the Royal Academy is Walter William Ouless, .who was elected in 1881.

Sumatra enjoys the greatest variety of animal and vegetable life of any district on earth.

The Governor of Rome has issued an order forbidding wireless loud-speakers outside shops.

An undated Charles I. Exeter or Truro Unite was recently sold for £305 at Sotheby's, London.

Accidents in British coal mines are responsible for over 1000 killed and 170,000 injured every year. Mont Blanc is not in Switzerland, as is usually supposed, but in France. It was first ascended in 1786.

Illiterate people form 40 per cent, of tho population of Spain. ■ Fifteen year» .ago the figure was 50 per cent. A woman won a silver cup at tho Manchester Tobacco Exhibition for keeping a cigarette alight for 28J minutes. A hart-a-graco was a hart that was permitted to bo free from the chase through having been hunted by royalty. The Swedish archaeological mission to Cyprus has succeeded in excavating the famous temple of Isis and Aphrodite. A willow tree at Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire, has growing from it a mulberry tree, a cherry tree and a gooseberry bush.

London's oldest lift is still in use in the Royal Albert Hall. It works by hydraulic, power, and is 60 years old. The Shipwrecked Mariners' Society last year assisted 2281 sailors and fishermen, 2762 widows, 1060 orphans, and 128 aged parents.

One machine now being used on Canadian farms can cut and thresh the grain on 40 acres a day, with only two men to operate it.

The microphone was invented by Professor D. E.. Hughes in 1877, and was exhibited before the Royal Society on May 9, 1878. - Lightning flashes, passing from a cloud to the ground, or from one point of r a cloud to another, may have a total length of over one mile.

Railway staffs in Britain have been reduced by some 80,000 men since 1921. The consequent saving in wages is estimated at £303,000.000.

Divorce cases are increasing in Britain in number each year. Last year thera were 4018 divorces granted, an increaso of 828 on the previous year. The Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew were founded by the mother of George HI. in 1760. They were created a national institution in 1840.

Marlborough House was built by Sir Christopher Wren in 1709 for the first. Duke of Marlborough. It was purchased by the Government in 1817./

During his recent tour of "Great Britain, Sir Alan Cobham took up 40,000 passengers, and his aeroplane travelled 60,000 miles without an overhaul.

Part of the official equipment of Britain's principal battleships is a - library containing about 700 volumes for lending out and 60 more for reference use. •Metal salved from the wreck of the RlOl has been taken to Sheffield to;: be melted down and re-used, probably , for domestic cutlery and household utensils.

Armed bandits who attempted, to plunder a goods train near Galatz, Rumania, were driven off with many casualties by railway men with revolver,'!.

After three days' search a tube of radium, valued at £IBOO, was founds at Halle, Germany, in a eewer into which it had been washed after an operation.

Hastings, England, has placed a tablet on the house in which Mr. John Baird, inventor of television, experimented with biscuit tins and soap boxes some years ago.

During 1928, 318,000,000,000 cubic feet of gas was used in British homes, and 18,000,000 tons of coal was carbonised. The gas industiy employs about 113,000 men.

Women are wearing shoes darker in colour this year, black and dark brown being the most popular hues; while the most popular shapes place comfort before smartness.

Railway stations on closed branch linej in different parts of. Britain, are now b& ing used as dance-halls, public-houses, shops, offices, garages, sports clubs, and lodging-houses. In the. Canary Islands a young man may not enter the house of the girl'he is courting. The girl may ...sit at!; the window to receive his "attentions, but'he must stand outside.

Canada has one wireless set for every 22 of its population, tho total number of sets working out- at 444,700. Thia.' is an increase of over 20,000 over tho "figure for the'previous'year.

Sago :is obtained from the several species, of a genus of palms." ThCro are large forests'in Borneo and Sumatra, where the finest sago is produced. Each stem" yields from 1001b. to 8001b. The Graz Tagblatt states that tin General Electric Corporation of America has offered £IOO,OOO for an option on rich deposits of beryllium, an extremely light metal found near Koflach, Austria. In Braille, the system of embossed writing which enables the blind to read by touch, blocks of six dots are used as a unit, and by leaving out one or more of these, 63 combinations are possible. Cricket is becoming almost as popular as a summer game as football is for tho winter in Argentina. Already Argentine teams are playing international crickot matches with Chile and Brazil.

Women defy cold ■weather better than men, in spite of their scantier clothing, because, according to one exeprt, they keep more cheerful, look on the bright side of things, and care more for their bodies. Big Ben, England's most famous clock, was tested on 288 days during the year ended April 30 last, and only on 21 days did it show an error of more than oni second, the maximum being 1.4 seconds.

The New York Police Department is providing, at its own expense, semiweekly outings for women and J children in New York's tenement districts, in gratitude for a recent increase in wages.

Evidences of the increasing wildness of Turkish youth have caused deputies in the Angora, Parliament to propose laws forbidding cinemas to boys under 16, and prohibiting tobacco or liquor to those under 18.

The latest marriage statistics for Britain for 1928 show that a 'number of women marry men younger than themselves. One woman aged 30 took a busband of 17, while two women respectively aged 40 and 41 married youths of 20. An historic review of _ Great Britain s progress in merchant shipping has been suggested by the Prince of Wales, who is Master'of the Merchant Navy ■ and Fishing Fleet, as an exhibit in tho International Exhibition at Antwerp nerk jeaPi