NEWS IN BRIEF

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22030, 9 February 1935, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF

Among London taxi-drivers there are scores over seventy years of age, while a few are over eighty. Gas caused 181,053 known British casualties, including: more than 9000 dead, in the Great War. British trade unions, which had 8,346,000 members in 1920 bad only 4,383,000 at the end-of 1933. Keeping the River Thames open for shipping calls for the removal of about 1,000,000 tons of mud from its bed every year.

In his forty-live years' service as village postman, Mr. Lattimore, of Corby, Kettering, has walked and cycled over 250,000 miles. It is expected that British motor-car manufacturers will turn out and sell cars and chassis to the value of £50,000,000 this year.

London had 25 air-raids during the Great War, in which altogether 922 bombs were dropped, 524 people were killed and 1264 injured. Tests of road noises are said to prove that- the various vehicles offend in the following order: tram-car; steam waggon, sports car and motor-cycle. The cheapest railway i 3 surely to be found in Finland, where one can travel 1000 miles for 23s third-class and 34s second-class on the State Railways. When a prominent English K.C. "accepts appointment as a judge he has to sacrifice an income of anything up to £40,000 for the official salary of £4OOO.

London's county hall which cost £4,000,000, is no longer large enough to house the staff of the ' London County Council. This numbers 4000 officials.

In the use of all-steel railway carriages, Britain lags behind Germany, the United States, Italy and the French State Railways. Only 15 per cent of British rolling stock is steel.

Pole-vaulting is the mode by which Friesian peasants in Northern Germany travel to work, owing to the innumerable drainage ditches which line their low-lying and soggy fields. Of the toys sold at the recent Christmas time in Britain's shops more than 90 per cent have been British made. Ten years ago more than 60 per centwere imported from abroad. Provision for cinema apparatus, better washing accommodation and means of drying the children's clothes in wet weather are to be provided in all new elementary schools to be built in London 9

British schoolchildren to the number of 10,000 travelled abroad in 1933 under the School Journey Association, "they visited many countries, including Greece, Italy, Finland and Czechoslovakia.

As a nation the British people each drink • every day, on the average, six cups of tea, of which the country imported 505,000,0001b. in 1933. Of this total 432,000,0001b. were produced in Empire countries.

More than one-seventh of the national income was spent in house and home building in Britain in 1933. The actual amount was more than £100,000,000, and of this sum about £80,000,000 went in wages and labour, Britain's highest railway trough, from which express engines .pick up water without stopping, has been fitted with hot-water pipes to prevent freezing. It is on the main line to Inverness and 1480 ft. above sea level. Among the leading racehorse owners during the last British season are the Aga with £64,957 winnings; Lord Glanely, with £16,160; the Maharajah pf Rajpipla, with £13,469; and Lord Derby, with £12,742. Nowadays the famous " Redcaps the Corps-of Military Police—consist of only 506 men, including a provostmarshal and five assistant provostmarshals. During the war the strength of the corps was nearly 15,000.

Down 403 steps, up 403 steps, six days a week, month after month, year after year, is part of the normal work of Mr. R. G. Rees, postman of.Holyhead, who delivers the mail to the South Stack Lighthouse, Anglesey. Among the Vlashitch Mountains of Yugoslavia men do the knitting and heavy housework as well as their work in the fields. The women enjoy themselves. They are able to do as they like because there are so many more men than girls.

Modern methods and machinery introduced into Japan's textile factories have greatly increased the output. A weaver working eleven hours a day in 1922 produced 1800 yards; now, working ojily eight and a-half hours, he will produce 5000. British banks formerly absorbed nearly 4000 boys a year; now, owing to the introduction of calculating and other machines, this number is greatly reduced. As officials retire on reachinc the age limit, the number of employees is stiU further reduced.

Pictorial signs—a telegraph post for the telegraph office, a trunk for the baggage office and a big question mark for inquiries—are in use at Parkeston Quay, Harwich. All the symbols selected are known the world over, and foreign visitors of all nationalities can "read" them.

The second richest man in the world is the eighteen-year-old Maharajah of Gwalior, who possesses jewels alone worth £4,000,000. He was named George, after the King, by his father who was so loyal to the Emperor of India that he also named his daughter Mary.

An enterprising London picture house has installed a dog nursery on its premises. This theatre has provided most comfortable, white-painted cubicles for each dog, raised well off the ground, numbered and lined with clean straw daily- A competent attendant is in charge. Tho first frog farm in Europe has been established at Meissendorf. Germany. A large area of marshy district has been enclosed by barbed wire fences and bul! frogs are to be reared. The flesh of frogs .is testeemed by epicures in America and Japan as well as in France. The Psalmist considered that the natural age for a man to die was 70, and the figure has been generally accepted ever since. Yet, according to the latest census figures, 118,435 people died in one year in England and Wales aged over 75, and 76 of them were over a hundred. Twenty-five thousand thermometers rose with remarkable suddenness recently in Paris and went off with a bang. Thev were destroyed in a fire which broke out in a thermometer factory. Some rubber caught fire ana the flames were helped by new pa-mfc on tho walls which contained spirit. Tho first fatal car accident in Britain occurred when the driver, Mr E. K. Sewoll, and his passenger, MajorJvitobe, were both killed at Grove Hill, Harrow, on February 25, 1899. The ca *. ff™ downhill and Mr. Sewell lost control after the rear axle had broken. It aad a 5 h.p. engine. In 1933, 34 years later, 223,530 people were killed and injured on the roads in Britain.