NEWS BY MAIL.

Hokitika Guardian, 3 February 1921, Page 4

NEWS BY MAIL.

TROUBLESOME TUSKS

LONDON, Nov. 30.

Baby Joan (she is as big as a fat pony, though only 17 months old) is having a nasty time with her teeth in the Hippopotamus House at the Zoological Gardens, N.W.

She has refused all food this week—even milk—and her poor gums are very much inflamed, because a pair of eightinch tusks are just on the point of showing their tips. First she tried resting her jaws on the hot-water pipes. Seeing the poor baby was restless, fretting, and off-colour, the officials evicted the spiteful pigmy hippopotamus from the smaller pond and gave it to Joan. Mere she has a hath heated to 70 degrees, and promptly dived into it, and stayed there. Now and then she lifts her head out and rubs her gums on the smooth concrete steps, which is a great comfort. The tusks may bo cut at any moment, and will last her a life-time. They have no roots, but spring from a store of “persistent pulp.” Break them off, and they turn up again in a few months. Bobby, the older hippo, destroyed one tusk altogeter in an idiot game of “chewing concrete.” When his steps were covered with wood he stopped his foolishness and the tusk—enamel and core —is now almost perfect again.

VANISHED MILLIONAIRE

TORONTO, Nov. 30. •John Doughty, the former secretary to Mr Ambrose Small, (lie missing Canadian theatre magnate, reached Toronto to-day under arrest. Immediately on arrival he was formally charged with the theft of 100,000 dollars (nominally €20,000) in bonds and with being concerned in a conspiracy to kidnap Mr Small. Doughty has told interviewers that he knows nothing of Mr Small’s disappearance nor of the missing bonds and that he last saw his employer on December 2. lie explained his own disappearance on the ground of domestic and business infelicity and a desire to start a new life. Beyond changing his name ho made no effort at concealment. The police, immediately after Doughty’s arrival, discovered bonds worth £21,000 wrapped in a newspaper in the attic of his former home. These bonds were missing from Mr Small’s £600,000 estate. Doughty was remanded for a week.