NEWS IN BRIEF

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22540, 3 October 1936, Page 5 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF

Ether was first used in performing an operation in England in 1816. Among the buildings marked for preservation in Britain are about 250 old bridges. Souvenirs for next year's Coronation will represent, in Britain, trade worth more than £'1,000,000. Drugs for dulling pain and inducing sleep, including opium, hashish, henbane and hemlock, were known to the ancient Greeks. Hamlet has been translated into the Kirghiz language (spoken in Russian Central Asia) by the Kirghiz writer, M. Ishambetoff. A skill I and bones believed to bo 1200 years old were unearthed recently by quarrymcn at Chalklnnd Quarries, Portland, Dorset. Charles Newton, aged eleven, won tlio freckles championship at Atlantic City, U.S.A., the judges deciding ho had 1895 on his face. If a fruit-ship begins unloading at 8 a.m. at Southampton Docks, the goods can be on sale in Covent Garden Market, London, by 5 p.m. Lord Warwick has signed a longterm contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Maver, and was to report for work at Hollywood early this month. During a recent cricket match at Newton Abbot a hedgehog crawled on to the pitch and stopped between the wickets, holding up the game. While the pleasure boat New Prince of Wales was recently cruising in the Thames Estuary, a seagull dropped a waterlogged 10s note on the deck. Some police court probation officers in England receive as little as £25 a year for their responsible work. In 1934, 318 officers were paid £2O or less. Immunity from motor-car insurance in Britain may bo obtained by depositing the sum of £15,000 with the Government. This facility is seldom made use of. Notice boards in Warnford, near Botley, Hants, announcing that the right-of-way across an estate was barred to visitors, have been tarred and feathered. Hatched from an ordinary egg, an American goose has appeared with two sets of wings. It can fly, using all four wings, and has been nicknamed "the biplane goose." Fishermen off Shetland report having encountered a monster fish, binish in colour, about 20ft. long w its body thick as a barrel, but with a comparatively small head and' mouth. Water taken from a well in the cellar of a public-house in Etlgware Road, London, is supplied free to applicants bringing a bottle. It is said to be good for certain eye troubles. A man on trial in Buffalo, New York, said lie could not remember the last name of his fiancee, though he knew her first name was Blanche. Her name was Blanche Wojciechowska. Licences were needed by Russians who wished to wear beards in the reign of Peter the Great, who put a heavy tax on the "face fungus." His aim was to make his people shave in European style. Choice of meals for the prisoners in the cells at police headquarters, Edinburgh, is a big innovation. For breakfast tnev can liave porridge and milk, rolls and butter, sausages or an egg, and tea or coffee. At Barrett's Mill, near Callington, Cornwall, a tame fox lives happily with two sheep dogs and never attempts to harm any of the 700 chickens. He allows his owner to fondle and curl him round his neck like a fur. A new industry, which it is understood will be subordinate to that of shipbuilding, is likely to be established on the sito of Eltringham and Co.'s shipyard at Willington "Quay, on the Tyne, which ceased work many years ago. When the car in which four of the crew of the Italian salvage steamer Artiglio were travelling went, over a cliff at Dunmore, County Waterford, and somersaulted several times in its 50fb. drop, none of the occupants "was injured. Bombardier James Marsden was killed and five others were injured when a tractor belonging to the 33rd Field Brigade, Royal Artillery, Bulford Camp, overturned recently at Enford, between Netheravon and Cpavon on Salisbury Plain. Five motor-cars, ono fire-engine, ono lorry, a dozen pedestrians, an ambulance and a London County Council emergency van recently went to tho rescue of a three-year-old child "who wedged her head between some railings near St. Pancras Station. Mr. Claude William Kinder, who died recently at his home at Chuit, a day before completing his eighty-fourth year, was the pioneer of railway construction in China, and for 31 years general manager and engineer-in-cliief of the Imperial Chinese Railways. Experiments in Malaya have proved that new-laid crocodile eggs, hardboiled, are as good as plovers' eggs. Ono is sufficient for a whole meal. Young crocodile tail makes an excellent curry, and samples of crocodile meat have been classed as equal to venison. Broken class, hundreds of gramophono needles, and 233 nails were removed during an operation in Calcutta on a former non-commissioned officer. This is stated to be the most dangerous operation ever performed in India. The man had been appearing professionally and swallowing tlieso strange articles of diet. The greatest run of sockeyo salmon in tho Eraser River, Canada, for 20 years is reported by fishermen and canners. Huge catches were made recently. Several two-men seiner boats Look over 1000 fish each, and catches of 500 to the boat were common. Canners arc paying 55 cents apiece for 'sockeyo. The Governors of the East African Colonies have been invited to attend the Empire Exhibition at Johannesburg as the guests of tho South African Government. Somo excellent films depicting tho game lifo of Tanganyika, which were shown recently at Dar-os-Salaam, are being exhibited at this exhibition. An invitation to Germany to send a choir to compete at tho National Eisteddfod of 1938, which is to bo held at Cardiff, was given by Councillor Georgo Williams, chairman of the Cardiff Development.Committee, in an address to German students at Cardiff recently. The students were visiting Wales to study social and economic conditions. A record high price of 440 guineas 'for a ram lamb was realised at the Suffolk Slice]) Society's annual show and salo which concluded at Ipswich recently. Tho lamb was sold to Commander Duncan, of Parkhill, Arbroath, Angus. It was one of five with which the breeders won the trophy for the best group of ram lambs. About 200 delegates from almost every country in Europe and from Venezuela, Chile, India, and Ceylon attended tho International Montessori Congress held recently at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, to consider tho subject, "The Child's Place in Society." It is the fifth congress of its kind but the first to be held in England Visitors to tho State at Windsor Castle are now admitted immediately instead, as hitherto, of having to wait until a guide is ready to take round a party. The charge for admission has been reduced from ono shilling to sixpence. The number of visitors this year to Windsor has exceeded all records in spite of the bad .weather.