NEWS IN BRIEF

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21912, 22 September 1934, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF

Eight out of ten cases of stammering among children are found in boys. The London Zoological G lrdens have a boa-constrictor with a glass eye. Whist for money prizes is played by more than 200,000 persons every week in London.

Deafness in varying decrees affects about 2,500,000 Britons, of whom some 40,000 are totally deaf. Thefts of money from telephone-boxes in Britain have fallen fro;n £4OOO in 1932, to £SOO last year. British railways are very safe._ Only six passengers wero killed in accidents last year, while 619 wero injured.

The four best customers of Britain in the iron and steel industry are South Africa, India, Australia and Canada. " Approved " schools for delinquent children, of which there are 71 in Britain, holding 7000 children, are all full.

Plymouth, with a population of 208,000, did not have a single road accident in the first six months of this year.

On being convicted for the third time of poaching game at night in England, a man is liable to seven years' penal servitude.

Beds for 16 passengers are provider] in a new aeroplane recently under test in Holland. The air liner has a wingspan of 110 feet. King George's Royal yacht, Victoria and Albert, which is 35 years old, is 380 feet long. There is accommodation for 367 officers and men.

The bagpipes dicl not originate in, Scotland; they were know a and played in Persia centuries ago, and were introduced into the British Isles by the Romans.

The heavy smoker strikes 10,000 matches in a year. It is calculated if the cigarettes he smoked were placed end to end they would msasure nearly half a mile. The British motor industry has increased vastly. Ten years ago 148,600 vehicles were produced in 12 months; the output last year was 286,283, nearly double. All bulls over 10 months old in England and Wales have now to be licensed. This system has also been introduced in Scotland and North and South Ireland. The Canadian Parliament in Ottawa is the only bilingual Parliament in the world. All the business of their House of Commons is conducted in both English and French.

British people hold 6,373,600 wireless licences; - next come the Germans with 5,440,031, and the Japanese witb 1,739,160. There is no licensing system in the United States.

The work of cleaning the interior of St. Paul's Cathedral, London, has occupied eight men for nearly two and a-half years. They have scrubbed the stonework, etc., with soap and water. Once a week a policeman visits the Scottish island of lona, gets his notebook signed as proof of' his presence, and goes back again to Mull, another island, where his regular beat is situated.

So strictly do some Indians observe the purdah, or veiling of their women's faces, that there are cat es on record of surgeons performing operations on Indian women without ever seeing their faces.

The expectation of life in Britain, bag increased greatly. A new-born boy baby can now anticipate living 56 years, and a girl baby 60 years. Half a century ago, the figures were 42 and 45 years respectively. During 12 months, no fewer than 100,000,000 separate National Insurance and other payments were made at British labour exchanges. The money handled included £SOOO in copper and £420,000 in silver.

A bakelite from certain by-products of coal is new being experimented with for making motor-car bodies; it is said to be stronger than a metal body, lighter than an aluminium one, and impervious to burns.

Four ounces, instead of 2oz. as formerly, of boiled sweets are to be allowed to the women and children in the public institutions under the London County Council. The increase will cost at least £425 a year.

Four generations of at least two families great-grandmother, grandmother, mother, and daughter—have been taught at the Church St. church infant school, Lee, London. The school was established 100 years ago. A judge in the Isle of Man when appointed, has to swear that he will be as impartial, when deciding cases, as the " backbone of a herring." This is said as the backbone of the h erring is always found in the middle of the fish.

Divorce cases in Britain are becoming much more numerous. In 1913 the number of decrees granted in England and Wales was 557; for the first three Law Terms this year the petitions in London, alone, exceeded .2800.

In some British prisons classes are held for the convict s at which the teachers are also prisoners. In one establishment convicts teach chemistry, mathematics, economics, history, geography, engineering and book-keeping. Loudspeakers installed in one Manchester factory have increased the output of the work-girls, and, as they are on piecework, their wages have gone up in proportion. There is music for one hour in the morning and an hour and a half in the afternoon. The largest electric sign in the world is being built for an American manufacturer. A clock with a minute hand 27ft. long will form the centre of the sign, which will be 240 ft. high and 150 ft. wide. Fourteen thousand bulbs and 7000 ft. of incandescent gas tubing will be used. •

A deep-sea camera, invented by Professor Shamanov, of the All-Union Electro-Technical Institute, Moscow, is fitted with a television set hermetically sealed in a special cabinet. The object is to broadcast pictures of monsters and other denizens of the ocean direct from a submarine. An operating theatre so equipped that sound motiou pictures may be taken by individual operations while the surgeon describes > ;ach process, is a feature of tho Montreal Neurological Institute, research centre of McGill University, which was recently completed at a cost of £200,000. In suing her husbanc for divorce in Chicago, Mrs. Marjorie McKennan asserted that last Christn as the husband gave their three children gifts of money filched it while they were asleep, and then told them.the next morning that " for some unknown reason " Santa Claus had come back for his presents. The Duke of Atholl is the only person in Great Britain who is allowed to maintain his own army and has Royal' authority to do it. His " army ' is composed of 300 kilted Blair Atholl Highlanders, who are aimed with rifles, have their own colours and are entirely free from the control of the War Offioe. The bulk of the members of it are employees on the Duke's eafcate.