NEWS IN BRIEF

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22777, 10 July 1937, Page 11 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF

Workers in salt mines seldom suffei from colds or rheumatism.

Old motor-cars were scrapped at th« rate of about 3000 a week last yeai In England.

I Blind people in the world are estimated at 6,000,000, of which total 479,500 are in India. ( , In England there are 4,000,000 dogs, which means that almost every other home possesses a dog. j Rabbits and badgers will; oil ocoasion, •hare the same burrow, although they use separate entrances. An air taxi service is to be started shortly in the Sahara desert by a French aircraft company.

Engineering, car-driving, garage and electrical work are the jobs most sought after by the boys in Britain. A savings scheme to help Germans to attend the Olympic Games in Tokio' has been started in Germany. I A name for every letter of the alphabet, from Ann to Zenus, is the record possession of a London woman. 1

The total number of visitors who passed the night in a German youth hostel during last year was 7,500,000.

Counterfeit money has been found in some cases to contain much more silver than the official coinage by the Royal Mint.

The cut-flower trade in England is worth £12,000,000, and nearly ninety per cent of the blooms sold are British grown.

Ice hockey matches are growing in popularity in England. It is estimated that 50,000 people pay to watch them every week. A young American claims pancakeeating title of the U.S.A. In competition he ate 36 pancakes, each 7in. wide, in 61 minutes. Travelling by motor-car, tram and aeroplane, a Shetland pony recently journeyed 1750 miles in Australia. For safety he was packed in a crate.

The Yukon Council has passed a resolution " firmly and emphatically " protesting against the proposed addition of the territory to British Columbia. To prevent it being built upon, an area of 311 acres below Ivinghoe Beacon has been bought for £3250 by the Buckinghamshire County Council. Handling daffodil bulbs may cause a painful skin affectiou in certain persons; workers who constantly handle them often wear gloves as a protection. The Vienna Supreme Court has awarded £220 damages to an English girl, whose face was scarred in a 'bus accident, while on holiday in the Tyrol.

The Emperor Hirohito, of Japan, held a ceremonial review of 15,000 troops on the Yoyogi parade ground of Tokio, as part of the celebration of his 36th birthday.The American Indians, once considered a dying race, are increasing rapidly, the population now being 334,300, while births exceed deaths by 3,500 a year. Seventy of the 195 miners charged with damaging property during the " stay-down " strike at Pecs. Hungary, have been sentenced to short terms of imprisonment. Three convicts were killed by prison guards armed with machine-guns last month when they tried to escape from the State penitentiary at Moundsville, West Virginia.

The French 2509-ton naval oil supply ship Nievre was abandoned by its crew of 60 after foundering on a reef off Loch Point, near Brest, in a violent storm recently.

The 500,000 th passenger to book a passage by Royal Dutch Air Lines was given a free ticket for himself and his wife for a five-day trip to London, everything paid. Out of the 4164 motor-cars reported as stolen in London during a recent twelve months, no fewer than 4052 were subsequently recovered and restored to their owners;

A magnificent marble statue, which experts declare to be a Venus of Greek origin, 2000 years old, has been found by a ploughman in a field at Letran, near St. Just-sur-Loire.

I A forest fire swept through Norbuck | Village, 50 miles from Edmonton, Canada, recently, forcing its 200 inhabitants to leave their homes, most of which were destroyed. Nearly 80,000 unclaimed accounts exist in the Post Office Savings Bank, London. They range from a few shillings to hundreds of pounds, the average working out at about £l6. Stanley's search for Livingstone will be the subject of a new film to be made by Mrs. Martin Johnson, widow of the famous flying explorer, who was killed in an air crash in January. Since the institution of a mechanical apparatus for telling telephone subscribers the time by gramophone, inquiries have grown until there are now 220,000 a week in England. United States shipbuilding yards are enjoying a boom, and 218 vessels, aggregating 310,051 tons, are in construction, according to a report of the American Bureau of Shipping. Millions of people are starving and thousands are already dead as the result of severe drought and famine in the four provinces of Kansu, Szechuen. Kweichow and Honan, in China. Although America owns more than 70 per cent of the 37,000,000 motor vehicles in the world, Great Britain has more motor vehicles —22 —to the square mile than any other country. Butland, England's smallest county, naturally has the smallest police force —only eighteen " all in " —but they are equipped with the latest forms of wireless telegraphy and telephony. After extensive experiments, the Dutch Government lias placed an important order for guns, to be used by infantry against tank attacks, with the firm of Boehlor Brothers and Co., of Vienna. A scheme for the transformation of the Congo Lakes into a vast inland sea, and the creation of a " second Nile " which would irrigate part of the Sahara and Libya, is being discussed in the Belgian Congo. The German Luft Ha nsa airways company is to begin a series of experimental flights at the end of this month between the Azores and New York preparatory to the introduction of a regular air mail service. The International Institute of Agriculture in Rome estimates the world's exportable supplies of wheat at 700,000,000 bushels, which, although 24,000,000 more than the October estimates, is still tho lowest recorded for some years. Herr Hitler was present at the recent launch in Hamburg of a new 25,000 ton pleasure steamer, Wilhelm Gustloff, built for tho " Strength Through Joy " organisation which controls the holidays and spare-time pursuits of German workers. Large photographs of King Ghazi, of Irak, flanking those of Signor Mussolini and Herr Hitler and draped with the Arab national colours, were a feature of tho decorations in Jerusalem Arab shops for the recent celebration of Mahommet's birthday. A 40ft. high chimney and a large disused pumping station in Cheshire suddenly disappeared into the enrth recently. People heard a loud rumbling and on going to the spot found a large cavity where the chimney and pumping station had stood. It was too deep for the bottom to be seen.