NEWS IN BRIEF

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22444, 13 June 1936, Page 5 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF

Postal orders are issued at the average rate of 10,000,000 a week in. Britain.

The demolition of Church House, Westminster, is scheduled to begin on August 1. Special steps are being taken to enforce tlio 30 miles an hour speed limit in London.

British charities received £111,468 from the British Broadcasting Corporation last year. Contract bridge organisations met in Liverpool recently to form a federal board of control. Police and S.O.S. messages broadcast in Britain last year totalled 1103. Of these 593 succeeded. Eight brothers Peacock, of Crook, County Durham, have worked a totai of 398 years as miners. Britain's oldest working postman is 85-vear-old Mr. Samuel Jeffery, of Marhamchurch, Cornwall. There will ho 5500 competitors, representing 52 nations, at tho Olympic Games in Berlin in August., A servieo for "all those who face tho perils of tho air" was held in Canterbury Cathedral recently. Kennels of all sizes to accommodate every sort of dog aro among the fittings of tho liner Queen Mary. Tho Wandsworth memorial to King George will be a bandstand to be built in the park opened by him in 1923. Tho number of full-time university students in Britain has grown from 44,309 to 50,638 in the past six years. Blind babies from an East Grinstead home were guests of the Lady Mayoress at Mansion House, London, recently. London's present demand for juvenile labour .ensures work for all boys and girls as they leave tho elementary schools. Coloured snow fell in somo parts of Syria recently. The reddish hue was caused by sand from the African deserts. Out of tho 50,000 children who leave London schools in a year, there are seldom more than 100 who fail to find employment. Venice recently experienced its highest tido for 24 years, causing tho flooding of buildings and tho failure of the electricity supply. As a nation Britain has a total income of £3,750,000,000 of which is spent £1,075,000,000, or nearly onethird, on food. Robes for peers and peeresses for King Edward's Coronation next year will cost £BS each and nearly 1600 of them will bo required. False fire alarms are growing more numerous every year in London. In 1932 there were 633; last year this figure had grown to 1271. Tho champion British "radio" county is Selkirk, Scotland, where there is said to be a receiving set in practically every household. Thirty brass helmets are preserved at the headquarters of the London Firo Brigade, in memory of their owners who died doing their duty.

Tho Duke of Kent's banner was affixed in the Chapel of tho Order of St. Michael and St. George, in St. Paul'B Cathedral, on St. George's Day. A Viennese Court has granted a separation order to a plaintiff whose wife left him because he was born under a star unsympathetic to her own. "Men, make-up, movies, and school" are said to bo the chief topic of conversation of girls between the ages of seventeen and twenty, in Britain. Drinking water for dogs accompanying passengers on British railways will be supplied this summer, free of charge on request, at all passenger stations. One family has been in possession of an inn near Evesham, Worcestershire, for 500 years. Brewing appliances centuries old aro preserved there.

Tho world's largest motor-vehicle is a van built in Berlin. It is 70 feet long, seven feet wide, and 11 feet high, and the engine can develop 100 horsepower.

Sixty-five Texas farmers have pledged themselves not to shave for one month. Those who do will be fined £l. Bearded men are wanted for a jubilee pageant of pioneering days. Britain's war pensioners and their dependants now number less than 1,000,000. At the present rate of decrease, about 50,000 a year, the list will last until 1966.

Girls employed by the British Post Office must serve six years before they become eligible for tho dowry given by tho G.P.O. to female employees who leave to get married.

Tho New York State Senate has passed a Bill forbidding tho salo of petrol to drunken drivers, leaving the attendants to judge whether the drivers are drunk or not.

Twenty boys entered for tho cookery class and eighteen for needlework in connection with tho annual hobbies exhibition organised by tho Education Authorities of Wimbledon, Surrey. Buried for twenty-five days beneath fivo foet of snow, a colt was recently dug out in Iceland. Though suffering from exposure and starvation, the animal walked two miles to its home. The world's smallest perfect portrait is painted on a bloodstone and measures one-eighth of an inch in length. It is tho work of a Canadian artist, and was painted with a brush made of a single camelhair.

On going to take out his savings, about £l6O from the mattress in which ho had hidden them, Ivan Geritch, of Yugoslavia, fell unconscious, finding that the notes had been completely destroved by moths.

A woman witness in tho Divorce Court told the President that she had never left her homo at Hempstead, Essex, before, and had never been in a railway train until that day. She was also unablo to read.

The world's largest port, London, now deals with more traffic than any other two British ports combined. In tho year just ended, 15,000 ships arrived from British ports; of these 50 per cent were British vessels. Dogs forced the town councillors of Szeged, in Southern Hungary, to alter a by-law increasing tho dog tax, aftor chasing them round the council room. Dog-owners assembled outsido tho town hall and, forcing their way in, let loose their dogs.

A now model highway to bo built at Formby in Lancashire will bo 120 foet wide for nearly four miles, and it will have two traffic ways and cycle tracks, grass verges and footpaths, and a reserve strip 22 feet wido down tho centre.

Two brothers, aged nino and six, have been sent to an American reformatory for refusing to salute the Stars and Stripes. Their father was a member of tho sect known as "Jehovah's Witnesses," and tho refusal was for religious convictions.

About 1,785,000 workpeople in Britain had a liso in wages during tho first quarter of this year. They aro getting, between them, nearly £250,000 more money. This is on top of tho risos obtained by 2,355,000 peoplo last year. At the samo time, hours of work havo been reduced in thousands of cases. British ports aro served by fewer than 2000 pilots. These men hold a master mariner's certificate, full qualification as a navigating officer, and havo expert knowledge of tho river or channel where they work. They aro licensed for ono year at a time only, and must undergo a test before their "permit" is renewed.