NEWS BY MAIL.

Hokitika Guardian, 23 June 1922, Page 4

NEWS BY MAIL.

MATADOR GORED. PARIS, April 20

After having killed five httUs in rapid succession in a public bull light in the arena of Bayonne yesterday, the well known matador Salmi II was severely gored. Flushed with his continued success and wishing to impress the excited audience with his skill, Salmi neglected to get into striking position, with the tcsult that tne enraged hull was able to rush at the powerless man and toss him into the air. The bull’s horns pierced his neck, narrowly missing the throat, and the matador was carried away to hospital very gravely wounded.

£40.000 TOO LATE. LONDON April 20

At Orchard Cottage, a little dwelling off Livesey-fold, Warworn, Lancashire, there died yesterday Airs Croll, the elderly wife of a man'who, formerly a farm labourer, gets a living as a hawker. Mrs Croft was reputed to he the heiress to between .£40.000 and £.)0,000 which she expected to receive hy the end of Alny.

News of the windfall was brought her recently hy a solicitor's clerk, who called on her to ask if she was the daughter of a woman named Elizabeth Forster. Airs Croft said she was and was then told that she was to inherit a fortune under the will of a woman who died in Australia and who ms the widow of a nobleman. Airs Croft recalled a romance in the life of her mother and later went to Coventry to enter her claim.

[t is understood that she made a will in favour of her husband.

GREAT ACTOR'S HOAX. PARTS. April 2n

AI. Geinier, the great French a: tormanager, who arrives in Fond ui on Thursday to lie present at the Shakespeare Afemorial Festival at Stratfordon Avon, occupies a unique position in tho French theatrical world. He is at once a great actor and a great producer. As an actor lie is a master of gesture, in addition to possessing an almost uncanny nhilitiy in making up as living and historical characters. A few weeks ago he surprised the audience of the C'igale Theatre, in the Alontinaitie quarter, hy appearing on the stage in the character of ALaitre Aloro do Giafferi. the French barrister who defended l/iuilru. Everybody in the theatre thought that the real Gi.tfferi was speaking to them.

let or in the evening | ( , made up to portray A!. Wriaml, and the usiilt was so wonderful that manyint imate friends of Fiance's e.x-l’reinier swore that M. 11l Land himself was walking the bonds. The picture of the ticlor as AI. Briand was exhibited in the shop windows, and in some quarters was bought bv aiimi - er’s of the , taiesman a n autimnii, port :ail.

SCIENCE lAI ELATING THE PLANTS. LONDON. Alny L Trapping t''o energy of sunlight to make syntactic fiodstidfs is mm of t e hum important new aims of scientific research, and the experiments at person t going on in this direction arc causing the keene-t interest, in the swan l die world.

■ F’onnaldehyde is tho secret of the process. Cai Louie acid and water have neon found to combine under the inlluence of ultra-violet rays to form this substance, which then becoims converted into certain types of sugar. The process is known as phoio—y nt' e- i-.

AVhat lias been done in tho laboratory is to carry out the actual life processes of the plant ; the green colouring matter, chlorophyll, Gaps the energy of the sun and with its help sets up a chemical action whereby the \v, H i and Hie carbonic acid in the air are combined, and formaldehyde is pioduceil the raw material from wit ch starch and sugar are formed I'oi the building up of (he plant.

By using coloured water containing carbonic acid tin* scientist has tiappel the sunlight, just as effectively. ami made .synthetic formaldehyde rs satlsloetory, as the living plant itself. The lundnment.nl life process lias been imitated in the laboratory.

Professor E. C. O. Bnly, of Live:)) o] University, lias recently dixeove "ed that the ultra-violet rays which produce formaldehyde in this way are waves ot light shorter in length than Ihc waves which carry on tile process and transform tlie formaldehyde into sugar; he has adopted the ingenious trick if so colouring the liquid that, it is affected only by light of the right kind to produce formaldehyde. Tn this wav no su-tl-ir is produced, and pure formaldehyde

- a substance of immense use in many industries 1 e-dav—can be made synthetically.

'[he real meaning of this is that hy controlling tile kind of light that is used the chemist will Ik> able to make what lie wants by photo-synthesis and not. make what he duos not want. Tt opens up a new era in chemistry, the manufacture of foodstuffs by artificial means from water and air, the ordinary atmosphere containing carbonic acid ns an impurity.