NEWS AND NOTES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XL, Issue 1775, 12 January 1918, Page 1

NEWS AND NOTES.

The planet Venus, which has been conspicuous in the western sky for several months, reached its maximum brilliancy as an evening star on Saturday night. Although at present it remains visible for two hours after sunset, it is rapidly approaching the sun, and by the end of this month will be. lost to view, reappearing in March as a morning star. As such it will reach the maximum brilliancy on the morning of March 17th, when it will appear oVer the eastern horizon three hours before the sun. When at the brightest, Venus is 12 times brighter than the most brilliant fi.xe ( d star.

A young Australian holding a commission in an English regiment writes to his parents pf the courage of-His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, He says: “During a show lately I had to spend the night with the infantry in a very advanced position more than a mile in front of bur guns. The Prince of Wales came up to our pill box in the morning. He is a wonderfully stout-hearted youth, and I believe they cannot keep him out of it. He is sure to ‘get it in the neck’ some day. I believe he would ‘go over the top’ if he got half a chance.”

The worst hailstorm ever experienced in the district, passed ■ over Port Kembla,, N.S.Wi, recently. Considerable damake was done to houses in the town, every one of which had Ihe windows broken. In one house, which contained 2(i windows, 23 were broken, and the hail poured through and damaged the furniture. The hailstones were bigger than ordinary hen eggs. The total damage is estimated at close on £I,OOO. Three of the hailstones which were weighed turned the scale at over 11b.

A punter at the Stratford races purchased several tickets on different horses starting in the hurdles,

and in the rush he left one ticket just on the inside of the tote window. This happened to bo the winning horse, which paid a dividend of over half a century. Imagine the man’s disgust after the race, therefore, when he discovered he had lost the ticket. Portunatcly for him, the young man on the tote who had sold the tickets noticed that the one had been overlooked, and a little while later he found its rightful owner, who, as practical proof of his appreciation in recovering same, presented a tenner to the man on the tote immediately he had cashed the ticket.

The shooting of the danseuso Mata-Hari in Paris last month, following her unanimous condemnation for espionage, came almost as a surprise to Frenchmen, whoso aversion from female executions is traditional. Dutch by nationality, the beautiful Mata created a furore fifteen years ago by suddenly appearing in the French terpischorean firmament as a particularly brilliant star. A discipline of the nude in nature, Mademoiselle Marguerite Gertrude Zelle, to give her her correct name, improved upon her rivals by adopting the costume of her primal mother Eve. That such a daring debut created a. sensation goes without saying, unequalled even by the unanticipated news that the one-time idol of Paris had iw that very city expiated her horrible i'i’Uno. She was responsible for the betrayal of the secret of the original British tanks to Germany.

Among Ihe German csmiped prisoners, the comic figure is said to have been von Egidy, the Samoan planter, masquerading as a petty officer of the German navy. He is reported to have taken himself with thoroughly German seriousness ami to have displayed considerable indignation when respect was not paid to his rank. Was lie not sworn in beyond the three mile limit 1 So impressed was he with his importance that he refused (o herd with common Germans, and on the way homo removed his mattress from their quarters and slept by himself within sight of the .sentries, and in considerable less comfort than was the lot of the German sailors.

The greatest steam locomotive in the world has been put into service by the Baldwin Locomotive Works (says the Popular Science Monthly). It is so gigantic that its boilers had to be made flexible at three different joints so that the locomotive could go around a curve. It is more that 100 ft. long, weighs some 450 tons, and has twenty-four driving wheels, each standings* high as an average-size man. The driving wheels are distributed along the length of the locomotive in sets of four pairs, the wheels of each set being coupled together and driven by two giant steam cylinders. Under

full steam the locomotive can exert an 83-ton pull, and can easily haul a freight train two miles long and 23,000 tons- in weight over an ordinarily good roadbed at an average rate of about 14 miles an hour, and possibly more.

A correspondent of the Sydney Daily Telegraph, F. Wotton, says: “Permit me to draw attention to a remarkable faef in the entering of Jerusalem by General Allenby in a peaceful manner, that is, without firing a shot into the city. The word Allenby’ is a combination of three Hebrew words with extraordinary significance. Al’ means ‘God.’ ‘Len’ means ‘lodges’ or ‘dwells,’ while ‘by’ means ‘with me.’ Thus the word Allenby’ signifies ‘God lodges with me.’ Truly this is significant of the relief of Jerusalem by the God of Israel, and brings to light (he prophecy of Isaiah (as Handel's ‘Messiah’ opens) —‘Cbmfort-ye, my people; speak ye coin fort ably to Jerusalem, and say unto her that her iniquity is pardoned.’ And as Daniel declared that ‘God rules in the kingdoms of men, and giveth it to whom over He Avill,’ it must, indeed, be gratifying to Jews to know that He has given the British Empire preference of such an accomplishment, and has restored peace to Jerusalem by a general bearing such a remarkable name.”

The degree of injury which the human body can survive is exemplified by the case of a soldier who returned to New Zealand recently. The man in question, Private Frank Morgan, the son of Mr P. S. Morgan, of Neutral Bay, Sydney, and an Australian by birth, enlisted in New Zealand and left with the Eighteenth Reinforcements. During the fighting at La Basseville on August 4th, Private Morgan was wounded in (he head by shrapnel, and was being carried off the field when another shell showered a hail of metal on the stretcher party. Both bearers were killed, and the injured man was peppered with shell fragments and stray' bullets. He was finally conveyed to a dressing station, where it was discovered that his wounds were so numerous that it was a difficult matter to catalogue them. The patient .suffered from lapse of memory for some weeks, but an operation, during which a piece of shrapnel was taken from his head, gave him relief. Although he still has several small pieces of metal embedded in his skull, he is rapidly recovering his health. Private Morgan has also at least two bullets in his lungs. By the time the coast of New Zealand was reached he had so far recovered that he Was able to walk about on deck.

The proposal to intern Count von Buckner on Ripa Island has recalled the half-forgotten incident of (he escape of Jonathan Roberts from that island nearly 30 years ago. After the escape of that prisoner, then a young man of about 24 years of age, various reports were current regarding his whereabouts, and reports of his alleged recapture were frequently circulated, only to be contradicted an hour afterwards. On one occasion it was reported that a pair of human legs, that were found lying on the beach near Lyttelton, belonged (o Roberts, the supposition being that he had been drowned. This story, like all the others, proved to be ill-founded, the legs being identified as part of the body of another man, who had met his death by drowning. A wag of the period said that the authorities might have known better than to attach any credence to the report that the legs were those of the escaped prisoner, as he just then had much better use for his lower limbs than to leave them lying about the beach. Roberts certainly made good use of his legs—and any friends that he may have had —for he never was recaptured. Report had it that ho lost no |ime in putting the Pacific Ocean between himself and New Zealand, but exactly how ho got away was never made known. An unusual incident happened recently in a New Plymouth poultry pen. From a pair of bantams a nice clutch of chicks was hatched. When the chicks were a week old the hen commenced to lay, and in a few days.a half-dozen eggs were in the nest. Biddy had plenty to do to rear and mother her brood of chicks, and of course could not undertake the hatching of the new hatch of eggs. The rooster decided to make a name for himself, and one morning hp took charge of the eggs and began setting them out. For three long weeks the rooster sat closely, and was rewarded for his self-imposed task by proudly walking out of the nest one day with a new dutch of chickens. During the period of incubation the rooster became ducky as a broody hen, and every second day came off the eggs for food and water,