NEWS IN A NUTSHELL

Taranaki Daily News, 31 August 1935, Page 13 (Supplement)

NEWS IN A NUTSHELL

THE WORLD AT A GLANCE

Oysters were cultivated by man before the birth of Christ.

Sargasso sea water is the clearest found anywhere in the Atlantic Ocean. Mosquitoes lay batches of from 20 to 30 eggs twice a year. There is one church to every 1810 persons in the area of Greater London. British railways carried 64,000,000 more passengers in 1934 than in 1933. New Guinea is to have coinage of its own in place of English and Australian money. '

The King recently took the salute of 10,000 police during a review in Hyde Park, London. / Contributions in' Britain to the Viceroy’s Quetta Relief Fund now total nearly £200,000. \ ‘ • Building British motor-cars and . aircraft provides employment for 250.000; v in 1923 the number was only 173,000. There are now nearly 750,000 more persons working in England than there were 12 ycats ago.

Official statistics- prove that marriage and birth rates are increasing, while the death rate is decreasing. ' / •

Too sudden change from very' high heels to low is’stated to be liable to cause a nervous breakdowq.

Earwigs should be classed among the friendly insects, as they destroy house flies.

British boys to-day are nearly 101 b heavier end 2in taller than the boys of 50 years age. - ' ' . Gipsies in most districts of Hungary must now have at least one bath a month, to be taken under ofliciar control of the local authority. , Viper venom, obtained from the most dangerous viper iji India, is now being used, to stop excessive bleeding .after operations. <

A strong man to accompany, one’s wife or daughter to parties or shops can now be hired by the hour through the’enterprise of . a retired Budapest police: official. Racing tracks for both greyhounds and horses have been declared “out of bounds” to the policemen of Liverpool (Eng.), except when on duty. /. ‘

Lawyers and clergymen have the best prospect of living , to a great; age. -' Out of every hundred clergymen 34 exceed the age of 80. Twenty-year-old Juanita Cruz,> toreador arid darling, of the Madrid bullring, earned £5OOO last year. Until ‘two years ago sne was a typist. ’ J In England at the .end of February there Were 224,000 more vehicles licerised than in February of last year, arid 441,000 more than in February, 1931. . ' 1 Sydney is the Empire’s fourth shipping, port. London leads the w0r1d—26,000,000 tons : annually. . Liverpool, 15,000,000; Southhampton, 10,870,000 and Sydney, f 9,360,116. . • ‘ \

Rheumatic disease: cause more disability than any . other. Each 'year it is responsible for a cost of £5,000,000 to .the insurance fund, in addition to £12,000,000 lost-to’ workers in wages. ’ . Farmers in England suffer an estimated loss* pf produce worth £7,000,000 a year through the .depredations of insects. This" represents one-tenth of the total crop. '

.-.Cigar-snaking is. one- of the., trades where men are said still to excel over ■vvpirieri; a.smart male worker will make twice as many cigars in a day as * his .female. colleague. / ‘ . ..Gas. for light and j»wer, still holds its own. There are 14,000 factories Using gas at London, while 55 miles of streets at Westminster alone are illuminated by .gas. • ■ .. - ■

There are 10,000,000. depositors in the British Post Office Savings Bank; they make 120,000 - transactions - every day through the 16,MX) branches of the Post Office. /: Z : New South Wales is the banana State. In 1933 11,275 acres yielded -bananas valued at £480,200, Queensland followed with 10,589 acres, and. a cropvalue of £427,208. Tar, obtained during the manufacture of gas from coal, is the base of more than 2000 by-products,. including dyes, antiseptics, scents, -flavouring essences, aspirins, and moth-balls., In 1905 Sydney had 47 fine week-ends. The . sun shone uninterruptedly for seven months, and the year’s rainfall totalled 5.03 inches instead'of the average (for 94 years) of 47.66 inches. “Cooee,” the call by which Australians - have made .themselves known, the‘World over, may soon .be proposed officially as the SOS of the Commonwealth. If "the proposal is accepted it will be an offence for ..anyone to use the call for any other purpose. t ' Nature has played a strange prank on a Los Angeles boy. The -left side of his head is fair, the right dark. Seen from the left side he has a fair complexion, a blue eye, and fair hair. Seen from i the right-hand side he is* dark, with -A brown eye and auburn hair, ' \ V At Sydney in 1801, John Newell was hanged through impatience. He inter- . rupted the usual wait for reprieve by a remark that‘he had no chance, and » surly request to /get on with it.’ It was ■ ‘got on with.’ Punctually to time, reprieve arrived—too late! Persuading pears to grow on apple trees was only one of the feats accomplished by Ivan Mitchurin, . Russia’s . “plant wizard,” who died recently; In his private orchard the scientist grew blade currants as large as grapes, and plums as big as ducks’ eggs. Colour-cures are now being tested. Red is said to counteract inflammations, congestions, rheumatism,- pleurisy -and burns; yellow is used in cases of sciatica and neuritis; blue cures headache .-and . neuralgia, and green is the treatment for nerve cases. It is notable that in several parts ;of the world a return to hand labour has been made to provide work fop the idle. Thus Italy, having reduced her unemployment to a small figure, has determined to reduce it further by deciding that the work of the next harvest is' to be done entirely by hand. ; In point of acreage Victoria leads Tasmania in the apple fie1d—4)1,662 against 26,224; but the Tasmanian yield of 4;415,000 bushels beats Victoria’s 3,217,074. Value.—-Tasmania, £615,000, Victoria, I £562,988. N.S.W, follows-15,241 acres, 1,251,815 bushels, £469,900. It- will, be seen that N.S.W. figures “chop up” astonishingly. A Prince and Princess hailed ■ taxi'; outside a Paris restaurant, and, after being driven round for an hour and a half, were amazed by - the chauffeur saying: “My dear Eugene, T may ’bb .very-/ patient, but I really am beginning to have enough of this.” His clients immediately recognised him as their cousin whom- they had-imagined lost, in tha war. ‘5 .i'””"*.-.'.