NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20982, 19 September 1931, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Canada is now the second largest goldproducing country in the world. Sheffield's population of half a million has been almost stationary for 10 years. One-fifth of the total population of England and Wales lives in Greater London. ' Wales has a population of 2,593.014, made up of males and 1,298,879 females. The Rockefeller Foundation has given £.50,000 to Bristol University for scientific research. Carnations are King George's favourite flower, the variety he likes best being "White Pearl." Mr. Hoover is the first President of the United States to' have a telephone installed on his desk. About £10,000,000 a year is spent oa fox-hunting in England, most of this going in wages, etc. Wheelbarrows should have legs eighteen inches long, according to experts in indusi trial health research. During the last five years 12 disused prisons in England and Wales have been sold to private purchasers. Great Britain's total population is 44,790,485. This is ov?r 2,000,000 higher than the figure for 1921. The notorious " Spanish prisoner '5 swindle is said to be 350 years old, as it dates back to the days of the Spanish Armada. Baldness is said to be more common in towns than in the country and among people who work with their heads than manual workers. Owners of parks in some parts of Cheshire are being compelled to close them to the public owing to the damage done by visitors. 0 There are 350,000 persons engaged in tourist traffic in Great Britain. This makes it a bigger industry than cither iron and steel or wool. Building wireless sets is a favourite hobby of the Duke of York, who has a workbench fitted up in his study in his house in Piccadilly, London. Clay fingers have been found near mummies interred centuries ago, presumably for the use of the dead when the real fingers had deteriorated. According to the British" Home Secretary, .Sunday opening of cinemas in London places annually a sum of £200,000 at the disposal of various charities. Last year's death-rate in England and Wales was the lowest on record, while the birth-rate was the same as the lowest ever recorded—for the year 1929. Fatal road accidents in London have been decreased by 10 per cent., and in 200 provincial areas by 15 per cent., since the Road Traffic Act came .into force. Troop-Sergeant Major John Stratford, aged 102, is Britain's oldest soldier. He joined 85 years ago. On his last birthday the King sent him congratulations. During the period 1924-1930 the value of merchandise imported into the United Kingdom from Russia exceeded the total value of exports to Russia by £95,877,044. Bearing addresses in Sydney, Singapore, Manchester, Saskatoon and Indianapolis, a postcard posted in Natal recently travelled round the world at a cost of 10^d. Two girls are specially employed by a rubber company in Liverpool to test rubber footwear of various types. In the past, four years they have walked 12,000 miles. The Treasurer of the United States personally signs only one Governmental check a month —a voucher for the salary of the President which amounts to £1250 a month. Cellar or basement dwellings in London number 30,000. They provide homes for 100,000, including 7000 families, each of four persons, who live in one-room dwellings. In the scientific treatment of house refuse on a large scale Birmingham leads the way. Nothing is wasted, even banana skins being salvaged because they cori-r * tain potash. Too high a sense of comedy in a conntry is said by an American scientist to be a sign of decadence. He declares is too good-humoured, and that it is a sign of decadence. Up to December last the number of men employed iri Great Britain directly or indirectly on works for the relief of unemployment, including schemes financed out of the Road Fund, was about 200,000. During the next 12 months the British Forestry Commission will plant 28,000 a.cres on the Scottish and Welsh hills and on the Yorkshire moors with spruce trees, thus finding work for about 3500 men. It is estimated that between 450,000 and 500,000 houses will be built with State assistance in Great Britain in the next five years. It is hoped to build at least one-fifth of them in the next 12 months. England's most costly " village is a small community of 24 houses within the walls of Windsor Castle. Many of them were built in the 14th century for the use of the dean and canons of St* George's Chapel. The southern and home counties of Eng. land show some remarkable increases ia population. Middlesex is 30.8 per cent. " up " on the 1921 figure; Surrey shows 27 per cent.; Hertfordshire, 20.5; Essex* 19.4, and Bucks, 15. While Great Britain and Japan showed a of 10 per cent, and 1.6 per cent, respectively in the estimates of military expenditure in 1930. compared with 1924, France, Italy and America showed respectiva increases of 110, 36 and 28 per cent. Among Scottish cities, Aberdeen shows the greatest proportional increase in this year's census, its population now being *167.259, which is a growth of 8,296, or 5.2 per cent., on 1921. It is now the Fourth Scottish city, the three ahead of it b6ing Glasgow, Edinburgh and Dundee* Almost all the goods made in prisons in Great Britain are used either by the Prison Department or by other Government departments. They are sold at proper prices, calculated by adding to the cost of the materials a percentage addition for the cost of machinery and tools, etc. To deal with vehicles belonging to the Flying Squad and the Mobile Police, the London Metropolitan Police have their own motor repair shops, where a staff of 60 mechanics is employed on repairing and overhauling police cars. Three new district garages for the police are in course of erection. The average weekly cash earnings of all workers in the coal-mines of Great Britain during 1913 was £1 lis 6d. During last year it was £2 4s 4d. The number of people of all grades employed in the coal-mines in 1913 was 1,104,000; at the end of last year tlis number so employed was 908,200. 1 Between June 1, 1929 and March 16, 1931, 1037 schemes of work 011 unclassified roads in England and Wales of a total estimated cost of £8,441,000," had been approved for grant on the recommendation of the Unemployment Grants Committee. Of these 903 schemes have been completed or are in operation. Census forma were handled by thousands of enumerators in Britain this vear, including 12.704 unemployed, lodl civil servants, 6347 employees of locaj authorities, and 19,144 other emp- 3 or retired persons. "One enumerator appeared while the count was . gresa —and -his enumeration h too* schedules he had ejected vanisftea.