NEWS IN BRIEF

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22391, 11 April 1936, Page 5 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF

A direct telephone service between Tokio and Shanghai was opened recently. Beer consumption in Germany in the last nine months increased by 39,000,000 gallons to 659.010,000. A company has been formed in Germany to extract from coal grease and oil suitable for industry. All civil air services in Italian colonies have been placed under tho control of the Air Ministry in Homo. The name of tho capital of the Dominican Republic has been changed from Santo Domingo to Ciudad Trujillo. The great liner Normandic is shortly to bo fitted with new propellers which have been made in the South of France. . Mr. Frank Hobson, aged 54, who had farmed in Kenya for 32 years, died there recently from stints by a swarm of bees.

Thirty-five persons, chiefly women, were killed in a recent fire in the offices of the Halo-Chilean Cinema Company at Santiago.

Four passengers were fatally burned when an omnibus on the route between Buenos Aires and Mar del Plata caught fire recently.

Jacinto Lefignir, one of tho famous Araucanian Indian "caciques," or chiefs, died recently at Cunco, Chile, at tho age of 125. Two hundred representatives from 18 countries are expected to take part in the 1937 world championships shooting contests in Finland.

Tho "Young Communist League," which has in Russia alone 4,000,000 members, is to be entirely deprived of its official party status. Giuseppe Sasia, who, after terrorising tho Var district of Franco, was convicted of four murders, was recently guillotined in Paris. Tho Oder shipyard at Stettin, Germany, has so many orders in hand that it has decided to raise £40,000 for tho construction of a new slip. To reduce imports every metal tube in Germany must bear a warning to tho purchaser not to throw it away as tho metal is to be used again. About 100 Paria law students recently burned an effigy of Professor Jeze to emphasise their hostility to his advocacy of tho Abyssinian cause.

Tho Ab.vssinians think the Eritrean native soldiers "terrible fighters," but find the Italians lacking in dash, according to an Abyssinian chief.

London's education bill for tho coming year is estimated at £13,921,245. Extra expenditure has been offset by a decline in the number of pupils. Plans for protecting the treasures of the Cathedrals at Chartres and Bourges in the event of air raids are under consideration by French art lovers. A "symphony concert" by a mouthorgan baud, which is said to earn £7OO a week on the music-halls, was given recently at Queen's Hall, London. Adolf Seefeld, aged Go, a travelling watchmaker, was condemned to death at Schwerin recently for the murder of 12 small boys between 1933 and 1935.

Robert Wadlow, the tallest boy in the world, is nearly Sft. oin. in height. Ho celebrated his eighteenth birthday recently at his home at Alton, near Chicago. I)r. Alekliine, former world's chess champion, and M. Euwe, the present champion, will play a return match at Sotnmering, near Vienna, at the end of the year.

Direct telegraphic communication between Afghanistan and Persia was recently opened after tho Afghan line had been connected with tho Persian lino at Kalk Ala.

Queen Wilhclmina, of Holland, has awarded to Mr. 11. H. Sanders, of Liverpool, who is manager of the Elder Fyffe Line in Rotterdam, the Order of Orango and Nassau.

Twenty elks, seven bison, and a number of badgers, ordered from Canada by General Goering for breeding in German national parks, arrived recently at Bremerhaven.

Alexander Charski, President of the Leningrad Machine Building Union, was recently sentenced to ten years' imprisonment at Leningrad for embezzling trade union funds. In Britain motor licence duties brought in a revenue of £31,538,000 last year. Of this total, £5,100,000 went to the Exchequer, the remainder going to tho Road Fund. "Nasz Przeglad',' the largest Jewish newspaper in Poland, has been banned for alleged insulting references to the visit of Dr. Flick. German Minister of the Interior to Poland. The Russian Central Executive Committee has decided to award decorations to 1373 persons, including milkmaids, cattle breeders, shepherds, poultry farmers, and boo keepers. Patricia MacGuire, the typist who has become known throughout America as "the Sleeping Beauty of Oak Park," a Chicago suburb, has be'gun tho fifth voar of her state of coma.

Two young Communists accused ot being leading members of an illegal "Red" Sports Association were sentenced by the People's Court in Berlin to penal servitude for life. An appeal for prayers "to savo Mexico from religious persecution" has been sent by the Mexican Episcopate to Britain, the United States, Spain, South America and tho Philippines. Mr. Ralph Freeman, the British engineer who designed tho Sydney Harbour bridge, has been chosen as designer of tho new £2,000,000 Howrah bridge to replace the pontoon bridge across tho Hooghly at Calcutta. Tho Belgian National Federation of War-Wounded lias bought a site at Kussnacht, on the Lake of Lucerne, adjoining tho spot whore the lato Queen of tho Belgians was killed in tho motor accident of August 29, 1935, for tho purpose of building a memorial chapel.

No drastic alteration in steamship fares is likely to result from the decision of the North Atlantic Passenger Conference to abolish "first-class" rating and to classify ships in '2O categories. The new rates arc expected to vary from the old by not more than 30s. Bobo, the popular chimpanzee at tho Scottish Zoological Park, Edinburgh, has died at tho ago of eight. The animal went to Edinburgh six years ago from West Africa. A daily event in tho summer time was the open-air ten parties which Jio "conducted." The sale of King Edward tho Sixth's Schools, Birmingham, has been completed, and one of the old landmarks will disappear. The site, covering an acre and a-half in tho heart of the city, was too valuable for scholastic purposes, and the board of governors obtained £400.000 for it with which to rebuild at Edgbaston. Mr. Jeff Goddard, a former cattle inspector in Northern Rhodesia, was killed by a lion while journeying from Lusaka to the Jossie goldmine. Tho lion entered the Government rest-hut where Mr. Goddard and his companion w'cte spending the night, seized Mr. Goddard, and carried him off. His body, from which the head had been severed, was found at daybreak. Two okapis have been caught in tho Belgian Congo. They have been put in charge of Father Hutsebaut of the Buta Mission, who has had much experience of dealing with those animals. As all okapis which have hitherto been sent to Europo have died soon after their arrival there, tho export of the animals is now prohibited in the hope of saving this rare species from extinction.