GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 2049, 1 November 1919, Page 4

GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

An American officer committed suicide, in a dramatic manner at Nice. He wont down io (lie sea, 'and after wading about 10 yards into the water, took out a revolver and shot himself in the head. Detail was instantaneous. The body wasbrought ashore, irTsd envelopes marked “Captain George Johnson’’ were found in the pockets of the uniform.

Belgium has a prized collection in the spirited proclamations issued by Burgomaster Max of Brussels in 1914, before he was taken into captivity by the Germans. German agents pasted other placards over the proclamations as fast as they were discovered, but Belgians found a way to remove the German posters and preserve Max’s stinging proclamations. Most cherished is that which urged Belgian citizens to keep their Hags in readiness for the day of reparation. » The Gaiety Theatre Cinema Exhibition at Limerick was entered on a recent night by members of the local Vigilance Committee, and a serial film, illustrating “Adventures Among the Cannibals" was seized and taken outside and publicly burnt, amid cheers. A large crowd of const a biliary was present,.but did not interfere. Gome of the figures were stated to be in the nude, and hence the object inn. Goods having been missed from the U.A.K. Stores Depot, Regent’s Park, Police-const a bio GoddenVa-; ordered to keep watch. He saw Frederick Snowden, a foreman checker, leaving for home. He .was walking in a siih, erect: manner, with his hat palled well over his face. This aroused the constable s suspicions, so lie stopped Snowden, and found be was balancing on bis head 13 -■parking plugs belonging to the Government. He was sentenced to three months’ imprisonment.

Judge Burlington called a (log as witness in the Wandsworth County Court. Mrs Leybourne, of Tooting, sued Mir F. Richardson, the caretaker of a London County Council school at 'footing, for the return ol a lurcher dog. The ((iieslion ol the ownership of the animal was in dispute. The judge, after a. long hearing, ordered the dog to he unmuzzled and taken into court, and it immediately ran to Mrs Leybourne and licked her face.' Judgment was oiven for Mrs Leybourne. The system by which “godmother towns have offered themselves to provide special help for towns and villages in the devastated districts (d' France, proves its worth daily, writes a correspondent irom Paris. One of the most serious problems lu be faced is the fact that for live years many of the children of these districts have been deprived both of amusements and the education necessary to childhood. Now that the period of horror and struggle for the bare necessities ol life are o\ei, efforts arc being made to re-estab-lish sclionL in the shattered town.-. An authentic account is reported from Toronto ol a remarkable duel lo (be death between a large Norwegian eagle and collie dag. The eagle and deg were found Lmg dead together, following a lerrilic encounter, in which both fought to the last. The dog was seized near the home of its owner, and carried nearly two miles before the eagle was forced to descend. Iho tight (hen continued on the ground, the dog mutilating the body of- the (agio, and the eagle llnally tearing the dog almost asunder. .1 hey were locked in it death, embrace when found. The eagle measured eight feet from tip lo tip of the wings, and is a rare type only once before found in this .section.

A pathetic story of a young man's death when out with his sweetheart on the river None was (old at a Peterborough impicst. An engineer’s titter, Thomas Dunn, 19, hived a Canadian canoe, and left Peterborough in company with Elsie Read. They had gone four miles down the river when an angler asked him lo release a tine which was entangled in the branch of a tree overhanging the river. Dunn stood up to do so, and overbalanced and fell into 1 lie water. lie rose lo the surface once, and Miss Read made a brave mtlempt lu reach him, going into the water waist deep. His body was found at the bottom of the river.

In Hlaino (Mon.), llic happiest man’is John Hughes, a collier, who by an operation has recovered the free use of an arm, hand, and lingers, which were paralysed 52 years ago. The restoration of an apparently useless limb was indirectly due to an accident live months ago in the mine in whieh Hughes was employed resuming in the amputation of the other arm. Hughes recently visited Cardiff, in order lo purchase an artificial limb to replace it, and while there Major Owen Smith, of the Prinee of Wales Hospital, carefully examined the paralysed arm, and in a nursing home Hughes underwent an operation, The twisted sinews were straightened, and life is gradually coming back in the limb. T,he Hospital Workmen's Committee will purchase an artificial arm, and the man will soon .re-start colliery work.