NEWS FROM ALL QUARTERS

Hokitika Guardian, 22 May 1929, Page 7

NEWS FROM ALL QUARTERS

SIAMESE TWINS. The “Siamese” girl-twins born to Mrs Miller, of Standard lload, Enfield Lock, Middlesex, were parted in an operation performed at the North Middlesex Hospital, Edmonton. Although the operation was believed to have been successful, one of the twins died a few hours later. It was stated at the hospital that the other twin is progressing satisfactorily. KOVAL PARKS FILM BAN LIFTED. Londoners will shortly be able to see familiar scenes in their principal parks reproduced on the films. The Commissioner of Works lias granted permission to the Ludwig Blattncr Picture Corporation to enter the Royal parks for the.,purpose of taking cinematograph pictures in movie colour of landscape scenes for public exhibition. This breaks a ban on filming the Royal parks which has for long been a grievance among film exhibitors-. Any bonafide cinematograph firm will be able to avail itself of the new privilege.. •

SMASH-AND-GRAB. A jewellery shop at the corner of Deansgate and Bank Street, Bolton, was the scene of a smash-and-grab raid at a time when the streets were crowded. After breaking the window with a brick wrapped in a handkerchief a young man snatched a trav containing diamond .and sapphire rings to the value of £550. He made off down Bank Street, followed by Detective Butterworth, who had been standing opposite the shop. The man was captured by 1 ' the detective near the bottom of Bank Street. As be had cut his 'wrist' badly in making the grab lid was taken to the infirmary. THE MAN IN BLUE. Viscount Byng of Vimy, presiding at the annual meeting of the Police Seaside Home, at Hove, related the following story“ While a police constable was standing on point duty at the Marble Arch,” be said, “an aeronlane passed overhead. Three people asked him what it was. Four people wanted to know where it came from. Four people wished to be told where it was going. Seven people asked why it was there at all. And,” added Lord Byng. “everyone of these 18 inquirers wore sent away satisfied. What the policeman said. T don’t know, but lie did what I could never have done myself—answered IP neoplo concerning what he did not know himself.” (Laughter.) WRONG BODY FOUND IN COFFIN. The discovery that the wrong hnrlv had been brought home in a coffin from the infirmary occurred dramati■nll v at a house in Liverpool. A coffin hearing the name of Mrs Pemberton. the mother of Mrs Chow Sin?, wife of a Chinese, was delivered at the house, and Mrs Sing, desiring to <=ee her mother for., a last time, had the coffin opened. When the lid we." opened she fell hack with a scream, and almost collated. Instead of see ing th-> body of her mother it wav that of a. man with moustache and beard. The men who accompanied the coffin hurried back to the infirmary, ancl discovered their mistake. The confusion appears to have been d’-e to a similarity of the surnames on the coffins. SAVED MONEY FOB BURTAL. The opinion that . two sisters do. | pendent on their old age pension* I went without necessities in order to ! sa ve money for their burials, was cv crossed at the Brixton inquest on Miss Maria Hill (78V of Trinitv Street, Southwark. The coroner’officer said that the sisters were afraid of being buried by tbe parish. Out of their total income of £1 per week

they had saved £2O. They were in want, «]ie said, and the relieving officer had told them that if they spent these savings he could assist them. They refused to do so. They also refused to have a doctor, in his opinion, because they did not want to spend money on his fee. Miss Sarah Hill said that her sister was bent double with pain in her chest after a fall, but would not see a doctor, as she had a horror of them. A verdict of accidental deatli was recorded. ./

LAW ON THE BING. Judge Owen Thompson, K.C., .expounded' file law of the engagement ring at Bow County Court, during an action in which William Rowe, o Elizabeth Terrace, New Road, Ilford, a laboured - , sued hjs former sweetheart, Miss Annie Tack, of Lamprel! •Street, Old Ford, to recover £5 which bo had entrusted to her towards tin purchasing of their home, a dresv ring, and an engagement ring, oi their value, £l3 15s. Rowe stated in his evidence that Miss Pack ended the engagement. Judge Thompson said that a decision of the High Court laid it down that the action had to lie brought in the High Court, and he had no jurisdiction to try the case. “The law,” lie added, “is that if the girl breaks the engagement sbe lias to return the ring, but if the man does so she can keep it, also if the engagement is broken off by mut ttal consent.” The action would have to be dismissed and Rowe would pay tile costs. .

LONDON’S ALL BLACK BUILDING

To the many picturesque novelties of London has been added a great building which is entirely black. Ii s the only completely black building in the country. Tbe building is in Great Marlborough Street, opposite Liberty’s Tudor building, and seen from Regent Street has a striking ap- ’ pearance. From pavement to rooi the facade is polished .black granite, severe in treatment and only relieved by floral decorations in gilt and en\amels which have been specially executed by a Japanese artist working for a Birmingham firm. The polished walls, howevoi;, make the building far less dull than many begrimed blocks of offices. |The 1 building appears all colours in turn as it reflects the changing lights of the day. Jti sunshine it is ..dazzling, in summer sunset it will glow. At night-time the building is to be flood-lighted in different colours, 'and it should become one of the features of London’s evening spectacles. The building hasbeen erected as the London showrooms and offices of the National Radiator Company, Ltd., of Hull. The showroom, on "the ground floor, fs lined with a cream marble called travertine. In one corner is a Moor-ish-like staircase. The architects are Mr Raymond Hood in collaboration with Mr Gordon Jeeves, F.R-J.B.A.

