NEWS AND NOTES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 1604, 29 August 1916, Page 4

NEWS AND NOTES.

The strange wanderings of a young, girl who bad been missing from her pai’ents’ home in Manly for about a month were recently brought to a close by the Sydney police, who found her sitting in some bush reading a novelette and apparently quite happy. Although the girl herself volunteered no information regarding her movements the Sydney Herald), it seems that during the last few weeks (states she has been sleeping by night in a cave on the Spit Heights, where she had installed a few toilet necessaries. She had been seen journeying to and from the city in the daytime. However’, the child, who is only twelve years of age, was apparently quite unharmed by her escapade. Her parents, who are in a position to afford her an excellent home, have been exceedingly worried by their daughter’s unconventional wanderings. She has a fondness for exciting literature, it seems, and does not like living in houses.

A temporarily demented patient, escaped from the Napier Hospital a few nights ago, reports the Hawke’s Bay Herald, and caused the two constables who were called, some hard thinking. The man, who was evidently in good training, made for the. wharf, and easily outdistanced his pursuers. The nightwatchman, confronted by a wild, half-naked figure, lied and locked himself in the telephone box. The police arrived soon after, and the lunatic run towards a dredge, moored to the wharf. With a Hying leap he cleared the wharf, and reached one of the small boats swinging from the davits. The force of the jump smawhed an oar. As tho weather was rough, and the police' could see litlle chance of getting at the man, the dredgemaster was called, ajul asked to take the dredge to the Inner Harbour. This was done, and the unfortunate man was secured and taken back to the hospital, little the worse physically for his outing.

Under the heading “What’s in a Name?” a correspondent (“New Zealander”) writes as follows to tho Post: —“In reply to the above query I wish to state that there is a good deal in a name at the present time, as I will proceed to show. A young lady bearing a somewhat for-eign-sounding name has within the last day or two applied for various situations, and it was plainly evident, from leading questions put to her, that she was suspected of being of German origin. As a matter of fact, the name is not German at all, hut Danish; the young lady’s father was horn on Lambton-qnay, Wellington, fifty years ago; her mother was horn in Wellington almost as long ago; and none of the family have been outside New Zealand, they having been resident in Wellington for the greater part of the time. I should like to know how many centuries must: elapse before the foreign taint becomes extinct, or whether it would he advisable to adopt, for the present, the euphonious name of another branch of the family—the very English name of ‘Brown’ —in order that any of the family may not be debarred from obtaining employment. 1 quite agree with the pbliey of non-em-ployment of Germans, but it is quite possible to be over-suspi-cious.”