NEWS IN BRIEF

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21580, 26 August 1933, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF

Less than one per cent of the children in London's elementary schools are poorly, clad. Between the years 1851 and 1931,Britain's child population increased by 40 per cent.

The most important word in the British language, according to one authority, is " set."

There have been no deaths among the 3000 inhabitants of Segir, Turkey, for eight years. The wire used in connecting telephone subscribers -in Great Britain measures 3,572,662 miles. Butterfly brains, each about the size of a pinhead, contain 80,000 nerves and 80,000 airtubes. For the pleasure of visitors there are 10,000 skiffs and 1000 motor-boats on the River Thames. In Maryland, United States, it is an offence for a woman to go through her, husband's pockets at night. Inhabitants of Greater London each make an average of 487 journeys a year by train, tram or bus.

The British gas industry carbonises 18,000,000 tons of coal a year and keeps 70,000 miners at work.

Messrs. John J. ana W. B. Dixon, of Montgomery, Alabama, twins, have celebrated their 92nd birthday. In Britain, 20,000,000 people " go to the pictures " every week, the world total being 140,000,000 a week. The world production of gold last was worth £98,848,074; iri tha previous year the total was £91,642,512,

A bullfight in which the matadors, were mounted on motor-cycles instead of horses was recently held at Bilbao.

Britain has now about half a million women drivers of motor-cars, of which total some 150,000 own their qwn cars.

One of the problems of the ascent of Mount Everest is the fact that ink freezes, so that written records ate difficult.

ient has 4400 miles, of roads, and last year nearly 120,000 tons of Bton© were used in keeping them in condition.

The largest marquee in the world, accommodating 5000 people, was used at the Wolverhampton floral fete last month.

Pilots at the Channel ports earn, on an average, £IOOO a year. There are 68 Cinque Port pilots and 47 North Channel pilots.

Mr. A. J. Hole, of Moretonhampistead, Devon, has grown a cauliflower sft. 4in. high, with a stem as thick as a man's arm. Britain's umbrella trade is on the increase. It made 4,212,000 of these useful articles in 1930, as compared with 3,731,000. in 1924. An Indian undergraduate, Baba Pyere Lai Bedi, and Miss Freda Marie Houlston, of St. Hugh's College, were lately, married at Oxford. ......

If all the greenfly in a radius of 30 miles round London could be compressed into a solid mass it would be larger than Westminster Abbey. Sixty-five per cent of the cargoes entering and leaving West Hartlepool Harbour are carried in Swedish, Norwegian, Danish and Greek ships.

Chicken farmers in Trenton, New Jersey, "United States, are 'tattooing their birds with registration numbers as a protection against robbers.

The Ministry of Education, in Irak has issued an order forbidding women teachers to attend cabarets and to use face powder, lipstick or. eyeblack. ■ Mr. A. S. Higgo, a young South African, has walked 25,000 miles in the last five years. A pair of boota lasts him 'only about seven weeks. It is estimated that of the 6,090,000 members, of Co-operative Societies in Britain not one one-tenth Imow that they are affiliated to any political party. Aeroplanes which run on an overhead rail are the latest'suggested solution of the traffic problem/The scheme is the invention of a Scottish engineer.

A serious phase of New York's unemployment problem is the fact that there are 75,000 girls in the city without jobs, homes, or even sufficient food.

A first-class British film should be able to make £30,000 in the United States of America alone, and then approximately another £30,000 in other overseas markets.

A new type of aeroplane, recently tested in England, can fly a few feet above the ground and so slowly that a man can give it a start -and beat it easily in a 200 yards race. Taxicabs in London must be able to turn round on either lock, and without reversing, in a road 25ft. wide; the average medium to full-sized cars requires a 40ft road to turn in.

The* bicycle is booming in popularity in England. It is claimed that some of the new tandem machines, equipped with six and eight gears, are capable of travelling 40 miles an hour.'

A machine which hands out unemploy"ment pay on the pressing of the various keys has been invented m Britain. One button releases the money for the maru another the money for a wife» and so on.

Creosote is being tested as a fuel for motor-cars by engineers in Great Britain. A number of automobiles recently designed use the oily fluid, distilled from wood, to furnish power. Several such vehicles are said to be in operation. Equally suited to mild or torrid weather is a novel headpiece invented by a hatter of Liverpool, England. A detachable crown may be removed when the mercury goes up, and perforations" in the inner crown provide adequate ventilation for the head.

Burying tears with the dead was once a romantic expression of sympathy. The latest evidence of this custom was found a few years ago in a small vessel taken from a 2000-year-old grave near the city of Luxembourg* Chemical analysis proved that it originally contained human tears. The Academy of Optimists, a Parisian association, when giving a dinner to honour a member, voted for no aftercfinner speeches, convinced that postprandial efforts were generally a bore. Instead pages marched into the hall bearing aloft placards inscribed with brief congratulatory messages. Five million pairs of spats, valued, at £2,125,000, were sold every year in Britain before 1922. Kow the number is 30.000—and it becomes fewer every month. A manufacturer said " Men wear spats nowadays only at a wedding or some other social event. Few people wear them the whole year round. 1 ' Statisticians predict that Chicago will be a city of old and middle-aged millions by 1942 if the present severe declino of the birth rate continues. If the rate continues to fall at its present speed, the city will have 6.3 births a thousand in 1942. The city's birth rate dropped to 15.3 in 1931, a decline of 37 per cent from the figures of 1913. Coffee beans are now being pressed into compact briquettes and used for fuel in locomotives and factories in Brazil. There ha 3 been an enormous oversupply of the beans this year. Hundreds of thousands of sacks were, dumped into the sea before the idea . of using the coffee as fuel.was suggested. The dried bricks are ;said to provwd . ample heat for. .the boilers* '