NEWS IN A NUTSHELL

Taranaki Daily News, 1 June 1935, Page 13 (Supplement)

NEWS IN A NUTSHELL

THE WORLD AT A GLANCE •■• J J-.", Carrot seed is so small that it takes 257,000 to weigh one pound. The people of the. world speak more than 3000 languages. Twenty-one ocean-going vessels have been wrecked in Sydney Harbour, with a total loss of life of 243. • .. The Swiss mile is over five times .as ■ long as the English, or American mile, it being 9153 yards in length. Better bacon is obtained from quickly grown pigs than from those ;of . slower development... Owing to the great cost and shortage of gold in Germany, nickel is now taking gold’s place for wedding rings. Gold can be beaten out so thin that one ounce will cover an area of 146 square feet. ' / - • The thickness of .iron and steel plates can be measured hy a newly invented magnetic instrument, even when only one side of the plate can be seen. ” - v

A military aeroplane at Chartres caught fire when at 15,000 ft, but the pilot, Sergeant. Dufour, saved himself "by parachute. ... A thermometer manufacturer in Germany Bas been sent to a concentration camp for exporting untested clinical thermometers. .; Tty/

Education of girls in the Maidive Islands has been stopped by the new Sultan as “undesirable for the welfare of the people.” '. . ■

Men are forbidden •to work .in.' the. village of Tenganan, Dutch East Indies, on penalty of a public thrashing administered by women.

Sweden’s military, and naval general staffs urge the strengthening .of th« country’s defences in view of the Euro- - - pean situation. ’ ".’ _ . ""L At a village in Kathinawar, /India,'T 364 child marriages took place, in one day and some of the brides and bride- , grooms were infants in arms. . There is a possibility .of the theatres, cinemas and music-halls in Paris closing from May 30, as a determined protest against, the entertainment taxes.

In an exhibition of early Bibles opened at Frankfort-on-Main recently were ■. three old Testaments in Hebrew dating from 1488, 1492 an£ 1494. ■

Fifty thousand mourners attended the , funeral of Mr. 'Teilman Boos, the South African ex-Minister of Justice, who -x died from a heart-attack last month. ' /

For failing to give the Nazi salute on the entrance of the judges three persons •/ in a Hamburg court were recently sen- ■ ■ .fenced to three days’ detention. . . The blood in human veins travels at ' an average speed of seven miles an hour. : This means that it covers 168 miles in a day, and over 60,000 miles in a year.- . ! Madame Federova, 24-year-old Russian parachute jumper; is reported to have J. set up a world record for .women by a 21,160 ft leap, without oxygen apparatus. ’

Women students in German.Universities' are decreasing in number; .law and chemistry students have both fallen ..by more ; than. 50 per cent.

There have been ' ten ' vessels named / Australia. Nine were wrecked. The battle-cruiser of that name waß towed to sea, scuttled and sunk. Assistants in French shops must not be employed to stand outside the premises. They may go out to serve, but must go back into the shop immediately after./ '

In spite of improvements in transport that have taSen place in the last few years, the fastest train from London,to. Edinburgh is one hour, aind ten minutes' • slower in 1935 than it was in 1395. Among 318,191 brides were 706 only sixteen years old in England last year, while twenty-ffine of the bridegrooms . were of that age. In four marriages both parties were sixteen years old. The two sons of the Princess Royal, Viscount Lascelles and the Hon. Gerald;;Lascelles, acted as drivers of. a 10-ton £ miniature locomotive at an engine works,, at Leeds recently. Lord Lascelles named the engine “Princess Royal” by breaking a bottle, of Empire wine over it. Up to the time of Responsible Govern- / ment in N.S.W., the foreshores of Sydney Harbour, to a depth of 100 feet, were faithfully maintained. Thereafter .it was sold for an average of £lO per acre; ana promptly resold st £lO per ■age. • • ./• •• • •’ . Australia had • its Age of Reptiles. Kronosaurus Queenslandicus, fossil pe- , mains of which have been found in the Northern State, had teeth 10 inches-long. ~ arid Ilin, in diameter. It has been, estimated that a fair-sized one strained the weigh-bridge at 20 tons. > Petroleum first appeared .as . a medicine. ; > In 1849, a Pittsburgh druggist found some oil in a nearby brine well., Deriding it was a fine *remedy for .a > variety of ; iUs, .;. he bottled it and offered it for sale at . 50 cents a half pint. At Titusville, ten years later, the first oil well,.was j structed, and the great boom began,. - Aluminium foot brackets or sprint , blocks enable the track runner to make a faster and more accurate 'start. The blocks have spikes for gripping ... the ground, giving the runner a positive-/ thrust with his feet. .Treads of thb jblocks are adjustable to ■ forty-five and - sixty degrees because the rear foot usually takes , a sharper angle. ■ . ’ People who patronised Rita' da .Cruz, > a genial beggar said seller of eggs in themarkets of Lisbon, often heard her say: “My greatest joke will be after I die?' They used to wonder what the woman / meant. Now they know, for she died. the other day. She has left £5OOO to a charity home where she used to sell ■ eggs and beg forfree soup. . Genuine diamonds are being used for / coating grinding wheels. Stones that are • off colour or too small for the market / are crushed and graded, mixed with a special bond and coated on a composition form to a thickness of one-eighth , of an inch. The diamond layer. is ap- • plied to the side of the wheel form for side grinding: The wheels are used forconditioning the hardest machine tools. Sea grass is disappearing from around the British Isles. This valuable plant, which is used for stuffing cushions, andfor packing the most fragile articles of >, glass and china, is dying, out. And here;? is the strange thing. It is dying on both sides of the Channel and both.. rides of the Atlantic. It does not appear, that / the plant is affected by an? disease. The disappearance of. sea grass is a. complete puzzle to all botanists.; Not/.the only one, • for there , is the . musk mystery. Twenty years ago all the. musk in England suddenly lost its accustomed ; scent. Why the scent went or.why it ■ is coming back are utterly unsolvable / problems. Years ago a Scottish farmer named Sherr’ ~ noticed a wheat plant in one of his fields, with a branching .?■ stalk. It yielded sixty-three ears, and . ? by saving the seed Sherriff originated: a £ .valuable new wheat. . , , ,’'*‘s