NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21153, 9 April 1932, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF.

For three mODths daily visited the grave of hii"master'at Crook in Durham.

According to the new census, the population of Russia *.,i§ against 146,000,000 at the end of 1926.

The longest air route -with a regular service of 'planej is front New York" to Buenos Aires, a distance of 5380 miles. A hen belonging to Mrs. Gormley, of County Waterford. Ireland, has laid 312 eggs in a year. Recently Mrs/ Gormley refused £2O for it.- B

A New York man who threw a bottle, with his name in it; into, the Gulf Stream while on a liner, has had it returned to him from Scotland. The Swiss Government is to issue a speci.il series of postage stamps —from five centimes to one franc—to mark the Disarmament Conference at Geneva. Prison and a £4OO fine have been imposed on a chemical director of a drug factory at Basle, Switzerland, for taking part in smuggling activities. Turkey has its first woman surgeon, Suad Hanein, a young married woman, having passed the examination for her diploma with exceptional brilliance.

Of the law cases heard under the poor persons rule in England 93 per cent, are matrimonial. In 96 out of every hundred cases so heard the poor litigants win.

At a height of 11,000 ft., at Sharato, in Szechwan, China, two American explorers have found stone implements and other traces of a primitive culture of very early man.

The Archbishop of Canterbury comes next in precedence to the Sovereign and his immediate family. Any Briton, no matter how humble his birth, may aspire to the post. v

A sculptor's caricature of King Tutankhamen about to shave, with his beard bristling and soapy, is among the latest, discoveries afc the Tel-el-Amarna burial place in Egypt. Edinburgh, with 1000 accidents last year, has decreased its number of street accidents in five year§ by 40 per cent., while the rest of the country shows an increase ot 33 per cent.

Canada's national parks now cover more than 12,000 square miles. They contain some of the great Dominion's most delightful scenery, and are being used increasingly by Holiday makers. As white, though very visible, is too dazzling in sunshine, the authorities in the South of France are discussing having all main roads coloured red, with secondary roads green or yellow. A committee of the London County Council has told the Medical Women's Federation that it would be undesirable to withdraw the councils veto against employing married women. Soldiers and airmen ' living in billets in Britain may be supplied with meals by their landladies at the following rates: Breakfast, 7d; supper, 4d. The billeting charge is lOd a night. Glauber's salt crystals a foot long are often obtained during winter evaporation at the salt pans in the Bloemhof district of South Africa. Summer crystals are I smaller and are mixed with other salts.

In the course of last year 50 new aeroplane stations were established in Russia, including that at Moscow, which was the first. The air fleet is used for the most varied commercial and industrial purposes.

The word " bachelor " comes from a Latin word meaning a cowherd. This was one of the most menial offices, the remuneration of which did not permit the man to undertake the responsibilities of marriage.

In olden days there was so much drunkenness at weddings in England that an Act of Parliament was passed in 1753 to ensure that marriages should take place before the parties were thoroughly incapable. In William lll.'s reign the Ear! of Komney, Master of Ordnance, marked all military stores with his own crest, a broad arrow, to stop pilfering. The practice was retained and extended to all Government stores.

The problem of ventilating the £5,000,000 tunnel under the Mersey river in England having proved unexpectedly difficult, the opening has now been deferred from next autumn until Easter, 1933.

Dogs are being trained to Serve as attendants to deaf mutes in Germany. A code of signals serves to show the dog what its master requires, while it will warn him of the hoot of motor cars in the street.

The condition of Germany has made

a very big impression upon marriages in that country. In the first half of last year the number of marriages was 70,000 fewer than the normal and 30,000 less than in 1930.

The London and Paris Mints, working in collaboration, have concluded arrangements in Belgrade for the coinage of 32,500,000 silver pieces for Yugoslavia, these being the first gilver coins to be issusd in that country since the war.

A game of Rugby football was played in fireworks recently in England as a spectacular part of a great firework display. At the climax a robot goalkeeper outlined in flames recovered a blazing ball from beneath a pair of flaming goalposts. It is estimated that 260,000 people visited the Persian Art Exhibition at Burlington House, London. This compares with 538,000 at the Italian Exhibition last year, 235,000 at the Dutch in 1928 and 153,000 at the Flemish in 1927.

Church bells are a relic of a time when clocks and watches were unknown, aud they served a very real purpose in reminding people of the hour of prayer. In medieval times the saying of prayers at appointed hours was a duty strictly enforced by the Church.

At the end of the flick of a lash of a whip the point is travelling through the air with extraordinary rapidity. The crack, which is merely a miniature thun= der-clap, is caused bv the violence with which air rushes to take the place of the air displaced by the movement of the lash.

Horse-power is a measure of energy. It was originally reckoned that a horse could raise a weight of 33,0001b. one foot into tho air in the space of one minute. This formula was applied to engines. An engine that can lilt 33,0001b. one foot intone minute is said to develop one horse-power.

Tho word ' target" really means a shield. Shields which were originally made of bull-hide, often ornamented with a metal boss in the centre, would he used for spear throwing and archerv contests. Tho boss at. a distance would resemble an eye, and so it became nicknamed the " bullseve."

A single Sitka spruce tree may contain 8000 to 10.000 feet broad measure of lumber, states tho Canadian I"orest Service Department. Tho quantity of lumber used in building an ordinary five or six-roomed frame house is at 15,000 feet, lience two good-sized Sitka spruce trees would suffice for the house.

Tho British Minister for Transport, Mr. P. J- Pybus, at a dinner of the Worshipful Company of Paviors in London, described the road mileage of Great Britain as "amazing." Iho total length of public roads, he said, was 177, oo miles. One would have to motoi 104 miles a flay for three years, without • break, to cover that distance.