NEWS FROM ALL QUARTERS

Hokitika Guardian, 26 October 1928, Page 7

NEWS FROM ALL QUARTERS

TO WORKHOUSE BY TAXI. Stopping a taxi cab in Cleethorpe®,

...aniuel Hicks, a Grimsby fisherman, ordered the driver to take him to the Grimsby Workhouse, where he demanded admission to the casual ward. This was refused; The taxi fare was 4s 6d. Hicks had two-pence. “You must give me time to pay,” he told the Grimsby Bench. “(Not necessarily,” was the reply. Hicks, was sentenced to six days’ imprisonment.

WORLD’S BEST AUDIENCES. Mr John McCormack the famous tenor, was once asked in which place of all others in the world he liked best to sing. “Berlin” he replied, “and after Berlin, Dublin.” Curiously enough, when a similar question was put to Fritz Kreisler, he gave exactly the same reply. The reason which each of these great artists gave when further pressed on the point was that while Berlin and Dublin audiences are extremely critical, they are also more in sympathy with tin? performer than the audiences of any other capitals.

RED TAPE FOR STRAY DOG’S TAIL.

An order signed by Sir William Joynson-Hicks, the Home Secretary, and issued to the police of England and Wales, provides for the measuring of stray dogs’ tails. The “Statutory Rule and Order No. 162” in which the instruction is given, suggests that possibly the breed of a stray dog “may not be definitely known.” To provide against this knotty problem, which might interfere with 'the functions of red tape in describing the dog, the police must insert in their certificate of the dog’s identity, “size, nature of coat, and length of tail.”

QUEER PLACE NAMES Tn Hampshire, on the borders of the New Forest, may be found Charing Cross and Waterloo. There is a Victoria in Monmouth, and a Brixton Road and Bow in Devon. It is queer to come across such places in the heart of England, and there are other places that strike one as peculiar in another sense, such as Exlrom and Bethesda, that reminds one of the Holy Land, but are no further afield than Berwickshire and Carnarvonshire; Yazar, that might well be in Persia but is in Hereford; and Galvo, that ought to be a place where there are bullfights but is in truth in Cumberland. And you may pass through Denmark by going to Glamorgan.

SULTAN HOAX. With the departure of the young Sultan of Morocco from, France a good story has leaked out. The manager of of a casino at a Riviera resort persuaded the Sultan’s advisers to arrange for him to visit the casino one night. All preparations were made for the event but the Sultan called it off. The manager was in despair for all the well-known residents of the neighbourhood had been invited. But. the evening passed off admirably. The people who came were duly presented to an imperious-looking person accompanied by a number of others with the Morocco tan on their faces. But outside observant people l missed from their usual selling places several Moroccan pedlers with their bundles of carpets.

MAN DEFENDS SCORPION. A scientist who' tests the deadliness of so-called poisonous insects by letting them bite, him told the International Congress of Entomology in session at Ithaca, New York, that the traditional deadliness of many insects is largely a “mental illusion.’’ D. W. J. Baerg, of the University of Arkansas who was introduced as “the most bitten entomologist alive,” said that he' had found that tarantulas and scorpions, long considered among the most deadly of insects, are really quite harmless. He cited one exception in the scorpion family, however —the type found in Durango, Mexico. These, which he has been studying for some time, he said, are poisonous, and have caused the deaths of many inhabitants of the district.

HOME OF THE STONE! OR DESTINY The Palace of Scone just outside the ancient city of Perth, where the wedding took place of Lord Scone, heir to the earldom of Mansfield, and Miss Dorothea Carnegie, daughter oT Sir Lancelot Carnegie, formerly British Ambassador at Lisbon, is one of the most romantic landmarks in Scottish history. For it was at Scone that most of the early Scottish kings were crowned on the Stone of Destiny, which has had a resting place under the Coronation Chair in Westminster Abbey ever since Edward 1. of England 600 years ago, bought it to London, much to the chagrin of the perfervid Scots. It was at Scone, too, that several of the Scottish Parliaments met, and that Charles IT signed the National Covenant which ultimately led to Scotland gaining its religious freedom.

PHEASANT REARS DUCKLINGS. The mysterious loss of five young Aylesbury ducks and their finding by a North Weald (-Essex) farmer reveals one of nature’s remarkable moods. Wandering away from their chicken foster-mother, they were given up as lost. Some time later, when a field of mixture was being cut, a wild pheasants’ nest was disturbed. AVlien the hen led her. family of ten away from the danger of the cutting machine the five ducks also emerged from under her wings and waddled along behind tlieir second foster-mother. A young poultry farmer, said when she attempted to separate the ducks from the pheasans the hen became fierce and attempted to defend both the adopted

and her own family. She had to get assistance from her father before she could catch them again.