NEWS IN BRIEF

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21562, 5 August 1933, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF

The first safety razor was made inBritain in 1875. Moro than half the total population of Canada is less than 25 years of age. Cases of bag-snatching in Britain have increased 92 per cent in the past five years. Lord Derby turns the scale at 22st. Mr. Ghandi weighed only sst. at the end of his fast. London spends each year some £5,000,000 in public health services for maintenance only. It is stated that experiments have proved that milk remains fresh longer if it is kept iu dark green bottles. Artificial rubber feet were fitted to a duck at Michigan when its real feet had to be amputated for frost-bite. A Tokio district court has decided that a husband out of work has no right to insist that his wife should live with him. A giant electric shovel, built in Marion, Ohio, can scoop up a motortruck and swing it over a four-storey building. The will of Mrs. Annie Prince, of Los Angeles, provided that her pet parrot should bo painlessly killed and buried with her. A White Wyandotte hen still in the bloom of youth, belonging to Mr. Fairey, of Irchester, England, recently laid her 1000 th egg. A man at Lingfield, Surrey, who had been deaf for years, went for an aeroplane trip. He says that the noise of the engine cured him. A woman at Fort Worth, Texas, divorced her husband last September. She remarried him in November. Now she is suing for a second divorce. Wonderful models of aeroplanes, which are often used for official tests u are made by a man at Beading, England, whose workshop is his kitchen. Five babies—three boys and two girliv —all alive and healthy, have been boriife at one birth in Foggia, Italy, to An- w tenia Coppola, the wife of a labourer. James and John Piggott, England's oldest twins, completed their 91st year in June. One lives near Leeds, and the other at Brampton, Huntingdonshire. Fishermen at Vishy, Sweden, have found in a cave a collection of gold, silver, and bronze ornaments, which it; is believed belonged to some ancient viking. Britain's consumption of cocoa is equal to one cup a week per head of the population. The people also eat chocolate at the rate of 2oz. a week per head. What is regarded as the largest life insurance policy in the world is based oh the life of a man resident in Dela- . ware, United States. He is insured for ' £1,400,000. The Boy Scouts of the world will have a special postage stamp issued in their honour by the Hungarian Government to commemorate the international jamboree at Godollo. Although vast areas of Canada are given over to farming, less than a-third of the population actually lire' on farms, of which there are nearly /30,C00 in the Dominion. Passengers carried in London's trains, omnibuses, and trams during 1932 totalled 2,236,000,000; this .4s a decrease of 47,000,000 on the figures for the previous year. At Shakespeare's birthplace at Strat-ford-on-Avon is kept a register for visitors to sign. Last year j 57,544 signatures were entered, representing 70 different nationalities. Prisoners in Barcelona, Spain, recently threatened to revolt unless they were given a daily bath, wireless in each cell, and meals that cost Is instead of 9d a head. Searching for lost cattle on a 6000 ft. high plateau, between two passes on the Argentina-Chile border, mulettsers found a lake with boiling red water, suggesting volcanic activity. A young Bengali j of Bankura, near Calcutta, when attacked by a man-eat-ing tiger which was terrifying his village, held it by the tongue until hia friends killed it with spears. Hundreds of unstamped letters in tha letter boxes of San Antonio, Texas* puzzled the postal officials till experts found that the stamps had been eateq' off by ants attracted by the gum. The ashes of Miss Anny Ahlers, thei German actrSSjj who died in tragic cir« , ■ cumstances in London on March 14* have been deposited in the church at Shipley, a few miles from Horsham. Certain areas, including London* Glasgow, Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham and Coventry, are regarded as • " black " by insurance companies so far as motor-cycle policies are concerned* Built about a century ago, the front of the British Museum, London, is being cleaned for the first time. Soap and water only are being use([. but the cleansing operation will cost about £3OO.

One of the least known slang names for a coin is. that of " alderman," which is a nickname for half-a-crown, due, perhaps, to the fact that an alderman may be looked upon as " half a king "• in his own ward.

One of the greatest needs of the Brw tish slum areas, according to Mrs. Stanley Baldwin, are mortuary chapels, where deceased persons can await burial, as there is seldom room to spar© for them in the home.

Railway carriages of the noiseless variety are not popular .in Holland. The rattle of the old type covered conversation and allowed the passenger to read and rest undisturbed by what other travellers might be saying. Greyhound racing is still growing in popularity in Britain. Last year 20,178,260 persons paid for admission to the -50 licensed tracks. Of the total gates, £222,550 went to the Exchequer and £42,790 was paid in local rates. London policemen, who already must have a practical knowledge of first-aid, car driving, swimming and life-saving, are now to bo trained in the work of firemen. This is so that they may bo able to face the risk of rescuing persons from -burning buildings.

A Hungarian woman, suing her husband for alimony, was astonished to hear that she had been divorced several , years before. Her husband is a professional hypnotist, and she asserts that he must have put her in a trance and then obtained her signed consent to tho divorce. Owing to a mistake made in issuing a new birth certificate, tho previous one having been destroyed in a fire, a young man at Boulogne finds himself officially registered as " female." Now he cannot get married until still another birth certificate is issued, this document being essential to a marriage in France. Two men, ono tall and one short, were to be hanged in Warsaw for spying. Tho short man, after having been allowed to spend three hours alone witli his sweetheart, stepped on the gallows, accompanied by his lawyer; who is six feet tall. Tho first man was hanged, and the hangman eyed the lawyer. He seized him and began to pinion hun. Just as he was fixing the noose another lawyer rushed in and tho shouting, struggling attorney was saved.