MISCELLANEOUS.

Hokitika Guardian, 31 December 1927, Page 4

MISCELLANEOUS.

MI NEKS’ SECT! ETA lIY THREATENED. [Australian & N.Z. Cable Association.] 'Received this (lay .at 9.30 a.m.l LONDON, Dec. 30. Cook, tlio miners’ secretary, is receiving so many threatening letters that lie is seeking counsel’s advice. The latest from Gateshead, delivered cm Christmas Eve, said: “I give you a month to hand in your resignation, otherwise I will shoot you like the cur you are. Get out and let masters and men get on with the work of repairing the damage you have done.”

LONDON SCHOOLS. LONDON, Dec. 30. The County Council’s report on London schools in 1926 records an increasing improvement in the poorest quavers as a result of the medical service, scnool cafe committees and introduction of simpler and more suitable form of dress. Better personal hygiene followed bobbing hair, changes spreading from infants to girls, hut was not so marked in the boys although the collar census in 1895 in the toughest school in London showed twenty-one out of four hundred wore collars and many went without hoots and jackets. By 1926 linen collars had disappeared but soft collars and blazers were most noticeable, while shorts had replaced trousers. Family history, the report adds, in the poorest schools in London which was formerly the battle ground of parents against authority and children against teachers to-day shows no rags and few torn clothes. Barents uphold the teacher?

and authority of sons of former scholars evolving public school spirit excel in football. They do not play truant and settle their differences with boxing gloves, with the knowledge of the master instead of with fisticuffs behind his back. Corporal punishment is very rare, talc telling and such like pettiness is unknown. A headmaster recently found the worst boy in school staying in on his own initiative to write down a science lesson on light, when the remainder had gone home. The report disclosed that on the first day of the general strike, teachers in a poor neighbourhood late in arriving. found the Prefects had assembled the children, conducted prayers and started work' according to time-table. In another school a few insurgents typed in a proletarian language appeal to the school to strike, but the scholars disregarded it. Six hundred boys are coached in cricket at private club grounds.

SUDANESE HERDERS. LONDON. Dec. 22. Before the murder by tribesmen of Captain V. 11. Eergiisson (District Commissioner of Bahr-el-Ghazel I’rovince) and a Greek merchant accompanying him. the Sudanese Government was preparing to break the potent spell of the vainglorious witch doctor, whose activities in the distant swamps ot the So hat River have had repercussions . among the Dinka oi Nuerniiong tribes. It is expected that the Air force will exact prompt retribution for the murders, but there is a possibility of a conflagration over a considerable area, involving nrolonged operations by mixed detachments ot British and Sudanese troops.

LAWYERS GET El YE YEARS. MONTREAL, Dee, 22. Peleqiiin and Remind, well-known lawyers, were .sentenced to tivc years imprisonment lor defrauding the public ol £IOO,OOO- They were directors of interlocking milk and cream products companies, exploiting milk enrichment by a coca oil process.

KIMS “ALT' VI'AI!I V. I.'ONT.ON'. Dot-, --’.i. Kil ty thousand children at tending; Suite elementary schools Imve rlieumatic heart disease, mainly produced hy the damp house?, tliey occupy, dcclaicd Dr Reginald .Miller, senior physician at St. Mary’s Hospital. Puddington. In London nlnno. suoli ensos of heart disease arc admitted yearly to schools tor physically and mentally defective children. The annual mortality is estimated at 25,000.

USING THE All! TIDES. LONDON. Dee. 22. The Air .Ministry states that in view of French and American exploration at tremendous heights, prohahly ten t" twelve miles, it is believed that J.) ) miles an hour air tides can he utilised for future lone-distance, high-altitude passenger aircraft. Lieut. •!.. A. Gray is equipping a Tlristnl-.Tupiter biplane with unusually large wings. He is provided with a special suit and a diver-like helmet, or will he alternately i h.sed in an electrically-heated, glass- 1 windowed chamber wherein oxygen will I lie automatically supplied. FATHER OF 30 CHILDREN. LONDON, Dee. 22. A defendant in the Northampton County Court confessed to being the father of 30 children, 29 of whom are girls. “ This takes us back to the days ol the patriarchs,” remarked the judge. Defendant further informed the judge that lie suffered from heart disease.