NEWS AND NOTES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XL, Issue 1821, 2 May 1918, Page 4

NEWS AND NOTES.

X The wife of a Methodist minister in West Virginia has' been-married three times!. Her maiden name was Partridge, her first husband was named Robins, her second husband, Sparrow, and the present Quail. There are two young Robins, one Sparrow and three Quails in the family. One grandfather was a Swan, and another a Jay, but he’s dead now, and a bird of Paradise) They live on Hawk Avenue, Eagleville, Canary Island, and the fellow who wi'ote this is a Lyre, and a member, of the family.—Cariadian exchange. - ’ .

A lady who travelled to Australia upyn the ship bringing out two hundred and forty wives to our returned soldiers, tells this dramatic incident, says the Western Mail. There were .two women on board who, at first, were not at all sympathetic. But as they began to know each other they realised each the qualities which make for admiration, and became friends. One day, chatting intimately upon the deck, each showed the other the photograph of her husband. It was the same man! ’

A peculiar accident befell Maggie Florence, of Crookston, Southland, last week. She placed a 101 b. tin of honey on the lire to melt. It melted from the bottom, and came to a boil, while the top still remained hard, and thus prevented any escape of steam.- While she was close by it suddenly exploded, and the boiling contents were thrown over her. She was badly scalded about the face, and so far is quite blind. Her face is also badly disfigured, the force of the explosion may be imagined when it is stated that the holing honey spread to the ceiling and walls of the room. The sufferer is progressing as well as can be expected, and it is hoped her eyesight may not be permanently injured.

A good story is told by the Dean of Carlisle. ■ It concerns a clergyman wdio, taking occasional duty for a friend in one of the moorland churches in a remote corner of Cumberland, w r as one day greatly scandalised on observing the old verger, wdio had been collecting the offertory, quietly abstract a halfcrowm before presenting the plate- at the altar-rails. After service he called the old man into the vestry and told him, with emotion, that hiq crime had been discovered. The verger looked puzzled. Then a sudden light dawmed upon him. “Why, sir, you' don’t mean that ould halfcrown of mine! Why, I’ve led off with he this last fifteen year.”

Orte of the most remarkable experiences of the W’ur was that of Private J. Taylor, of the London Regiment, whose home is at Holloway, and wdio received the Distinguished Conduct Medal for “extraordinary pluck and endurance in his determination not to fall into the enemy’s hands.” He was cut off from his company and received a bullet in the thigh, causing a compound fracture. To avoid capture he crawled into a shell-hole, where he remained for over (Seven weeks, during the whole of which time the surrounding district w;as subjected to a severe bombardment by our artillery. He lived on tins of hullyhcef collected at night from dead bodies, and water which he obtained in a waterproof cape. After some weeks three of the enemy visited his shellhole, but by feigning death ho avoided capture,, and eventually succeeded in crawling hack to our lines—a distance of some 900 yards.