GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 2112, 8 April 1920, Page 4

GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

Ltteio and Simplicio Golding, famous “Siamese twins,” will be enumerated in the American census ns two persons, although they are a unit physically. The twins are eleven years old, natives of the Philippines, and are living in Washington.

“Old Dad” Merton, 7.1 years old, has died at St. Louis, U.S.A. Merton gained fame for his perfect teeth, although he boasted that he hud never touched a tooth-brush. His accomplishments included biting through a china plate, heavy glassware, or chopping pieces of wood with his teeth.

Great Gidding, an out-of-the-way Huntingdonshire village, 19 miles from a railway station, is experiencing a remarkable school strike, )wing to there being no bead teachir. In an ultimatum to the Educa;ion Committee 23 parents state: : *\Ve are keeping our children away [Tom school as a protest against the Leaching they receive. They learn nothing. There is no control of any mrt, cither in school or play hours** Wg,-Would rather keep our children at home, because they have got very

rough and rude.” William E. Fit/.herbert has died at Brooklyn at the age He claimed to be the great-grandson of George IV. through that monarch’s morganatic marriage. He left documents which he alleged proved the authenticity of Ids claims, and'these his nine children may place 1 in legal hands “in the hope of winning an immense estate.”

The story of a young man and Ids two sisters, who reached the respective ages of 21, 18,' and 1(5, without their existence having been suspected beyond the house in winch they residml, was told at a meeting of (tie Portsmouth Board of Guardians. The youth was recently admitted to the workhouse infirmary as sick and destitute. He and Ids sisters laid never received any education. The secretary to the Local Education Authority inspected the sired registers for some years back, and found that each time the sellout attendance officer visited the house lie entered “none” in a column provided for the names of children under fourteen. The mot tier evidently made up her mind to conceal her children from the outside world. The youth, who is a dwarf, and Ids two sisters, had never been allowed outside the house, and had never been registered even for food rations. The fattier is in an asylum. Lady Duff-Gordon, at present in Paris, implies that American women are striving to wrest from their French sisters the latter’s traditional reputation for elegant and tasteful dress. “I have just returned from New York,” she says. “Nobody here can conceive what women over there spend on clothes. And painters or poets do not command a more Haltering welcome than do dress designers. American women will listen to advice. With them you can give free scope to your fancy; cut, drape, and pin up a dress on the very woman for whom you arc working, choose similes to match her eyes or her hair, and forms suited to her figure. J. have been offered fees that a prima donna would not disdain. The wife of a millionaire who was determined to have my assistance for her daughter's trousseau sent me a cheque for £1,009 just because I had been to see her, and her orders to my firm were to the value of„£12,000.”