NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21118, 27 February 1932, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF.

A queen bee produces about 100,000 eggs in a season. The heart of a normal person beats about 92,160 times daily. The English-speaking population of the world is about 180,000,000. There are now eighteen makers of talk-ing-picture apparatus in London. A Chinese lacquer cabinet measuring only 42iu. realised £409 10s at Christie's, London lately. An alarm clock which, at the selected hour, starts a gramaphone playing a tuna is a Parisian novelty. Among the more unusual names to be found in the London directory are Dear, Darling, Love, Sore, and Pain. A new " sports " Ministry. created by; the Jugoslavia Cabinet bears the title of Ministry of Physical Training. For the amusement of Londoners there are now sixty-six theatres, nineteen music-, halls, and more than 150 picture-houses. Fires, most of them accidents, in the home were responsible for the deaths of 572 babies in England and Wales in 1930. " Contract bridge " is the latest craze in America, where this card game is sup-: planting dancing in the smart dance cafes. A carrier pigeon recently landed at Long Island from Venezuela after flying 2000 miles over mountains, sea and forest. The smallest distance that can be measured by mechanical means is about one twenty-five thousandth part of an inch. Eight out of the nine people killed in street accidents last year in Oldham, Lancashire, were walkers who crossed the road carelessly. The basis of linear measure is the length of a corn of barley. There are threa barley corns to the inch and 190,080 barley corns to the mile. Thousands of acres of forest land in Canada have been turned over to tha Canadian Boy Scouts to re-forest and to protect as wild-life preserves. London's children are getting bigger. The boys have increased in height and Ist. 121b. in weight, and the giris lin. and 91b. in the last 25 years. London's 7000 telephone operators start work after their period of training at a wage of £2 3s 6d for a 48-hour week, rising to a maximum of £2 18s 6d. In addition to a new hot spring recently tapped at Virginia Water, Surrey, there are others near London, at Slough.'Maidenhead, Windsor Forest, and Gravesend, " The term ' new laid,' as applied to eggs, has never been defined either by statute or regulation." said the Ministe. of Agriculture recently in the House of Commons. People who borrow books and fail to return them have been christened " booksneaks " by the publishers of New York, who chose this name from thousands-%£ suggestions. A woman guest at the dinner of the British Institute of Radiology, Loudon, declined to sit at a table where 13 places had been laid, and a rearrangement of seats was made. The richest man in the world is th& Nizam of Hyderabad. He has £100,000,000 lin gold in one vault. His jewels alone are valued at £200,000,000. Hundreds of bald persons in America have responded to the appeal of the Uni- .. varsity of Illinois Research Hospital to submit themselves to a series of injec- . tions as a cure for baldness. The estate of the late Lya de Putti, the beautiful Hungarian film " star" whodied recently, amounts to only £6OO. Two daughters—minors, named Szepefey—are stated to survive in Hungary. Food tins are usually round. They ara easier to make than are square tins; but the real reason is that a round shape embodies the principle of the arch, which gives them additional strength. Out of nearly 3,500,000 members of the various forms of religion in Berlin some 300,000 have formally relinquished their faith in the last six years. This frees them from any further church tax. Wheels are fitted to a tiny one-man submarine designed by its American inventor to cruise along the bed of the ocean like a motor car. It can also travel on the surface of or under the water. Fully equipped as a surgery and a waiting room, and carrying a dentist and a nurse, a motor dental surgery car is now visiting the 11,000 children in the 90 schools understhe Isle of Ely County Council. Britain is overtaking America in the making of cinema organs, which cost anything from £2OOO to £IO,OOO apiece. There are now four -British instruments in the picture-houses for every one of foreign origin. The sum of £855 was received by Canon J. N. Bateman-Champain, who remained for 12 hours outside St. Nicholas Cathedral, Newcastle-on-Tyne, collecting funds to save the building from the ravages of the death-watch beetle. The earliest discoverers of America thought that the land they had reached was tha Indies of Asia. They therefore described the natives as Indians, and because they were coppor-colourcd they were called Red Indians. The lowering of a flag in war has always been regarded as a symbol of suh* mission to a conqueror. The lowering of flags to mark the death of persons of note is a sign that even the greatest of men must submit to all cornqucring death. By installing a huge water-softening plant, which will deal with tha » 4,000,000,000 gallons of water used annually in their locomotives, the London Midland Scottish Railway Company expect to reduce i:s upkeep costs and coal consumption. Policemen in one town in Maryland, United States, do their best to avoid making arrests, because, through a recent edict of the Chief of Police, prisoners i* the local gaol must be supplied with foocfc by or at the expense of the officers who arrested them. Since the Savings Certificates system was introduced in Britain in 1916 more than £1,020,615,483 has been invested. Certificates worth £150,000,000, including interest, fall due for redemption on March 31 of this year. Marriage is apparently an aid to long life. An expert recently stated that a man who takes a wife by the time he i* twenty-seven has an average expectation of living forty-two years longer, while the expectation of life by his singlo brother of the same age is five years less. It vvas announced at a recent meeting of the Council of the Royal Agricultural Society, England, that the War Office had intimated its readiness to grant £BOOO to the Hunters' Society for light horse breeding for another year instead of discontinuing it as at first proposed. Whore telephones are installed in the homes of policemen in Huntingdonshire, an extension to the bedside of the occupant is to be provided. The cost will be met partly by stopping an allowance of £1 a year hitherto paid to constables' -wives for answering the telephone in their husband'# absence. Military aeroplanes to tho value of '£500,000 have been ordered from ong British firm by the Belgian Government. The typo commissioned has a speed of 220 miles an hour at a height- of 13,000 ft. When the final deliveries are made Belgium will own more than one hundred aeroplanes of British design.