NEWS IN BRIEF

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22166, 20 July 1935, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF

The use of artificial straw for hats is increasing in Germany. The Jonker Diamond is being exhibited to the public in a number of American cities. 111 addition to the motor baffic there are now sonic 8.000,000 pedal bicycles on the British roads. Powder blending for individual skins is attracting a large number of women to a London beauty salon. Committals to prison for offences against intoxicating liquor laws show a steady decrease in Britain. Germany is to spend £12,000,000 on an eight-year plan for .improving the navigation of the River Elbe. Germany's unemploved decreased by 213,000 in May to 2,020,000, which is 509,000 fewer than in June, 1934. There are estimated to be about 750,030 young persons in Britain who have never had any regular work. Grts wastage in London, due to defective mains, is sufficient to fill in one year 200 dirigibles of the RIOO type. Girls' schools throughout England are considering the introduction of brighter uniforms for their pupils. London's burial grounds together equal an area six times the size of Hyde Park, which covers 390 acres. Pisa's Leaning Tower formerly had a "lean-over" of 16ft. A recent measurement shows this now to be 14ft. The people living in the borough of Finehley, London, are outnumbered by those who have been buried there. All major British warships are to be reinforced eventually by a new antiaircraft gun of great power and efficiency. Sticks of opium, smuggled in disguised as lead pencils, have been seized by police in the Cninese quarter at Rotterdam. Twice as many boys'&s girls figure as victims in road accidents in Britain, while eight times as many boys as girls are drowned. The famous French airman Carlier was killed by crashing when giving a looping display at an air pageant at Orly, near Paris.

A London County Council schoolteacher is to bind the Codex Sinaiticus which was bought from the Soviet Government for £IOO,OOO.

The skeleton of a stag of the Ice Age is on exhibition in a German museum. Its bones show that the stag was as large as an elephant. F. M. A. Beatty. the* original of Kipling's character " Kim," was injured in the Quetta earthquake. Four of his family were killed. Musical fish lire in the Gulf of Mexico. Called the sirens, the little fish give off a tinkling sound, like the ringing of tiny bells, at sunset.».

To restrict the import of shellac from abroad German gramophone companies are offering to give a new record in exchange for two old ones. - A stamp bearing a portrait of Cardinal Richelieu, founder of the French Academy, was issued in Paris to mark the Academy's 300 th anniversary. Dogs have their "day,' f according to the figures of the leading; dog shows, the favourite breeds just now being cocker-spaniels, cairns and Pekinese. Striking increases in United Kingdom exports to Sweden, due to the beneficial influence of the British Industries Fair, are commented on in an official Swedish report. A man was electrocuted last month during salvage operations, after a violent explosion at the French national gunpowder factory at St. Chamas, near Marseilles. Through a half-inch hole cut in an eggshell, and covered with thin glass, students in a New York laboratory watched an embryo develop into a baby chick. The Egyptian Cabinet has authorised the putting into execution of the Finance Minister's five-year plan of public works involving expenditure of £36,000,000. The Italian Public Works Ministry will give £200,000 for the erection of a public dormitory at Naples owing to the increasing need of poor families for night shelters. A giant arum lily, Bft. high and 3Jft. across, is in the hothouse of the Agricultural High School, at Wageningen, Holland. It is growing from a root that weighs 6st. 41b Among wild flowers threatened with extinction in the Home Counties are the forget-me-not, foxglove, harebell, primrose, vio'et, wood anemone, cowslip and bluebell. Six people were killed and seven injured in the wreck of a train carrying explosives in the Rio Negro region (Argentina), when about five tons of gunpowder blew up. Past and present' members of the three fighting Services of all ranks were present at the funeral service of Admiral of the Fleet Sir Charles Madden in Westminster Abbey. Owing to the. shortage of metal in Germany, biscuit tins and tin containers in which coffee, cocoa and sweets are packed for sale must in future be charged for. The suggestion has been made by Major-General Sir F. Maurice that the British Legion should make friends with ex-soldiers all over the world as a means of ensuring world peace.

At a mass-trial of Communists at Banau, near Cassel, 42 persons were sentenced to a total of 132 years and three months' penal servitude, 31 others receiving lighter sentences. A sturgeon weighing 2621b. has been caught in the Volga, Russia. It produced 491b. of caviare. The usual weight of a sturgeon is about 1001b. and its yield of caviare 181b. to 201b.. A diver who had been working on the English ship Lutine, which was sunk off the Dutch coast in 1799 with bullion worth £1.250,000 on board, was dc-ad when brought to the surface. Driving the M.G. Magic Midget formerly owned by the Englishman Captain G. E. T. Eyston, a German driver named Hohlreusch lias set up four new international Class G. records at Budapest. A man who pleaded guilty to stealing a Union Jack flag and pole, from a. butcher's shop on May 5 because he " wanted to be patriotic," was bound over for six months at Birmingham, England. A dove with a,,-swastika banner tied to one foot—apparently a new form of Austrian Nazi propaganda—was seen on a Vienna housetop, where it pecked away the banner, which fluttered to the crowd below. Lobsters from Hawaii were recently found 12,000 miiles away. along the coast of South Africa. The migrating species, first known around the I Hawaiian lslancLi, has already half ; ' circled the globe. High Mass was celebrated on a football field in Du'nlfermline on .June 16, when a Scottish national pilgrimage paid homage to Queen Margaret, who ! died in the twelfth century. Queen Marcaret founded Dunfermline Abbey* j . .1 f