NEWS BY MAIL.

Hokitika Guardian, 7 November 1925, Page 4

NEWS BY MAIL.

THE MARNE AND THE SHANNON

CORK, Sept. 22

The lighter side of the Irish Free Stat Senate election was disclosed at the scrutiny of the ballot papers today.

Small as the poll was in Cork City, some of those who went to the polling lxioths preferred verse to the usual method of recording their views. The Governor-General, fhe Bishops, and the Freemasons were subjects for electoral flippancy. One effort was from an elector who evidently holds verydefinite opinions about the Shannon electrical power scheme and (he Lei man firm of contractors, Messrs SiemensSchuckort. of Berlin, who offered the Limerick labourers employment at 8d an hour for a 54-hour week as against the trade union local rate of Is 3'd an hour for a 47-hour week. This elector wrote:

Oh, Paddy dear, and did vnu hear the news that’s going around i The Huns are on Die Shannon banks, where work is to he found.

For wo will live like gentlemen, as we did in days of yore, AATien we will got a princely wage of eightpcnce or more. CHORUS.

AVe beat them on they Marne and we whacked them on the Aisne,

And we’ll drown them in the Shan nor for here we are again!

ROYS’ 30.000-M1 LES TRIP. LONDON, September 22.

On the roof of the captain’s house, wliiui the expeditionary ship St Geoige returned to. Dartmouth on Friday evening, stood tbe youngest member of the crew, the ship’s signaller, Frank Caiels, who was 15! years of age when flic expedition left Dartmouth in April. 1024. to carry out scientific research in the South Pacific. Near at hand, on the main (leek, stood his companion, Frederick Leverton. older than Caiels, and, like him, eomnig from the training ship Exmouth.

Together these two hoys have travelled over 30.1X10 miles with the expedition, sharing in all the hardship? of the older men.

The hoys were much impressed by tlie reception met with from the native girls at the various South Sea Island: touched during the voyage. Tli Society Islands girls, with theii outrigger canoes, their ukeleles, ami their songs, captured their hearts “ AA’e learned their tunes from them,’ Caiels told a reporter, " and afterwards the whole crew took litem u( and sang them to tbe tune id tin ship’s band, which consisted ol one mouth organ, a tin can for a drum, and ship’s spoons played utter the style of nigger minstrex’ “ hones.”

I .overtoil had one great surprise. Tie expected to find the girls at Tahiti, the “ gem of the Pacific,” as it lnidl been described to him, like the South. Sea Island girls of the novels. In stead, lie found them, wearing highheeled shoes and frocks of Amoricnr cut. “Just like American girls they were,” he said.

5-TON SHARK LANDED. BERLIN, September 21

The fishing schooner Billwardcr has just landed at Cuxhaven ail enormous slunk caught near Ireland. It is said to he the largest of its kind over seen. It is 26 feet long and weighs 5 tons, the liver alone weighing three-f|ua iters of a ton. "This variety belongs to the kind known as the herring shark, and lives on shellfish of the shrimp and lobster type. SWEEP'S DAUGHTER’S MARRIAGE LONDON, September 22. Mr Richard Kenneth Innes-Ker, aged 21. was married at Weymouth Register on Saturday morning to the daughter of a local chimney sweep. The bride, .Miss A'ietoria F. M. Puve.v, aged Is. is one of several daughters of Mr J. Pavey. of Si. Xicholas-slroet. Weymouth, all of whoso girls are said to bo unusually good-looking. The bridegroom was described as the son of Lieut.-Colonel Kenneth InnesKer, staled to be in command ol a crack regiment. The bride wore a peach-coloured dress trimmed with fur, over which she wore a coat. The bridegroom war in plus fours. There were only turn witnesses Air Bert Eseott, who gave his sister-in-law away, and a Miss Joyce. Mr Harold Stevens, superintendenl of the registry, married tba couple.

After the ceremony there was reception at the bride's home, where the bridegroom, a man of good address, nearly lift in height, told a reporter that he was serving in Ibo Tanks Corps, lie did not give his rank, nor did he state to what branch of the Innes-Ker family- he belongs. (Te expects shortly to he in a draft for foreign service. The only officer hearing the name of Innes-Ker appearing in the September issue of the Army List is Lord Alastair Innes-Ker, lit., lieut.-colonel of the Royal Horse Guards (Blues), brother of the Duke of Roxhttrghe.

SARK’S RAN ON CARS. FATE OF THE FIRST TO ENTER. LONDON, Sept. 22. Therij is a part of the British Empire, not 100 miles from the south coast of England, where motor-ears are practically unknown and certainly not wanted. It is Sark, the smallest of the Channel Islands, and the authorities have made a law forbidding any motor-ear to run over their roads.

The people of the island had never seen a motor-car until List May. when l)r P. Luke Hope, the newly appointed medical officer of the island, innocently shipped his car from England. Dr Hope, however was not allowed to run the ear over the reads, and when Ids daughter defied the law by driving it the four and a ball minutes’ journey from the little harbour up to their house she was severely admonished and fined £2 and warned that next time the ear would he confiscated and a fine of £lO imposed.

