NEWS AND NOTES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 2035, 30 September 1919, Page 1

NEWS AND NOTES.

Denying that he was an Irishman, a witness at Willesden, England, declared, “Fve lived here all my life, except the last twenty years,”

“If science would invent a drink without alcohol which made one feel as cheerful as a glass of good champagne, would earn the thanks of the universe,” said Lord Earrer at the annual meeting of the Surrey Public House Trust at Guildford.

Said to be the youngest member of the British Army, Dnimmcr Gordon Usher, aged 14, of the Cheshire Regiment, was dealt with by the Willesden magistrates for being an absentee. He said he came to London to see his mother.

While celebrating Peace, a London barge builder, George R. Pace, aged 45, placed gunpowder in the adjusting hole of. a SGIb. weight and applied a light. The weight was shattered, and Peace died in Guy’s Hospital from the injuries ho received.

- “Oh, this is Mr , the newsagent,” said the Acton magistrate, when a hoy of 11 appeared before him as defendant. The lad was summoned for employing a hoy of f). “No doubt he has the commercial instinct,” said the magistrate, “but he cannot bo allowed to make a fortune out of another little hoy.” lie was ordered to pay costs.

Charged at Grimsby with having been drunk and disorderly, James Rivers, a deep sea steward, gave this excuse. He had just arrived from Australia to learn that his wife and four children died from influenza at North Shields four months before. Letters containing the news had missed him during the nine months voyage home. The magistrates dismissed the ease.

Whilst searching for seagull’s eggs on the high dills between Deal and Dover, William -Roberts, aged 15, of Dover, fell on to the rocks 300 ft. below, and although severely injured, he miraculously escaped death. It was low water at the time, and Roberts Avould have been drowned with the rising tide had he not been discovered .by a naval policeman. The lad was taken to Dover Hospital, where he made good progress. A few weeks ago a small farmer of Massachusetts was informed that a sister of his hud died in New South Wales, leaving him a fortune of £125,000. The farmer, whose name was William J. Parfitt, declined to accept the inheritance. He was very happy, he said, in his life, with his wife, his three children, and his little farm, for which he paid twelve dollars a month rent, and was afraid that his windfall would rob him of his happiness. The news of the man who had refused a fortune of £125,000 at once caught the fancy of America, and the farmer was beseiged by people urging him not to be so foolish. Parfitt was evidently over-borne, for he has now announced his intention of claiming his legacy.

The question of the extent to which sheep could expedite the agricultural recovery of the devastated districts of Pmnce’and Belgium has been closely considered by the Agricultural Belief of Allies Committee, which recently sent two expert sheep-breeders to impure into the eondidtions prevailing in the war zone. Here and (here fanners are returning, and to those who have experience of sheep the Agricultural Belief of Allies Committee contemplate a gift of British animals. The Department of the Somme has undertaken to place a flock of British sheep at the Departmental farm near.Boves, and to dispose of a portion of the progeny to sheep farmers as they return to their holdings on the Somme. The Belgian Ministry of Agriculture is also prepared to make special arrangements that the committee may assist the stricken farmers in the Vscr Valley as far as possibility gifts of British sheep. Two juvenile desperadoes, who bound and robbed {mother schoolboy recently, left the Tottenham Court in tears when they were or-, dered four strokes with the birch. Three boys, the eldest 12, were charged with stealing a purse containing 9s 4d from a 10-year-old hoy who was going an errand. He said that in Hertford Road three boys rushed at him from behind a fence. They had handkerchiefs tied round their mouths. They knocked him down, dragged him behind a fence, and bound him with a piece of string. They then- went through his pockets, and took the money. Passers-by heard his cries, and the lads were caught. The eldest boy, Charles Butcher, told the Court that after they had taken the money he tried to persuade his mates to give it back. He was discharged, The others, Thomas Butcher, nine, and William Prior, ten, said they wanted irioney to go to the pictures.

The Edmonton Council recently asked the Home Office and Munitions Ministry to investigate charges that detonators had been buried at a local factory, and that a lorry of burning incendiary bombs was driven through a street. A report received shows that the bombs were dummies, and that the detonators were buried and exploded to fertilise the ground, A fine crop of oats is said to be the result.