GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 2212, 7 December 1920, Page 4

GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

A record shipment of butter from Auckland will be taken by the Gallic, which is expected to commence loading ibis week. The ■/■’shipment (hays.. Hie Post’s Auckland eorresporiefeut) will, consist of 137,000 boxes, of (he value of £95,000. Otheij vessels are also lifting substantial shipments of dairy produce.

Roast Pork, crackling, baked potatoes, and brussels sprouts—that is the child’s favourite dinner, judging by some of the hundred amusing' essays sent to an English newspaper on what boys and girls like most to eat. The most popular sweets are roly-poly jam pudding and apple pudding. Eric Hudson, aged six, does pot worry about a first course. “My favourite dinner,” he writes, “is a nice big Apple Pudden boiled in my Mammy’s Big Pot which nearly makes me Bust Bang.”

Sunday dancing having interfered with the output of eggs in a, tiny commune in the Pyrenees, the Mayor has issued the following decree: —“In view of the fact that the young people of the commune gather after Mass every Sunday to dance, and that the noise terrifies the cocks and hens, of the village, thus causing loss to agriculture, dancing is henceforth forbidden in the territory of the commune at hours wherein animals take their repose.”

'Following an explosion at th<{ gas works, Lower Sydenham, London, a tank containing,.2o,ooo gallons of tar hurst into ihuncs. The. London Fire Brigade men, responding to a call, found a fierce blaze (it could he seen two or three miles away). The fire was not subdued for two hours. The top of the tank, covered with concrete, was on the ground level. Ail the concrete collapsed, and the iron girders (hat supported it were heal and twisted by the heat!

A picturesque little house in on> of the old-world courtyards of Westminster, dating back to tlieyear 1400. has the reputation of being haunted. Mrs Stirling, who lias occupied the house Cur five years, is quite unmoved by her eerie visitors. “I adore my ghosts,” she said smilingly, “and I suppose Unit i- why 1 am never lonely here, i am convinced,” she added, “that the ghost of Lord North, Premier in the time of George 111., often comes here. During the Peace Conference he walked tip and down the courtyard and appeared deep in I hough I and greatly perturbed.’’ When, at a meeting of the managers of (he Central London School District, it was staled that a boy laid received one stroke with the. cane for laziness, and, another boy two strokes for breaking hounds and stealing apples, a Mr Griffiths said lie did not think the cane was a cure for laziness. The other boy, he added, bad got double punishment for showing enterprise. (La tighter.). The chairman (the Rev. F. R. Wilson.) said it might be a ease of liver, and the medical officer should lie consulted.

The activities oil a hand of Russian and .Polish Jews who have been engaged in melting down gold and silver coins and selling the metal in ingots —to the tune, il is estimated, of 509,000 francs —have just been checkmated by the Paris police;. The leader, a small jeweller named Tennenbanm, who was arrested as he entered his premises, was the smeller of the hand, and 12,425 francs in gold (£497), 400 French silver francs, and .1,500 franco worlh of English, German and Austrian pieces were found in his possession. At first lie pretended that lie was merely taking the money to the Banque de France, but soon confessed, and implicated his ,-accomplices.

A friendly cat has been the means of bringing a gang of rogues to justice and recovering £70,000 worth of stolen dyes. A gang of thieves stole the dyes from an American firm’s warehouse, and for I wo months the detectives of New York could fin'd no 4race of the missing stuff . Then, one day, as a detective was *1 ending in a brown study frying to think out an explanation of the theft, a dock cat,came up lo him lo amice friends, and, as cats will, rubbed itself against his trousers. The detective hr once noticed that pussy’s caresses had left on his trousers a yellow stain: and of the dyes were yellow. So he encouraged pussy’s friendliness,, and she led him to one of her favourite haunts—a cellar in an empty house —where lie not only found (lie stolen dyes, but also the thieves, and with assistance he captured a gang of nineteen. A-remarkable jewel mystery, in connection with an American millionaire’s son-in-law who had been “wanted” by the London police for the past two months, has just been revealed. The leading figures in the mystery, both well-known in American society are Mrs Spreekels, daughter-in-law of the Californian sugar “king,” and the son-in-law of a well-known, millionaire. Airs Spreekies has been staying at a West Bud hotel since last March, and she met the millionaire’s son-in-law at Sundown Park races. They were friends in the United States,- ’and shortly after the renewal of the friendship, Mrs JJpre.ekles entrusted to the millionaire’s son-in-law a- pearl necklace, valued at £16,000, a diamond ring worth £2,000, and other jewellery to the value of £7,000, for the purposes of insurance and cleaning. It is alleged that these jewels were sold.