NEWS IN BRIEF

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23275, 18 February 1939, Page 5 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF

Packs of 'wolves have kept people away from church in Sweden. , Pinks which crow on the Mendips will not thrive anywhere else in the -British Isles.

Tanganyika Territory covers 380,000 square miles and has a coast line of about 450 miles. The Suez Canal, 100 miles in length, comes second to the Gota Canal, which measures 115 miles. Britain lias 10,000,000 cyclists, compared with 15,000,000 in Germany and 7,500,000 in France. British hospitals containing more than 90,000 beds are supported by voluntary contributions. Twenty-seven people were drowned when a ferry collided with a dredger in the liiver Tagus, Portugal. "Thou shalt not smoke" was adopted as an extra Commandment by the Swiss in.the seventeenth century. Sigtior Mussolini plans to settle 30,000 landless peasants on uncultivated land in the province of Ferrara. Iron railings on graves in Berlin are to be removed, and contributed to the old-iron collection of the Four-Year Plan.

There are 250 separate police forces in Britain; but/ one-third of the. total personnel are in tho 'Metropolitan Police Force. Child stars of the films are said not to be popular with juvenile audiences ill Great Britain. They like Wild West pictures best. The first woman taxi-driver in Vancouver carries a rolling-pin beside her on tho driving seat, for use if necessary in solf-defenco. Australia produced a record canned fruit pack of 72,000,000 tins last year, apricots, peaches and pears all showing a big increase. A first-rank baseball team in America will have a programme of 154 games during tho season, which lasts from April to October. The result of a big sporting event, such as the Derby, is known in every country in the world in ten seconds, by means of radio. A large crack has been discovered in the south wall of tho 15th century church of St. Andrea delle Fratte in tho centre of Rome. There are 1100 rooms and two and a-half miles of corridors in London's Law Courts, which cover more than five and a-half acres. For the first time in the history of the world a death sentence has been broadcast; it was a sentence on a gangster in Germany. More than 2,000,000 persons visit tho London Zoo each year. The British Museum and Kow Gardens each receive 1,000,000 visitors. In old documents, etc., there have been traced seventeen ways of writing the letter "s." Seven of them represent the capital form. No fewer than 5000 authors in Great Britain make a living from writing "thrillers"; most of their incomes are in the three-figure class. The famous film, "Things to Come," written bv H. G. Wells, cost £270,000. This works out at £3OOO for every minute of the film shown. The Greek police arrested 46 Communists in Athens and seized a large number of Communist propaganda leaflets and a printing machine. A clock in Berwickshire, the old stopping place for stago coaches, still indicates the time of departure of the stage-coach for Edinburgh. Local authorities in Great Britain will he responsible for the spending of £500,000,000 this year; in 1914 the figure stood at £148,300,000. London's population can be estimated from no fewer than' fourteen standards—County of London, Postal London, Metropolitan Police Area, etc. One-third of the families in the United States had an average income of only £94.4 in the financial year 1935-36, and 42 per cent had less than £2OO. Sierra Leone, which has been a British possession for 150 years, was acquired at a total cost of £3O. Last year it exported goods to the value of £2,843,540. A home for aged Eskimos may be built in Baffin Land. This is considered to be a vital necessity, as Eskimos have a ruthless custom of abandoning their old people. The splendid facade and other parts of the Hotel des Invalides in Paris have been destroyed by fire. Fortunately tho Dome under which Napoleon lies escaped. Tho longest telegraph lino in the world connects Darwin, North Australia, with Port Augusta. It measures 1900 miles long and took twenty-three months to instal. Every»week the world's attendance at "tho pictures" is 220,000,000. Of this total America accounts for 85,000,000, at an average admission price of lid a head. A fourteen-year-old boy, Roger Cade, of Southsea, has been made a Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society for his work in reporting observation of thunderstorms in the south of England. A horse unable to move its load on Blackfriars Bridge, England, during a recent gale was aided by a lorry driver, who thoughtfully drove his lorry to the windward side, so giving the horse a better chance. A carillon of 35 bronze bells, the

largest weighing 1300 pounds, the smallest 15 pounds, is now being cast in Tournai, in Belgium, for the 150-

foot tower of the Belgian Exhibit Building at the New York World's Fair, 1939. They are to bo played daily during the Exposition. The loud-speaker installations nt Pnddington, Birmingham (Snow Hill), Cardiff, and Newjport stations have proved so successful in directing passengers to trains during rush periods that the Great Western Railway is to instal similar equipment at Torquay. King Carol presided at the investiture of Vasele Stan, as Archbishop of Maramuresh in Transylvania. The restoration of this Orthodox See, which has been vacant since 1735, is designed to counteract the Catholic and Calvinist propaganda being conducted there in the interests ofs Hungary. Two doctors, alleged to be spies, were sentenced to death by a court-martial at' Leningrad recently for sabotage of the Army's medical services. They were accused of having plotted the mass infection of Russian troops in wartime. One was described .as a ltussian-born German, _ tho other as a "Tj:otskyistBukharinist spy." A native tradition, the breaking of a coconut over the bows of a vessel, was carried out at Sea View, Isle of Wight, recently, when hundreds of holiday makers watched the launching of a proa, a South Sea Island outrigger canoe. Patsy Acland, the six-year-old daughter of Sir William Acland, the owner of the proa, which is believed to be the only one on the British coast, broke the coconut over tho bows as the canoe left the slipway.

Interesting fragments of the podium of a largo temple have been uncovered near the Flaminian Circus Rome. Seven 11 uted columns with their bases were found, also fragments of marble cornices. Three columns which must have been over 30ft. in height are almost intact. Corinthian capitals of two of these have been found. It is suggested that these may be tho remains of the Temple of liellona, dedicated by Appius Claudius the Blind, about 298 8.C., and celebrated because the Senate gathered there'to discuss declarations of war, to receive enemy Ambassadors, and to reward victorious generals.