MISCELLANEOUS.

Hokitika Guardian, 6 July 1928, Page 3

MISCELLANEOUS.

WHERE IS THE HAPPY GIRL?

“ English women have changed amazingly during the last seven years, but 1 never realised it until I went to tlie Royal Academy,” said an American visitor to England recently. The American explained that he had not visited England for seven years. “The most remarkable change,’.’ be said, “ is in the faces of the girls,” and lie added: “They have a hard expression and are tight lipped. This absence of sweetness and of softness—l use tlie word in its pleasant sense—is most marked in this year’s portraits. I challenge you to find one happy-faced, smiling girl. 1 attribute this to the absence of really robust health, due to the modern craze for a slim figure and severe dieting.”

RAID ON LONDON POST OFFICE. Using- a motor van painted red, to resemble a post office van, eight men carried out a raid on a sub-post office in Pembroke A tews near Belgrave Square, London, recently, and carried ofF a safe containing €IOOO. Tlie raid bad been carefully planned, for to make the postal orders negotiable the thieves bad taken the date stamps also. A chauffeur who lives opposite saw the van outside the post office at ten o’clock. Hearing a thud, lie looked from a. window and saw two men endeavouring to place a safe in the van. Other men came to their assistance, while two men stood at the corner. Rushing downstairs, tho chauffeur gave chase anil raised the alarm. The men, however, got- away.

POLAND’S ANCIENT CAPITAL. Perhaps the most interesting Polish town is Cracow, where Joseph Conrad was educated. Not only is it the seat of a university which produced Copernicus and ranked as a great legal centre in the middle ages, it is full of beautiful buildings in the Yistulian Gothic style of brickwork. Tlie Alary Church is particularly fine, with its carved and painted woodwork within and one of its unequal towers circled with a gold crown. At every hour a horn is blown from one of the high windows—which used to be the watchman's look-out for the Tartar hordes. Legend says that a Tartar arrow once pierced the watchman’s neck while lie was sounding the horn—and that explains why the peculiar and graceful tune now ends abruptly on a high note. Cracow was tlie capital of Poland until the .sixteenth century. Ibe finest monument of its old glory is the limestone bill, Waive I, overlooking the Vistula, upon which stand the old palace and the cathedral. It is at once the Windsor and the Westminster of Poland.

AIITSSOUNI’S BABY BOUNTY. One of the recent beneficiaries from the funds at Signor .Mussolini's disposal was a woman who had triplets a year ago and recently had- lour children at a ’birtli. “ This is the stuff to give them,’.’ said Signor Alussolini, when lie sent the usual 400 lire. He seems more of a family man than ever since his baby Caesar was born. People with 10 young children, or 12, or (in some cases) seven only, arc now enjoying, by special law, various degrees of fiscal exemption. One benefit accoidcd is free admission to secondary schools. Altogether about. 35,000 families will benefit. Some of the larger towns are wing with one another in the mattci of encouraging large families. Milan has decreed free use of trams to families with many young children, while Turin is nppiving public funds to prize-giving and subsidies. The more the merrier is now Italy’s motto for babies.