GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 2059, 25 November 1919, Page 1

GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

Writing from Rotterdam, the Daily Telegraph correspondent says;—l learn from Amcrongen that at 11 o’clock this morning an aeroplane appeared above Chateaux Bentinck at Amerongen, while the ex-Kaiser was walking in the gardens, The airman made a steep descent till he was 60ft. above the exKaiser’s head. The ex-Kaiser made a nervous movement of surprise, and then (led. The airman, who was probably a Dutch aviator, turned round and disappeared in a westerIv direction.

Peculiar and valuable qualities have been discovered in poison gas

as the result of long experiments, chiefly by agricultural chemists. When applied to the land, the gas kills all the things it ought to kill, and none of those it ought not. Wireworms and millipedes die instantly, as do all the tribes of noxious insects, but the beneficial soil bacteria are relieved of all noxious competitors, and so flourish immensely. It i< deadly to rats and mice, but no safe way of using the gas against (hem lias yet been per-, fee led.

.The profiteers in the tailoring and clothing trades are in for a shock, says the “Man About Town” in the London Evening News. I understand the Government is going to make up suits of clothes and show to all the world the cost of the (doth and of making up. This will put the blame for high prices on the right; shoulders, and ought to bring down the cost. If this is not effective, I understand the authorities are seriously considering the necessity of going into the clothing business on a colossal scale themselves.

Lunatics in England are demanding an eight-hour day. Their complaint is that since the National I Uion of Asylum Workers has been aide to enforce an eight-hour day for its members, working patients have been ’obliged to labour for much longer hours. “Naturally,” writes one of these patients, “we cannot form a ‘lunatics’ union,' and even if we did, we should not be able to enforce our demands. But, apart from that, there seems no legitimate reason why we should be compelled to work longer hours than our attendants.

The Anglo-Belgian agreement concerning the districts of Ruanda and Urundi, in German East Africa, embodies not a bargain between the two countries, but a free gift by (freat Britain to Belgium in these territories. The two districts constitute the most fertile portion of the colony, and have a population of more than 3,000,009 natives. 1 his gift to Belgium is a mark of British gratitude to her ally. Great Britain having been under no obligation whatever to cede this, the most valuable portion of her new East African domain, to Belgium or any other country.

A robbery which took place 39 years ago at Easthampstead .Park, the Berkshire resilience of (lie .Dow-ager-Marchioness of Downshire, lias hail a singular sequel. Among’ (ho articles stolen was a gold clock, which had never been recovered. A forester recently noticed a spike protruding' from the earth by the side of the slump of a felled tree in the woods near the mansion. I pon his touching it an alarm sounded. He unearthed the long-lost time-, piece, soiled but intact, together with some photograph frames in filigree work. A watchmaker has identified the dock, and is cleaning it. Apparently the thief made a secret hoard of the (dock and frames, which he afterwards failed to recover. A quaint comedy is being enacted in Halifax. Two respectable British householders, both occupying the same house, are spending their time writing notes to each other, each demanding that the other shall quit. The letters go throughdhe post, and are delivered together again. During the war Householder A went away and let the furnished house he was occupying—which did not belong to him —to Householder B. While A was away B bought the house. A returned to find B lirmly entrenched, and refusing to leave. A —who owns the furniture —likewise refuses to leave. So both live in the house and exchange notes.

Medical opinion on the case of u Manchester woman worker who died from softening of the brain caused by the heal of the rubber factory pressed by a London physician restitute the most fertile porion of the cently. “Softening of the brain caused by heat is very rare." he said, “but such a thing can be brought about, as it was no doubt in this case, by the weakening of some of the blood vessels, which may cause a hemorrhage, and result in brain softening. When people are exposed to excessive heat, death is some times caused by exhaustion and sometimes by a paralysis of the nerve centres. It is an interesting

fact that however great a heat the body is exposed to a person’s temperature does not rise more than one or half a degree. Experiments have proved this over and over again. Dry heat is far more injurious to the health than damp heat,” “I know there are many parents who have lost sons in the earlier stages of the lole war, and have given up all hope of ever getting their personal belongings,” writes “T.M.E.” to the Wellington Post. “I would advise them not to lose hope, as only on Wednesday last I received a part'd of the personal belongings of my boy, who was killed in aelion in October, 1910, over three years ago.’’