NEWS IN BRIEF.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXX, Issue 3510, 29 April 1912, Page 2

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Frost last night. Mutiny of the Bounty, April 23, 1780. If this espionage craze keeps rip, f lic case will be very simple. All tho Englishmen will be in German prisons and all the Germans in English prisons, and we shall have peace. Even the ' people who marry for money sometimes repent at leisure. Eugene Field, asked for the best ten books for young people under sixteen years of age, is said to have given this list: —'“Pilgrim’s Progress,” “Robinson' Crusoe,” “Anderson’s Fairy Tales,” “Grimm’s Fairy Tales,” “Scottish Chiefs,” “Black Beauty,” “The Arabian Nights,” “Swiss Family Robinson,” “Little Lord Fauntleroy,” “Tom Brown/s School Days,” for bovs, or, for girls. “Little Women.”' ’Did modesty forbid him, as a poet, from including any collection of verse?

Australians and.. New Zealanders are t-lie greatest meat-eater.s in the world. The former eat 262 pounds of meat <a year each, and the latter 212 pounds, while the British only eat -I*os pounds and Americans 185.

Of the 13,640 people who left the United Kingdom in February last for various parts of the- British Empire 5252 went to Australia, and of the 9683 who went to foreign countries the United States secured 7891.

The total coal output of tbe United Kingdom in 1910 was 246.4-33,000 tons; of Germany, 150,372,000 tons; France, 37,254,000 tons; and the United States, 447,837,000 world’s total production was 1,035,000,000 tons.

Tim world’s largest book is being' manufactured for a Chinese medical firm. It will weigh 12001 b, be Ift thick when, closed, and its dimensions when onen will be 3)ft by 7ft. There will bo" a specially constructed tabic for the huge volume. ..

dx out of seven of the hoys who leave school at 13 or 14 years of age («ivs the headmaster of Manchester Grammar School are running to seed. Tho teachers could not pretend, at the age of 14, to have really tackled the problem of education.

The question as to whether lefthandedness is inherited is still doubtful, but a- man of science has investigated seventy-eight families, dealing with 3000 individuals, and his evidence goes to show, says Professor 3. Arthur Thomson, that the trait passes from father to son.

j Smokers in the United Kingdom ! last year consumed over 3.C00,0001b j of tobacco more than in 1910, involv- ' inn an increased expenditure of £967,662. while, the year’s smoke-hill amounted to £29,164,867. which works out roughly at about 21b of tobacco per head of the whole population;

Though the tonn 'Pocket- Borough’ is sometimes used at the present day', such boroughs were abolished by the Reform Bill of 1832.- They were small constituencies for which members were returned to Parliament either by nomination of the prinrioal proprietor or by his indirect influence, or by organised bribery and intimidation." Literally, boroughs “in the pocket” of the patron.