Out of the Way

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 92, 12 January 1935, Page 18

Out of the Way

CURIOSITIES IN THE NEWS

Human skeletons eight feet long have been found iu au ancient redskins’ burial ground ou the shores of Lake Erie, near Simcoe. The discovery was made by road workers. They unearthed two skeletons lying side by side about four feet under the ground. In withered hands were clutched two arrowheads, placed there at the time of burial for use in the redskins’ traditional’“Happy Hunting Ground.”

An unemployed Budapest printer named Gyorgy Farkas has had an amazing run of luck. Last winter he won £2OOO in a lottery. lie speut the money recklessly and was soon heavily in debt. Then he won £5OOO in a lottery. He has just won another £2OOO with another ticket. Because he is so lucky he has been invited to join various enterprises depending on luck, but he has refused all offers. He intends to invest all his money in lottery tickets.

A 96-yca.r-old woman at Choan, Northern Kwangtung, has been a widow for 75 years. She has won such a reputation for industry and virtue that the Provincial Government, has made au award to her. The woman’s name is Hun-Hseih-sze. She was married at the age of 18 and became a widow three years later. Ever since Hung I-Iseih-sze has made a living by doing strenuous farm work in the day time and mending clothes in the evening. She is still at work.

A woman who had never heard about the world war has been discovered in the village of Clip, in Yugoslavia. The woman, who is 80 years old and a Croatian, attempted to buy a railway ticket with pre-war paper crowns. She was enraged at being told that her bag full of money was now worthless, had never heard of the war, and had no knowledge of the fact that Croatia no longer belongs to Hungary. The other passengers subscribed the price of the railway ticket for the old woman, who was convinced that the railway officials were deceiving her witli cock-and-bull tales.

A baby market has sprung up at Hollywood as-a result of the inordinate desire of childless film actors and executives to adopt children. They are married mothers often not mqre than 14 unscrupulous doctors, who exploit unmaied mothers often not more than 14 or 15 years. Mrs. Rheba Splivalo, Califonia’s director of public welfare, describes the procedure. Doctors, finding poor juvenile mothers unable to pay their fees, arrange with a wealthier couple for the adoption, and stipulate that the foster parents pay their fees. In order to escape oth financial distress and social ostracism the young mothers agree to leave all the arrangements to the doctors. Recently there has been an alarming increase in the numbers of schoolgirl mothers.

The prices paid for wives by the Moslems of South Yugoslavia have fallen lately. Prices for wires used to be high because there was a shortage of suitable women, and a woman is a most useful help in the work of a small holding. But many women from other parts of the country have gone to South Yugoslavia. Numbers of them are actually prepared to bring a dowry to their husbands—which is customary in North Yugoslavia—instead of having to be “bought” from their families. Besides this, the prices which the Moslems obtained for their farm produce have fallen, so the value of a wife as a farm labourer has fallen too In fact, the fall in produce prices has made it impossible for most men to support more than one wife.

A sacred cobra figured in an amazing “trial” of a man in an Indian temple which resulted in his death. Raoji Mabadu Gurav was an attendant at the Someshwar Temple in the village of Karanji. For many years a cobra has lived in a hole behind'the idol. Occasionally it would enter the inner sanctum of the temple and the priests and temple attendants would stroke and fondle it. The devotees of the temple believed that the fact that none of them was bitten was a sign that they were really holy men. But recently, during a pilgrimage to the temple, several sums of money were missed. The attendant Raoji was suspected, but loudly protested his innocence. So he was told to prove it by stroking the sacred cobra when it appeared. When the cobra emerged from its holo and slid round to the front of the idol Raoji tremblingly held out his hand to stroke it as he had often done before. Its fangs shot out, and in -111 hour Raoji was dead.