Notes and Events.

Manawatu Herald, Volume III, 19 December 1891, Page 2

Notes and Events.

A conspiracy to kidnap the granclhild of Jay Gould, of Central Park, few York has been frastated. The few York correspondent of an English contemporary says :— About year ago I mentioned in these olumns the perils to which the hildren of the leading millionaires rexe subjected .here while taking beir daily airing in Central Park. ?he latter is bordered at certain joints by streets belonging to the porst quarters of the town and nothng would be easier than for any lesperate man to snatch up a child md make his escape therewith into he slums of this great city. SurLounded as the latter is on three tides by water, escape would present mt little difficulty, and indeed a jrime of this character -would be not >nly exceedingly easy of perpetration >ut would also present almost certain prospects of a great peouniary result. Parents are ready to consent to ilraoßt any conditions in order to retain 1 possession of their offspring, md to pay not only heavy ransoms, but even to promise immunity from punishment to the kidn appers. That she conspiracy just frustrated by the New York police authorities has been of a seriouß nature is demon3trated by the fact that for the past ben days a special force of constables has been detailed to keep an eye on the children of the Vanderbilts, the Goulds, the Rockefellers and others and the nurdes and governesses of those families have been invariably followed during the past week by two or three private detectives. The United States are understood to be in want of a society for the preservation of cats' tails in the places where they ought to grow. It is asserted that a Delaware house has undertaken to supply one hundred tons of cate' tails to one St Louis firm, who requires this immense quantity of caudal appendages for the ornamentation of the latest thing in ladies' fashions. To appreciate how large is this demand upon the cat's resources, it is necessary to work out a little sum. Estimating the average weight of a well-developed cat's tail to be 2oz, no fewer than 1,792,000 pussies muA be conformed to the Manx ideas in^ order to fill this order by a single firm.