NEWS IN BRIEF

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21296, 24 September 1932, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF

London's 142 hospitals had a total income of £3,811,000 last year. Austrian authorities have forbidden parents to register children with the Christian name, * Hitler." Horse traffic in London is heaviest at Tower Bridge, where it still forms more than a third of the total. More than 800 Russians domiciled in Great Britain were granted certificates of British nationality in 1931. The total population of the world is now estimated at 2,012,000,800, of whom 506,000,000 live in Europe.

There are still curious industries in London. For instance, 2040 men and 60 women are employed in mining. Russia is growing rapidly in population, the present figure being 127,000,000, an increase of 3,000,000 on last year. It Costs annually, £1412 a mile to keep London's streets in good repair and clean; lighting adds another £242 a mile. The surplus of women over men in London is largest in Hampstcad. where there are 1545 wbmun to every 1000 men.

Dogs were kept as pets in England some 10,000 years ago, according to discoveries made by excavators near Avebury, Wiltshire. <-

The Opera House at Nice may, it is reported, become a cinema theatre owing to the heavy losses incurred in producing operas.

Two anglers recently had a seven hours* struggle off Scarborough with a gaint tunny, which got away after towing them 17 miles.

Something like 15.000 people, men and women, went to prison in Britain last year for " wilfully refusing to p'ay "■ their debts.

Welsh coal will be exclusively used in a new floating depot for bunker coal with a capacity of 16,000 tons that h a s been installed at Genoa.

A postcard posted at Walworth, .on November 20, 1908, was delivered at Eltham, England, recently. The sender has been dead for 20 years. ' Work has started in erecting Rome's largest obelisk, a 30ft. monolith of Carrara marble, dedicated to Signor Mussolini. It weighs 400 tons. Five pounds of butter, knocked down time after time and returned for resale, lately realised £l7 10s at an Anti-Tithe Payers' auction at Norwich.

After a juryman at an inquest at Southwark, London, had stated that he " did not understand" the case, the coroner said he would accept a majority verdict.

A housemaid who took a lighted candle into her master's petrol store at Hromky, Slovakia, caused an explosion in which six persons were killed and forty injured.

Changes in land cultivation in Britain shown by official returns include a decrease in arable land, corn, wheat, hops, barley and oats, but an increase in the potato acreage.

A cigarette end thrown into a hedge is believed to have started a fire which caused £IOOO worth of damage to hayricks and barns at Chazey Farm, Mapledurham.

Built 400 years ago at Dennington, near Ipswich, a- Tudor house has, just been taken down and rebuilt at Princes Risborough, Buckinghamshire, a distance of 130 miles. .

In many years' experience of public school boys in England, Major J. T. D. Badin said recently he found that .some 20 per cent could not sing and about one in 300 had no ear for music.

With a selection of dishes costing one cent (one halfpenny) each, and including soup, codfish, meat balls, cabbage- salad, prunes, and coffee, a new restaurant has been opened in New York. The cheapest wireless set shown at the> Radio Exhibition in London in August was a two-valve set in a bakelite cabinet, priced at 37s 6d. The most expensive was a radio-gramophone As recently as 1901 Westminster had 183,000 people. Now it has only 129,000. This is due to two causes: fewer children are born and the resident, population increasingly removes to outlying districts. Known as " the guard with the buttonhole," because he has worn a flower every day for 42 years, Sir. William Petty has retired from the service of the London and North Eastern Railway between Darlington and Penrith.

An apparatus for detecting whether a suspected person is telling the truth not having given full reactions, a man to be questioned recently by the Chicago police was to be given a drug which is said to compel any person to whom it is administered to speak the truth. The Prize Court of the British Admiralty Division, which since 1914 has dealt with many problems arising out of the capture and sinking of enemy ships during the Great War, is still at work, although nearly 14 years have passed since the Armistice was signed. A "High Mass of Thanksgiving" for the restoration of King Charles 11., a service which was struck out of the prayer book in 1857, and has probably not been held for a hundred years, was recently revived at the Church of St. Magnus the Martyr by London Bridge. Eighteen months ago a baker at Newark, New Jersey, United States, sold » house for one dollar (4s) and one square meal a day for life, and a decent funeral at death. Recently, as the result of a burning accident, the buyers of the house completed the purchase with a " decent funeral."

A recent census showed that 64 per cent of the tonnage which entered and left the Port of London was British owned, that the average size of these British ships was twice that of vessels of foreign countries, and that the Port of London received 37 per cent of the overseas trade of the United Kingdom. Built with threo decks, a motor bus with accommodation for 85 passengers has been constructed for highway service between Rome and Tivoli, Italy. A smoking °

compartment is provided, in addition to space for dogs and 4401b of baggage. The bus is 33jft. long, lift, wide and has a speed of 28 miles an hour.

What is said to be the best running speed for a racehorse was that of an American four : year-old carrying 1221b. The horse, it is stated, covered a straight quarter-of-a-mile at the speed of 48 miles an hour. The record greyhound speed is stated to be a quarter-of-a-mile in 25 seconds, or 36 miles an hour. The latest' in " mechanical " human beings is a mechanical dancer, electrically driven, which guides film actresses around the floor, taking her picture in such a way that audiences get the impression of dancing with her. Correct dressing, a chalked face on the camera and wooden arms givo a realistic touch. This robot can waltz, fox trot and walk.

A consignment of five grams of radium, worth 350.000 dollars (about £70,000), packed in 25,000 tiny pJatinum tubes worth 50.000 dollars, has been received by Bellevuo Hospital, New York, to bo used in cancer treatment. This hospital, now has 10 grams of radium, twice as much, it is said, as any other medical institution in the world.

A novel " weed-killing train " is an imrouto and spiayed Main is moving. sirti** shrivel up and die.