NEWS BY MAIL

Gisborne Times, Volume LXI, Issue 9854, 6 November 1924, Page 7

NEWS BY MAIL

“DEAR, DEAR!”

SUMMONS FOR SELLING A CANDLE AFTER HOURS.

“The defendant was seen to sell a candle after closing time,” said Mr Macdonald, solicitor, supporting a summons under t-he'Shops Act against Alee Galinsky, 18, Frazier Street, Lambeth, for soiling after hours. Mr Ratcliffo Cousins (magistrate): Dear, dear! A serious offence in this enlightened ago. It would have been far better that the purchaser should have sat in the dark than that.such an offence should have been committed. Mr Cousins bound defendant over under the Probation Act.

MR LLOYD GEORGE’S “CODE.”

Mr Lloyd George told an audience at Llanystymdw'y, near Oriceicth, Carnarvonshire, how ho found his knowledge of Welsh useful at the Versailles Peace Conference. He said:—

“There was a danger of the telephone being tapped, but 1 spoke in Welsh to a Welsh secretary in Paris, who communicated to another Welsh secretary in London. The people at the conference thought it was gibberish or some invented code.”

ZOO’S ELECTRICAL EEL

SHOOK THAT CAN STUN A MAN

A “shocking” fish lias come to live in the aquarium at tlie London Zooan electric eel capable of discharging 500 volts into any living tiling that annoys it or might provide it with a good dinner. The cel reached the Zoo after travelling in a metal tank from the, Amazon River, South America. Tlie fish is sft long, with a scaleless body that looks like a motorcycle tyre. “The power of its shock is so great,” said the director of the aquarium, “that it would render a man unconscious; it cannot administer many shocks at one time, for its power becomes exhausted. ,It uses this force both as a defensive weapon and for killing its prey-—which, of course, is fish.”

ACROBATIC RATS.

RUNNING ALONG OVERHEAD TELEGRAPH WIRES.

Londoners are menaced by a fourfooted burglar which can not only climb pipes but can also travel along overhead .telegraph wires. This acrobatic marauder is the black rat, and the medical _ officer of health for Holborn, in his report, says that it can climb to the high window ledges and roofs of houses and can enter by way of chimneys, windows, and roof ventilators.

BOY BLEEDS FOR SIX DAYS

A VERY RARE DEATH,

A Grimsby schoolboy, George Baker aged 11, has died after bleeding for six days from a cut in tlie knee. At the inquest the mother said that neither private nor hospital doctors could stop the bleeding Dr Harris said the- boy was a victim of haemophilia, a- rare condition in which the blood would not coagulate over a wound and sufferers invariably bled to death.

The coroner, returning a verdict of accidental death, said it was the first ease of the kind in his 33 years’ experience.

PREMATURE BURIAL. Fears of premature burial have re-sulted-in the formation of a'society to effect reforms in the law of death certification (writes Arthur Pendenys hv John o’ London’s Weekly). There is, however, nothing new in these fears. The "Egyptians kept the bodies of the dead under careful supervision by the priests previous to embalming aiicl until satisfied that life was extinct. The Greeks were aware of the dangers of premature burial, and often cut off the fingers of a person believed to be dead before cremation. In modern times the. fear of being buried alive lias haunted many. Wilkie Collins liad this fear, and always left overnight on his dressing-table a note solemnly enjoining that, should he be' found (lead, his supposed death was to be very carefully tested by a- doctor. Hans Anderson always earned a note in his pocket to the same effect, Harriet Martineau left her doctor ten pounds to sec that her head was amputated before burial. Edmund Yates left twenty guineas with the provision that his iugular veil.' was to be severed. Lady Burton (the widow of the famous traveller, Sir Richard Burton) who was subject to fits of trance, desired that her heart be pierced with a needle. Premature burial is of the rarest occurrence, and it is doubtful if many authenticated cases could he brought forward.

DANGERS OF MANY MEALS

Are four meals a day necessary to health? A London medical man told’ the Daily Chronicle that over-eating was much more common in the North than in the South of England, but that even iff London be bad found men who ,ate seven meals a day. “Some time ago a man came to consult me who admitted that he had this number,” the doctor said. “At 7 o’clock he had tea and biscuits; at 9 he had a substantial breakfast; at 11 o’clock lie ate a sandwich; at 1.30 lunch; at 4 o’clock tea; at S o’clock dinner, and just before bed he had a whisky and soda affd a sandwich. And he wondered why his health suffered. It-would be foolish to make a hard and fast rule for everyone, but many people who are neither ill nor well would! find their health greatly improved if they limited themselves to two meals a day. A colleague of mine kept in the pink of condition on ore meal a day, which he ate about- 7 o’clock at night. For business men I should suggest a good breakfast, no lunch, dinner at night. Women who wish to improve their complexion might omit breakfast, lunch lightly, and dine at night.”

CAUSE OF SEA SICKNESS. According to Dr Shields Warren, an American physician, seasickness is due to disturbance of the organ of balance. “This organ,” he says, “is in the base of tlie skull, closo to the ear; a set of three bony canals on each side of the head. The canals arc semi-circular and about as b g rounu as the lead of a pencil, and the three of each group communicate with one another. The canals arc lined by spec’al cells) each of which has a relatively long, fine hair attached to its inner end. A nerve fibre runs from each cell to the brain. A fluid, rather thin and watery, called the cnclolvmph, fills the canals and when the head is moved in any directum the ondolymph surges along the canals, increasing the hydrostatic pressure in that canal in the plane of motion,' and ■so stimulating the cells. “The constant motion of a ship sets the ondolymph swinging every way, until the semi-circular canals are so continuously f and variously Stimulated tjlat the brain revolts. The stomach follows, and nausea results. The motion of the ship, acting as I have shown, the glare or the sun, bad smells, and indigestion complete the downfall.”