NEWS IN BRIEF

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21906, 15 September 1934, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF

A canary has died in England, 32 years old. There are nearly 300 women holding flying certificates iu Britain.

People in British prisons cost tho nation about sld a day to food.

Japan's birthrate is decreasing; last voar the total was 61,618 fewer than m 1932.

The famous Iron Mask, worn by the prisoner of the Bastille, was rnaae or velvet.

Compressed air is used in South African fields to blow diamonds out ot crevices.

The cuttle fish is not a fish. It- is an octopus belonging to the ceplia.opoda class of molluscs.

Sealing-wax contains no wax at all. It is made of shellac, Venice turpentine and cinnebar, and is a liquid.

Anyone who becomes a Cabinet Minister in Spain, even for a day, is entitled to a pension of £2(O a year. British motoring offences averaged 1000 a dav last vear; fines to the total of £266,178 17s lid were administered.

A humming bird has, proportionally, more brain than a man. Its brain is a twelfth its body weight; a man's is a thirty-fifth.

" Ants' eggs " given to goldfish are not the eggs of ants. It is the pupae in the white cocoons which are sold as food for goldfish. Red does not madden a bull, because a bull cannot; see red. Tests have shown the animals are colour blind, so red looks like black.

It cost £23,540 to maintain the Tower of London last year. Aaainst this, the return from admission fees and sale ot guidebooks was £IS,7U6. Among the countries of the world, the only one which has so l'ar "shown no signs of recovery is Spain. Last April there were 700.000 unemployed.

At a " freak " show in New* York there is shown a lead pencil which —so the proprietor says—Noah checked otf the animals as-, they came out of the Ark.

The smallest countries in Europe are Luxemburg, Liechstenstein. San Marino and Monaco, and their respective populations are 265,000, 11,500, 12,000 and 23,000.

Elm wood has, np till now, been regarded as of little use because of its tendency to warp. A new process has been discovered that is said to euro this defect.

In the white dial of Big Ben, as the famous clock of the Houses of Parliament in London is known, there are holes made by shrapnel during air raids in the Great War. London schoolchildren are improving. The number reported to be suffering from malnutrition in 1933 was 4.7 per cent, the lowest figure ever recorded for London.

Lions in the Kruser National Park, South Africa, are so numerous and so tafhe that motorists have been held up for hours waiting for them to conclude their roadside siestas.

Red, white and blue roses can now be grown. The first of this new kind was grown by a patriotic Chechoslovakian horticulturist as it is his country's national colours. Waves can be produced artificially in the gr<*at new Bwimmlag pool constructed at Wembley. It measures 60ft. by 200 ft., and is a few inches deep at one end and over 16ft. at the other. The Chinese have difficulties with tha names of film stars. They call Charlie Chaplin " Choh Bih Lin"; Mickey Mouse, " Mee Kan "; Katherine Hepburn, " Ear Shih Lin Poo Peng Ng." A wedding of Lilliputians has taken place at St. Stephen's Cathedral, Vienna. Adolf Glauer, the bridegroom, was 31 years old, and measured 3ft. 4in. The bride was 25. and measured 3ft. 3in.

Permission is to be given to establish

18 German factories in Britain. Their principal products will be articles of clothing, and while some Germans will be employed, most of the workers will be British.

The journey between London and Belfast, a distance of 377 miles, which' takes seven and a half hours by train and boat, can be done in three a;id three-quarter hours by the new railway air service.

Factories to the number of 409 were closed in Britain last year. To counterbalance this, however, 463 new ones, employing 29,500 hands, were opened, and 95 existing factories were extended in the same period.

Because Prince Henry is coming to Australia and New Zealand instead of Prince George, millions of medallions, cigarette cards, chocolate boxes, etc., bearing the portrait of the latter have had to be destroyed.

More people are getting married in Britain. This is said to be a definite sign that times are becoming better. In the first quarter of this year there were over 14,000 more marriages than in the same period of 1933. Probably the only persons who welcome thunderstorms are the employees of the Woolwich Arsenal. Whenever

thunderstorms are expected, all work is immediately stopped. The men, however, still are paid for their lost time. There is a town in Mexico with a population of over 6000. and it has one place of worship for every day of the year—Leap Year excepted. In London, with a population of seven and a half millions, there are about 2000 churches. One of the newest motor gadgets takes the form of a water feed for the windscreen wiper so that it can cope with " traffic film," the corpses of flies and the other tenacious substances which normally call for a sponge and leather.

In one county in England at least, Bedfordshire, the schoolchildren are taller and heavier than those of the same age last year. In the twelve-year-old group the average increase in weight is a pound and a half, and about one-sixth of an inch in height. _ \ Insurance against the imposition ,of " lines," at the rate of Id a week, in return for which insurers being given lines to write received compensation at the rate of 3d a 100, was recently started by two boys at the Grammar School, at Goole, Yorkshire. The scheme was withdrawn.

From property left more than , : 150 years ago to help children of Hulwell, near Hitohin, Hertfordshire, to start in life, the income has risen from £6O to £3OOO a year. Out of this alms-houses and village halls have been built, endowmeats hrvo been made and grants to 20 children a year are paid. A startling feature of the British Home Office 'report on criminal statistics is the proportion of youths who appear in the list. Of the total number of indictable offenders, 21 per cent were under the age of. 16 years, while no fewer than 33 per cent of house and shop breaking olienders were also under 16 years. «-nn Scottish bagpipes being played <ooo miles away were heard in London by air latelv* when a monument to one of Scotland's most famous sous—i/r. David Livingstone —was unveiled at Victoria Falls, Southern Rhodesia, which he discovered. The memorial, which has been built at a cost of '£lo,ooo by the Caledonian society* of South Afriua, was unveiled by Mr. H U. Moffat, former Premier of Southern Rhodesia and a nephew of Dr. Livingstone.