GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 2000, 8 July 1919, Page 1

GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

I have seen, writes a newspaper correspondent in Cairo, a pocket Bible which a soldier, wounded during the recent riots, was carrying at the time. The bullet which struck him was deflected by the book, which was torn open, leaving exposed these words.- in Exodus xviii., 10: “Blessed be the Lord, Who hath delivered you out of the hands of the Egyptians.’’

To have lived ninety years and never travelled by train, tram, or motor car, and never to have seen the sea, must surely be uniqc in these days of: hurry and bustle. This distinction was claimed by

Miss Ellen Haworth, a diminutive old lady, who has just died at Pendleton, ’England. For 27 years she was the village postraisti’ess, retiring at the age of 82. She confessed that she had no desire to travel, and said she would be afraid to board a (rain.

The inspector for the Eastern Sea Fisheries Board, in a report, says: “The fishery officer at Mablethorpe informs me that of the cod caught on long lines, 1 in 5, and occasionally more, had bad wounds. Some were totally blind, others without an eye, and the larger number wore wounded in the body. The Cromer officer told me that he and the fisherman on the Norfolk coast had noticed many codfish with wounds and scars. The Shcringham officer states that the packers have come across many injured cod, some having as many as five wounds. One had lost its tail.

Noah’s Ark was as big as a P. and 0. liner! In fact, she was about twice as big as any vessel ever built before the days of the modern steamship. A shipping expert who has gone into the dimensions of the Ark and translated the Biblical measurements into their modern equivalents, states that she was 480 ft. long, had a beam of 80ft., and a depth of 48ft. This gives her a tonnage of 11,413, so she had plenty of room for pairs of ail the. 244 distinct species enumerated by Buffon, besides a thousand human passengers and many months’ supplies of stores.

At Lambeth Police Court, Grace Mary Holdway, living- in Camberwell, was summoned for unlawfully concealing Sapper Holdway, her husband, when she knew him to be an absentee from his regiment. An inspector stated that in conversation with him the defendant said: “You can’t expect a wife to give her husband away.” The magistrate: “I rather agree with what the defendant said. You can’t expect a woman to betray her husband.” The magistrate added that technically the defendant was guilty, but he would dismiss the summons under the Probation of Offenders Act. A striking example of the manner in which current events are reflected on the postage stamps of nations is provided by the Halo-Slovak deadlock at Fiume. When the Jugoslavs first occupied the town, immediately after the declaration of the armistice, they signalised the event by imposing the initials of the united Slav States—“S.H.S.”—upon the Slav stamps, which, however, proved short-lived, for on the arrival of the Italians they were suppressed in favour of a somewhat similar series, bearing the simple imprint “Fiume” in large black capitals.'