NEWS FROM ALL QUARTERS

Hokitika Guardian, 8 May 1929, Page 7

NEWS FROM ALL QUARTERS

JOCKEY at 75. •V. John Faulkner, of Appleford, near Didcot, Berkshire, who attained his birthday recently, has been married twice and is the father of 32 children, ill his younger days he was a jockey and achieved a considerable reputation. When he rode his first race at Epsom he received exactly 3d. His mount on that occasion was ltip Van Winkle. He has a vivid recollection of such celebrated horsemen as John Osborne and George Fordham, and, according to him, £5 was the usual sum paid to a jockey for a winning mount in those days and £3 otherwise, in his 75th year he rode his last mount in public at the Abingdon Steeplechase. Strange to say, he has never had a bet in his life! BIG GLACIER PROSPECTS. The severe winter weather which devastated Europe wi.l mean bigger md better glaciers for holiday-makers cO gaze upon in the near future. The mild winters and good summers of recent years caused some of the Swiss glaciers to shrink, and seem rather the uOr'se for wtear. Once formed, a glacier scarcely ever runs itself out, for ice-blocks are constantly flowing down from the upper regions, but any diminution in the supply gives the old ice a stale and somewhat dirty appearnce, as visitors to the Lower Glacier at Grindelwald, for example, may have noticed. Nature, however, has this year amply replenished the gathering grounds of the glaciers which lie among the great Alpine peaks. 250-YEAR-OLD FIRES. Fires lit 258 years ago are still burning in a pottery at the corner of New King’s Road and Burlington Road, Fultlmm, S.W. They wore started with -indvr and flint in 1(571 by John I,’wight, tlio .Fulham potter, whose wares are now eagerly sought after. His sons and daughters, who carried on the business, kept them going. Then the pottery passed by marriage to the family of White, and when the iast White died in 1862 Messrs. Mein tush and Clements took it over. After two years they sod it to a Mr. Bailey, and in 188!) it passed into the possession of Mr G. W. Cheavin, who is now the governing director of the private company which still carries on the business. The l-ilns to-day are little different from those used by John IKvight in the seventeenth century. IDOL IN LAWSUIT. Two models of an ancient stone idol in a Jain Temple, one draped and the other undraped, were displayed to the Central Provinces of India. Litigation began 10 years ago, as the result of a ciptL* {dispute between members of the Shwctamhari and Digambari sects of the Jain community,• with reference to the worship of a stone idol ol iSliri Anlnriksha Parasnathji Maharaj in the Jain Temple at Shirpur. The main qU-sLion between the parties was whether the idol slum d or should not he plastered so as to show that it was wearing a waistband and a waist Lie. The plaint alleged that the idol always had the configuration of a waist hand and a waist tie on its figure, and that seven of the Digambaris chiselled away the waistband and waist tie, and thereby caused harm to the Shetambari Jains. PRINCE TN A FILM. Tbe Prince saw a film showum events in bis own life when lie attended a performance of “Roval Remembrances” at tbe Mnrh'o Arch .Pavilion. London. The fill" incl'.'des historic ! events of the last 30 ; * rs, and shows

the Prince’s investiture at Carnarvon, the weddings of Princess Mary and the Duke and Duchess of York, and scenes in which Queen Victoria, King Edward and King George figured. It also includes the first film ever made —a scene in Hyde Park in 1895. FOREIGN LEGION LUKE. A young prisoner Ferdinand Harris. ;> 4. who. after being bound over at Crewe, expressed a wish to join tiie Foreign Legion, is shortly to go lo France. At the police court Superintendent Mighnll said ho had been in communication with the French Consul in Liverpool, who said accused would Ibc accepted for the Foreign Legion in Calais. The superintendent added’that Harris Had a friend with the Foreign Legion and thought he could make good there. ELECTING A VICAR. It is rarely one sees an advertisement offering a post to a vicar. St. Stephen's Church, Coleman Street, London, will soon issue one in the city and one of the few in the country, which is not subject to patronage, but is filled by the parishioners themselves “Morioe Gerard” (the Rev. J. J. Teague), the old vicar, died over a month ago, and already, before the post has been advised, 100 applications have been received for it. It is worth £9OO a year, A LAMP-LIGHTER.’,S PRAYER BOOK. A remarkable literary curiosity was sold for the modest sum of £5 at Put- / tick’s, London. In 1837 Thomas \ Ford, foreman gas lamp-lighter of the Imperial Gas Light Company, could not find a Book of Common Prayer printed in old English, so he set out to write one. He paid £2 for a volume of blank leaves, and stipulated that it must be in morocco with gilt edge. Ford ibegan writing on the day of Queen Victoria’s accession, June, 1837, and provided the book with a coloured frontispiece. A marvel of penmanship, the book was finished on May 3, 1875, when Ford was 75 years old.'

LONGEST RAILWAY PLATFORM. • The longest railway platform in the world—that between the Exchange and v ictoria Stations at Manchester—was opened on April 16 by Miss Edna Best, whom rnilwnymen have chosen as the “Railway Queen.” -Begun three years ago the plntlform is half a mile long. BRIDGE PLAYING -*ND DIVORCE. Should excessive bridge playing be a ground for divorce? If so what is “excessive” ? These questions have to be decided by the Divorce Court in Budapest, where a Hungarian husband asks for a divorce on the pretext that his wife persisted in playing every day against his wish. EXPLORERS SECRET. Sir Hubert Wilkins, the Australian polar explorer, revealed an interesting fact when he was entertained by the British Commonwealth Club, at New York. Sir Hubert said that it was due to the hardships his family had faced m Australia, because of the weather uncertainties, which had mined many of his fellow countrymen, that he decided to make his life’s work the establishment of a chain of weather stations in the Antarctic. The realisation of this plan ho expects within a short number of years. WHEEL MARKS ON ROAD. How wax impressions of wheel marks on a road surface led to the arrest of a. man was told at Worn (Salop) Police Court when Albert (jloveley, 26 of Trench Bridge, near ElbsTnere, was charged with assaulting tw» girls. Mis Daisy Cotton, 33, a faitn servant said she was riding on a licycle when Clovoly appeared on a liotor cycle. Dism anting, he pulled ler off the machine and held her bj the neck uitil she screamed. Then she alleged, he pul ed her into a ditch and assaulted her, and then struck her on he n >se and head with his fist. When a cyclist approached, he vent away \liss Alice Childs, 27, also a servant, said Clovelv passed her <n a motor ink, then waited further on with a stick, with which he stniclcher several times, and then pulled ler off her bicycle. She ran away, jut lie followed until he met a frienl. The pn'ice took wax impressions of certain motor wheel marks, and it vns through tiiese that the man was a-rested. He •vns committed for trial ft the Birmingham Assizes.