NEWS IN BRIEF

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21882, 18 August 1934, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF

Over 6000 greyhounds race ever]?; week in Great Britain.

In Britain there are four places ; called New York.

The Archbishop of Canterbury re- ; ceives £15,000 a year. Tho London Mint loses £2OOO a year. " through the waste in silver coinage. : The smart women in Belgrade paint \ their ear 3 red to match their lips. More than half of the commercial) \ fishermen in the world are Japanese.:

Dusting the books' in the library of the House of Lords, costs £9O a year,. i

The quantity of horse flesh consumed at the London Zoo exceeds 300 tons ai | year. \

Airports will be open at 250 British cities and towns by the enc} of next year.

Qualified air pilots registered at thei British Air Ministry now total over; 3000.

" Self-denial week " this year in Engi \ land brought the Salvation Army; ' £148,936. j British Government departments } spend £6-4,000 annually on repairs to; j their typewriters. j A man of 72 and a girl of 17 werd married at Pewsey, near Marlborough* ' England, recently,, Microphones and loudspeakers havft ' been tested in Britain as a means of j drilling Army recruits. To make use of their surplus of milk j British farmers are beipg instructed in, j the making of ice-cream. Forest fires in Britain last year numbered 620, damage to plantations of jj young trees amounting to £19,000. The cleverest conjurers in the world, are the " galli-galli " men of Port Said,; who work without stage or " props." { Women employees are increasing in! British iron and steel industries, while the number of men shows a decrease.

All snow is not white. Red, yellow,blue, green, and even black snow hag, fallen in various parts of the world. A Bible in a Berlin library is printed on palm -leaves. Another in the Vatican Library weighs a quarter of a ton< A prisoner in a prison at Maritzburg,Natal, broke into the officers' quarters and stole clothing to the value of £4O, Births on British ships average 140 ai rear. There are 1200 persons living iri London with birthplaces somewhere oa the high seas.

A woman has been elected a Fein low of the Royal College of Physicians for the first, time in the 400 years' history of the college. A battered leaden casket, alleged tel. contain the bones of Christopher Columbus, is buried in an ornate tomb in the cathedral at San Domingo City.

Although Tristan da Cunha, " the loneliest island in the world," is in* fested with rats and other vermin, dis*' ease is practically unknown among thei inhabitants.

Scientists have made bullfrogs, salani manders, and rats grow to double their; normal size through injections of thei secretion of the pituitary glands o£ oxen and sheep. Mrs. Roosevelt desires to become art aeroplane pilot, but, in deference to the president's wishes, she has decided to wait until she becomes a private* citizen once more.

Mint sauce with lamb_ is believed tq have originated in the fact that mint was one of the bitter herbs with which Moses instructed the Israelites to dress the lamb of the Passover.

Botanical science has not yet learned why the telegraph plant of tropical Asia spontaneously trembles and shakes at frequent intervals, even in the still,; calm air of a breezeless day.

The use of motor boats, which enable' fishermen to make three or four times as many trips as before, is regarded as one possible reason for the decrease of fish round the coasts of Britain.

Trawling on horseback brings good catches at Mar del Plata, in The fishermen work in pairs, their nets spread between their mounts, and gallop up and down the shallows. In Italy when persons are paying their respects to the dead by visiting their tombs, it is the customary practice to leave their visiting cards in urns specially provided for this purpose. A widow in Italy recently received a letter containing a proposal of marriage which was posted to her 17 years ago. The man who wrote it is now married to someone else and has 11 childdren.

Big-game hunters are now having their trophies-converted into furniture, elephant tusks making excellent bedposts. One hunter has a greatly prized smoking stand designed from a giraffe's foot.

Famous for his bargain driving, Mr.Tom Shepherd, a director of Hull Museums, recently exchanged a match-« box containing 12 rare moths with the British Museum for the skeleton of ai whale.

Aphides or plant lice, the majority of; which are females hatched from um fertilised eggs, have been known tq give birth to 94 successive generations without the intervention or birth of: ono male. The action of throat, muscles iit speaking, recorded by a new apparatus,; has led an inventor to express the belief that no spoken word has ever been; uttered twice in identically the same way since the beginning of time. No less than £8.000,000 of unclaimed money is lying idle in British banks, most "of it being made up of small accounts whose rightful owners cannot? bo traced; there are also fortunes of as much as £20,000 waiting for claimants*

The only domestic animal that is bred profitably in the Arctic regions is tho reindeer,' because it requires neither hay nor food nor shelter. There are more than 125,01)'),000 of them, and it is nob uncommon for single breeders in Arctiq Siberia to own herds of 10,000 at a time*

A Lancashire doctor and a friend have inven ted a device that ivjay soon become a standard, fitting on all motorcars. It is a robot lamp-lighter incorporated in the mechanism of the dashboard clock. At lighting-up time the robot switches on the side and rear lamps of cars left unattended.

The Archbishop of Canterbury has the singular honour of being in his own person a university, and has the privilege of conferring the degrees of bachelor and doctor of music upon distinguished organists and composers. These degrees are not given merely as an honour to old and deserving persons, but only on evidence satisfactory to very expert and competent examiners.

Dignity is the word that best epitomises the Queen. But those who have never seen her at Court or at the opening of Parliament have never seen the real Queen. With her State robes and her crown or her Court dress and her diamonds, she assumes an air of regal austerity . that is unequalled in the world. The Queen ceases, to the eye of the beholder, to be a woman and becomes tho quintessence of monarchy —the living embodiment of the pains dignity of England.