EVE. EIGHTS FOR MODERN CLOTHES. “Women are not ashamed to show that they possess human bodies,” wa= the striking statement made by Lady Emily Lutyens at a luncheon in London over which she presided. “Too often beauty has been associated with sin and temptation, and the Church has rather regarded beauty as an aspect of the devil instead of an aspect of God,” she added. “Reality depends upon health, and everybody wants to be beautiful. Up to the present there has been too much thought that beauty depends upon artificial aid. Doctors are preaching a better gospel. The foundations of health are air and sunshine and hygienic clothing. Doctors welcome that change in feminine costume, but the Church is inclined to denounce it. With the help of the women and of the medical profession, however, health will win the dav. Garments of convention and tradition are always hindering those who want to go forward to a greater and a better world.” Sir Arbuthnot Lane s-iid that the New Health Society was going to do a great deal in educating the people in the matter of health. The note had been si ruck at the light time; people were dissatisfied with the medical profession ( and the world wanted something real and genuine. The society recognised that the people \ V e> tired of drugs and treatment, and that the business of the medical man was much the same as that of the chauffeur who looked after his car. TV Earl of Mayo remarked that the ignorance of the maj''rity ot people in regard to their own bodies was amam ing. 1000 FEET FALL into RIVER. While giving exhibitions at Reading the other week, Mr John Tramim, the narachutist, took off from an nonohMie at a bojglu of I.oooft. but miss o(l Ids landing point am] fed into tin Thames near Caversham Bridge. H<' v.-oK in’ danger of being drowned through the parachute falling on him. Put people who were watching in boats went to bis rescue and enabled him to escape. TZIGANE MUSIC TO OUST JAZZThe characteristic musical accornp aliimont to “Hungarian Rhapsody,’’ at Marble Arch Pavilion (London) has caused quite a number of people

to suggest that Tzigane dance music would oc a pleasant and welcome change from, jazz in our ballrooms. The czardas lias a more exhilarating rhythm than tbe one-step, and the Hungarian society and peasant dances are respectively as fascinating as the slow waltz and tbe Viennese waltz to which they are closely allied. Tzigane dance music is popular on the Riviera and in Paris. SACRED NAMES IN COMMON USE. General Jesus Aguirre, who has just been executed ior rebellion by tin .Mexican Government had a Christian name rather startling to Englishmen. 11 11 - it is very common in Mexico and Spanish-speaking countries generally, it is no rare thing to come across in carnation So-and-So or Coiueptioi What’s his Name, and for a child l< be christened Crucifixion is not un known. The present Government lnu set up, apparently, a new fashion in names for Mexico, for cx-Pi'esiden Calles (now the Minister of War) iknown as Piuiarco Elias Calles. ‘TEARS INJURE THE EYESIGHT.” That there is more serious eye disease among women than men is shown by the records of the Royal Westminister Ophthalmic Hospital. Glau•oma a condition sometimes brought about by excessive weeping, is notice ably more common among women. Its removal necessitates an operatioi resembling, in miniature, the trepan ning of the skull. An eye surgeon at the hospital said: Eye trouble if sometimes brought on by excessivt .reaping or anxiety. I do not think women weep so much as they used toexcept, perhaps, Jewish women, win ire very emotional.”

SONGS BEFORE WORK. Mr Adrian Boult, the musical conductor, has suggested that buisnes* folk might try to dispel that Monday morning feeling by assembling fu. community singing, but this is nol quite original. There is at least oiu big religious organisation where tin staff appear regularly to meet for community hymm-singing. But Cecil dc Mille, the Hollywood film producer, hit on the most astonishing form ol morning “uplift.” While engaged on the film of the life of Christ he commissioned a pastor to conduct a religious service for the whole staff at the opening of each day’s work, sc that they should approach it in tin proper reverent spirit.

WHERE SAM WELLER WAS BOOTS.

The George Hotel, in the Borough High Street, London, is one of thr very few old coaching inns, with gall cries overlooking the courtyard, stil* left standing in the metropolis. Tin present house dates from 1676, whet it was rebuilt after the old Tudor inn which stood on this site at least a early as 1554, was destroyed in r great fire. Stow says that in Henr VIII.’s time it was known as the St. George, and bore a sign depicting tinsaint slaving the dragon. Many stud oni- of Dickens claim that the nave list, when writing of the White Hart where Pickwick, first met 'Sam Weller was actually describing the George it being a common practice of his t< transpose names. ASLEEP FOR A WEEK. Doctors in Semlin (Serbia) ar< much puzzled at the state of a peasant and his wife living in the villagof Surein, who have been sleeping fo over a week, and cannot by any mean be aroused. They seem to all intent* and purposes to iie enjoying a per fectly natural but deep sleep. Tin doctors declare that there is no dnip known to medical science which couh have this effect. The symptoms bee no resemblance to tbo.se of sleepiiv illness. It is thought that one of titfamous “witches” ol Serbia may liavbeen at work and used the extraord inary knowledge of herbs which sonv of them possess to administer sonv peculiar herbal compound at the re quest of a hostile neighbour.