Tile medical officer lias been compelled to store Ids car and use the engine to drive a dynamo for electric lighting and for charging accumulators for electrical treatment for patients.

ALL A MOLT YOUR BUSINESS. LONDON. Sept. 'LL British merchants ate expressing surprise at the action of the American Consul-General in London in sending out to firms a form containing a series of question relating to their businesses. A coverng letter states that the information is sought for tiio preparation of a classified directory. The details were not for general publication hut would he kept on a file at the Consular offices in London and in Washington for the guidance of American firms having or contemplating business relations abroad. Two of the questions are i

‘■To what extent does this firm protect its plant and stock by fire and other insurances?” and “What do you huv chiefly, and if abroad, where? State countries and proportion from each."

Details are also sought as to the firm’s organisation, the number of its branch houses and travellers, and the territory covered, financial references, stock capital, the annual volume of business, and the number of employees.

Tho Mercliantile Guardian, of St. Helen’s-placc, E.C., in its issue to-day, says that for sheer inquisitive impertinence the questionnaire lias never been equalled, not even in the days be.fore the war by German spies and commercial agencies.

NO ALIMONY FOR THE CHILDLESS NEW'YORK. Sept. 20. In these days of sex equality there is no reason why divorced husbands should be compelled to contribute to the support of wives who have not borne them children, argued Mr Justice Selnlt Strong in the New York Supreme Court.

Ho announced that lie would not in future agree to any scheme by which a childless woman could force alimony from her husband. He cited a case in which a man had been impoverished by paying temporary alimony to bis wife, who bad succeeded in postponing the hearing of her case for five years. Tlis pronouncement, followed his refusal to grant alimony to a woman who sought £8 it week and £of> counsel s fees pending the hearing of her case. • If a woman tires of the marriage bargain or decides that she no longer loves her husband or can no longer stand bis treatment.” be said, ‘‘let her separate from him. There is no lav. that compels a woman to remain in her husband’s home.” “I believe alimony keeps couples from becoming reconciled. A woman who is being supported by her husband under an order of the court is. generally speaking, not very anxious to effect a reconciliation.” The judge added that court rocon.show that there are twenty separation eases to every divorce, and this convinced him that women want only alimony.

SHOPPING AT 104. LONDON, Sept. 22,

To go out shopping alone at the age of 101 is the remarkable performance of Mrs Collins, of Shillington-strcet. Battersea, who to-day enters upon her 10."Lh. year. When a reporter visited her yester-

day she stood and talked for half an boar or more “The reason I am so well to-day.” she said, “is because 1 looked after myself when I was young. Girls were very different then from what they ale to-day. Seine girls today dress disgracefully 'witii their skirts above their knees.” A little upright woman, with grey hair and a. wrinkled but very alert face, Mrs Collins can bear well, speak loudly and clearly, and lias the most vivid recollections of her early childhood. She well remembers the death of William IV.

GUIDING SHIPS BY WIRELESS

YACHT HLFCTBA. Sept. 4. When its great light was extinguish

ed at dawn to-day the South Foreland lighthouse began to send out wireless I,earns which, gave Senator Marconi's yacht Fleet lit its bearings throughout 7-hours cruise over the treacherous Goodwin Sands. Government and shipping ollieials mi board saw that in sweeping round every two minutes the wireless beacon could give every ship within a hundred miles an index letter that, would indicate its position in the worst fog. booking at tiny charts within earshot of a loud speaker in the chart-mom, we were able to fi\ our position in relation to the dO-milos distant lighthouse as easily as if its great Hashes of light were playing on IIS. They were ordinary charts, but radiating in all directions trom the South Foreland lighthouse were It. lines. Every fourth sector made was marked with a distinguishing letter ol the alphabet, and when a letter was sounded by the loud-speaker everyone within hearing knew the ship was in that particular group of lour sectors. Between each lettered sector were three others marked v.Tlh subsidiary signals, and it was by the strength of these that one could determine exactly in which sector the ship was at a given moment.

When we were sailing under the great dill's of Dover wc saw the beam aerial that made this system possible. It looks like the three piano of a triplane, and revolves oil a rotating platform every two minutes, sweeping iis beam is it does so. The letter is made bv a svstcin of contacts.

The officials on board. including foreign naval representatives, were interested to know that iho low wavelength - 0 metres— ruled out the danger of interference that, one switch

operated the ship’s small set, and that the operation needed no special knowledge to work it. BRIDE’S WATT IN CHURCH. LONDON, Sept. o.

A wedding which took plate at Liverpool yesterday had been postponed on .Monday after the bride had waited in vain at the church for the bridegroom, whose failure to appear was due to his keeping the intended marriage a secret from his parents. The bridegroom, who is 2d, said yesterday that on going home to dress for the wedding ho found his mother had gone out and locked tip the house. When the time of the wedding came, after several attempts to enter tie house had failed, lie lost his head an went for a walk.

He thought the license was in tU house and that it was no use going i> the church without it. hut found after wards that, his fiancee had it.