NEWS IN BRIEF.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 12059, 14 July 1917, Page 5

NEWS IN BRIEF.

The water of a St Louis swimming pool is kept in good condition by t\n application of tho germ killing violet rays. Russia's death race, in. normal times is higher than that of any other country iu Kurope. It. is forty-ono a year for each 1000. Canada has 23,000,000 acres in timber reserves, ns compared with 187.000,000 acres in tho national forests of tho United States. The long reign of the yardstick in tho dry goods and trimming store threatens to ho ended by a new invention known as the moasuregraph, which is a mechanical means of indicating yardage and simultaneously indicating tho total cost of tho material being measured. Tho council of the Lord Kitchener National Memorial Fund has decided to found a number of scholarships which will onablo young Britons destined for a commercial career to travel, study and gain business experience. The scholarships will be continued from year to year, and will be of a value ui about £IOO annually.

To say that anything is "as blue .is sapplure " is to make use of an incorrect comparison. Sapphires are not exclusively ono colour. The sapphires of Ceylon vary from a soft bluo to a peacock blue, which last is practically «*i green. Thero is also n red sapphire, sometimes called a Ceylonese ruby. Further, many fine sapphires are yellow or white. The Scotsman's to cerls as an article of diet is not without its parallels. Mr Houston, the Liverpool shipowner, has given, a list of similar prejudices. Turnip tops, ho says, arc a table vegetable in London and rubbish in Edinburgh; swedes are a table luxury in the North, and cattle food in the South; haggis is adored in Scotland and detested in England; and so on. Queen Mary's attitude 'towards the indiscriminate giving of money in charity is well known in the Royal entourage. She strongly disapproves of it, and discountenances it as far as sho is able. Her Majesty gives very considerable sums in charity, but takes the trouble to seo that her gifts aro made in the wisest and best directions, that none of them go to those individuals or societies who make a regular business of soliciting charitable donatio lu.

Last winter the French authorities imporSid from Alaska and Canada several hundred trained dogs ior drawing sleds in the Vosges Mountains. They proved so useful that they have bi*m employed during the summer in similar work, though they now draw the sleds on small railways. Eleven dogs with a couple of men can haul a load of a ton up some of the mos„t. precipitous slopes in tho mountains, according tG the " Railway Ago Gazette." Tho effort to render Great Britair independent of Germany after the wai in tho production of aniline_ dyes ii likely to bo greatly assisted, it is stated, by an important discovery in the process of production which has been made at tho works at Hudderstield of one of tho oldest colour manufacturing concerns in the country. Experiments are not yet completed, but it is said trmX' tho discovery will initiate an entire new process in the production of colours, and will undoubtedly revolutionise tho existing methods.