GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 2237, 10 February 1921, Page 1

GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

The demand for baby carriages in the United Stales fell off about 50 per cent, in 1920. While direeling Ira Die in Guildlord main street, R. J. Ansel!, an R.A.C. scout, was run over and killed by a steam waggon.

Cocbanut oil in large quantities is being imported into the United States for the manufacture of nut butter, candles, soap and cosmetics. Captain A. K. Mills, Commodore of the American Line, has just retired after 52 years of service, lie crossed the Atlantic 1,008 times witlimfl accident . Consumers of soft drinks in the United Stales have paid £10,000,--000 iii revenue to the Government.

There are now some 59,000 motor cars in the province of Saskatchewan, or one for every fourteen of the population. Ten years ago the total was oulv 531.

A York chemist, who was alleged to have made up un ear-drop lotion •faultily, and thereby caused deafness in one ear, has been ordered to pay £SOO damages. It is announced from Rome that, as the result of the in Hated value of gold, the supplementary tax on foreign telegrams will be increased to 250 per cent. It is officially estimated that the area under wheat cultivation in Argentina is 5,990,100 hectares, under llax 1,409,850 hectares, and under oats 834,000 hectares. In a tent three yards long by one and a-half yards wide, made of sacking stretched over boughs of trees, Pontvpool police found a grandfather, a grandmother, a deserted wife, and four children living and sleeping. As a motor van was being driven rapidly through the village of Sermesse, near Chalon-sur-Saone, France, a woman was seen to drop from it into the road. She was lucked up, bruised • and bleeding. She said she was a servant in a neighbouring village, and that a gang of men had gagged and bound her, thrown her into the van, and driven away. She managed to loosen her bonds, and jumped from the back of the van.

Porfia’s famous liue~ from “The Merchant of Veuace,” beginning “The quality of mercy is not strained,” were quoted by a Russian boy, Albert Weisberg, in the Court of Criminal Appeal when he asked the court for mercy. Weisberg had been sentenced at the Old Bailey to 15 months’ hard labour in connection with the theft of a motor ear. The Lord Chief Justice referred to the police evidence that the boy had associated with cocaine dealers in the West End, counsel replying that it had never been proved. Mr Justice Sankey 'said the court would like to bind him over; but having regard 'to the seriousness of the

ease, the sentence would be reduced to one of irifie months’ hard labour. In a dream he had one night, Mr A. E. Thomas, of Bristol, .saw' a burglar set tire to a £5 note taken from bis cash-box. , He snatched the note away and saved it by plunging if into a bowl of water. ►So impressed was Air Thomas by his dream that before going out on the following evening be hid bis

cash-box. On his return he found that the bedrooms had been ransacked and £ls (is taken. The cash-box had not been found. “Aly dream'saved it,” sard Mr Thomas.