GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 2111, 6 April 1920, Page 4

GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

The death is reported of Mrs Ryan, of Portroe, Co. Tipperary, who had reached the remarkable ago of 113 years. At the recent urban council elections a woman aged 103 attended and recorded her .vote. Several trunks of fir trees, about 20ft. long, have been dug up under Shaftsbu'ry Avenue, in London, where they have lain for 200 years. They were bored through the centre and wore used as conduits for London’s water supply before iron pipes came.

There are seven patients in the London Hospital differing from encephalitis lethargica, a form of sleeping sickness; Cherbourg and other French towns have many victims, while in -New York one woman has been asleep fur 102 days, and has only just been awakened by the playing of a violin. The cause and the cure of the malady are still to bo discovered. Mrs Christina ■ Forsyth, the subject of the well-known missionary volume, ‘‘The Loneliest Woman in the World,” has died in a hospital at Rothesay, Bute, aged 7(5. For 30 years she lived among the savage Xolobo Kaffirs, over 100 miles from the nearest white person, pursuing her educative, self-imposed duties, and.living the same life in many respects as the blacks. At Christie's, London, there has been sold for 880 guineas a portrait which is generally accepted as being the ugliest one in the world. It was of the Duchess of Carinthia and Tyrol, and attributed to Quintal Matsy. The picture is on a panel, and depicts the duchess, who was famous for her repulsive features, decorated with an elaborate jewelled head-dress.

'Tim directors of ihe Peterborough (las Company have awarded ,C 5 to (heir employee, Frnesl Wawliiison, whose wife has had two sets of triplets in 41 years. The latest, two girls and a boy, arc thriving. In rc'Vognition of the event, a public subscription called “Triplets' Purse" has been opened by a local newspaper company, which leads off with £3-—one for each ha by. A woman at Dundalk, Inland, summoning her husband for desertion, said that soon after the marriage he threw the bed-clothes out of the window, and,threatened to throw her out after them. He kept a number of dogs, and insisted on having them sleeping in the hod. AVhen she objected he said the dogs were as elean as herself. The court made an order directing (he defendant to contribute £2 a week to his wife’s maintenance.

Following recent operations in Mesopotamia, a British aeroplane engaged in desert-scouring observed a 'solitary figure slowly making its, way across the sands. On descending, the occupants found that it was a British officer who had been badly wounded. They got him into the aeroplane, and flow with him to the nearest hospital —a distance of over 250 miles.

A brutal attack by William Jones, a gardener, of Oswestry, England, mi his 11-year-old daughter was described at the local police Court, when lie was lined £5. Jones Hew into a passion, and at ton o’clock al night went to (he girl's bedroom and heal her unmercifully with a horsewhip. An inspector of the -X.S.P.C.C. saw the child the next day. She was terrified and trembling, and was covered with bruises and weals. It was staled that at full moon Jones appeared irresponsible, and threatened his wife and children with knives and other weapons. “I only intended to punish her moderately,” said Jones, “but my wife interfered with me, and made me worse.'’ He resented the suggestion of irresponsibility at full moon.