NEWS IN BRIEF

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21888, 25 August 1934, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF

It is estimated that the' average American visitor will spend £IOO in Britain. There are about 400,000 pupils attending the 10,000 privately owned schools in Britain. ' Japan's birth rate is decreasing. Last year the total wa.s 61,818 fewer than in 1932. People in Britain speud £1.000,000 a year on " lucky charms" and various forms of fortune-telling. Britain's number of unemployed ' people—lo,lß7,ooo—is tho highest figure since December, 1929. Factories are being built in Britain for the canning of some thirty-five different sorts of fruits and vegetables. Britain "foreign tourist" trader's booming. This ydar, it is anticipated, over 250,000 overseas visitors will arrive. A flamingo in the Berlin Zoological Gardens has laid an egg, the first flamingo egg ever to have been laid in Europe. The land under forests in the British Empire covers 2,000,000 square miles. For this huge area there are only 1500 forest officers. Among the diseases which British scientists are making less deadly are tuberculosis, whooping coueh, scarlet fever, typhoid and diphtheria. • Flowers are said to last longer if placed in a copper vase. Strips of copper or copper crystals in ordinary vases are said to have the same effect. _ The average daily population of British prisons m 1932 was 11,992 men and 811 women, the total being 12,803, as compared with about 13,000 last year. The Tower of London has a regular resident population of 700 persons, men, women and children, including the detachment of Guards on duty. Air pilots are not always highly paid. In some cases men in charge of machines worth more than £BOOO apiece receive only £4 a week as wages. The sad fate of a Yorkshire boy who crashed while flying alone and was burned to death, has caused the Air Ministry to forbid aviators under 17 to fly alone. The only producing oil-well in Britain is situated on the Duke of Devonshire's estate, near Chesterfield. Since it was sunk, in 1919, it has supplied over 2600 tons.

Although the members of the Corps of Commissionaires in London earn only about £4 a week on an average, they are said to own property totalling up to £IOO,OOO.

Among animals to be found on British roads, dogs supply the greatest number of " jay-walkers," even sheep having acquired the knack of evading motor traffic.

Any person who brings a recruit for the British Army can claim 30s if he is passed for the Life C4uards, 10s if for the Foot Guards, and 2s 9d if for any other regiment. The " no-stocking " fashion has hit the hosiery makers so hard that they are now turning out specially fine scamless stockings that are almost invisible in wear.

During the last five years the Royal Mint has issued 160,000,000 pennies, 87,000,000 halfpennies, 91,000,000 sixpences, 32,000,000 farthings, and 16,000,000 threepenny-bits. When the great Cunarder, now being built on the Clyde, is in full commission, there will be 18,000 meals, including odd tea. meals and morning soup, to be served every day.

•The number of one-pound notes in Circulation in Britain has decreased by about 40,000,000 in the past 14 years, while the ten-shilling notes have increased by 7,000,000 in the same period. Doctors and nurses are provided by the Government of Chile when children are born. Other State benefits are insurance against accident and death, official hospitals, and free coffins and graves.

A war debt of £150,000 has lately been paid by the United States Government to New York City. The debt was incurred for the supply and transport of troops during the Civil War of 1861-65. Saturday is the worst day for fatal street accidents in' London, tho worst hour through the week being from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m., except the week-end and on bank holidays, when it is froni 10 p.m. to 11 p.m. As a result of a night census taken in London a few months ago, 68 homeless men and 20 homeless women were found in the streets. The same night there were 266 free beds empty at the casual wards, etc.

Human efficiency may be at its peak any time between ten in the morning and midnight—it depends on the individual. • But, according to a scientist's calculations, it is no higher first thing in the morning than it is at bedtime. Eight married men, members of a Mitcnam church, are giving up their spare time to clean the church and plant and maintain the gardens round it. Women members have formed a "Brass Band" to keep the metalwork polished. Thirty different types of buoys are in use around the 2400 miles of coast of England, Wales and the Channel Islands. The heaviest weigh 10 tons; the lightest scwt. Each buoy is periodically inspected, and overhauled annually. It is now illegal to s£ll 67 different types of British birds, including blackbirds, cuckoos, jackdaws, larks, magpies, ravens, robins, sparrows, Etarlings, swallows and thrushes, save in cases when birds have been born, in captivity.

Two Diesel engines driving air screws provide the motive power for a novel boat made by a young Russian engineer. It is made of pulped paper moulded under great pressure, and is said to be strong enough to carry one hundred passengers.

Only two of the thirty or so varieties of whales are likely to survive the modern methods of whale hunting. The Greenland or white .whale is now protected throughout the world, and the lesser Rorqual, which seldom exceeds thirty-two feet in length, is too small to bo worth killing.

Flrom property left more than 150 years ago to help children of Hulwell, near Hitchin, Hertfordshire, to start in life, the income has risen from £GO to £3OOO a year. Out of this almshouses and village halls have been built, endowments have been made, and grants to twenty children a yea r are paid. Coalfields all over Britain shoffed a good return for the first three montsc of this year. The most profitable or all, in South Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Warwickshire, registered a gain of over 2s 6d a ton. Durham was lowest, with a profit of one-tenth of a penny per ton. The biggest output came from Yorkshire. In Rome —a city of 1,000,000 people —there are 20,000 police, in addition to the carabiniers. And the majority, of them are plain-clothes " politicals." To assist the police there arc the porters. Every apartment house in Rome —which means the dwellings of perhaps 99 per cent of the population —must have its porter. Every porter is a police agent, a sort of special constable, who must inform the police of everything of interest about the inhabitants of his house.