GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 2268, 26 April 1921, Page 1

GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

Toreadors (mounted bull-fight-crs) and picadors (the horsemen who prod the bulls without trying to kill them), threatened to go on strike, at Barcelona, unless matadors (tho fighters who kill the bulls) are granted an increase of wages.

For an hour«and a-half between 10 and midnight two members of the Guildford, Surrey, Golf Club, Mr Davies and Mr Thormvailc, played four holes in brilliant moonlight. Mr Thornwaite lost two balls, but Mr Davies did not lose any. The direction and distance of the drives bad to be gauged mainly by knowledge of the course.

Some beautifully made tweeds and

woven by blind women, and garments of these materials, knitted articles, and Braille books made by them, were displayed at the Women’s Institute, London, at tin exhibition. The blind women weavers work the patterns of their tweeds by memory. The knitting also is done by memorising tho number of stitches to lie made. The modern child had its innings recently in a theatre at Halle, Germany. A company lmd been brought from Munich to give a matinee performance of a fairy play, and the theatre was packed with children. They, however, considered the piece silly and the scenery and dresses inadequate. Making a tremendous uproar, they demanded their money hack. Bv the time the police arrived and cleared the theatre the children had broken up most of the seats. •

“London schoolboys are showing more consideration and courtesy to their teachers than ever before,” writes a North London schoolmaster. A number of boys who the oilier day bad been playing football and were a few minute.-, late in arriving at school, sent him after play-time am apology beginning: “We, the undersigned, hereby apologise for the marked rudeness and disrespect we showed our teacher by coming late, and promise —"

When a customer at the Red Lion Hotel, Bushev, Herts, made a disturbance some time ago, Mrs .Matthews, the proprietress, asked her daughter to telephone for the police. When she mentioned the word “Police,” writes a correspondent, her parrot gave three shrill whistles, which were a perfect imitation of the police whistle. Tho disturber immediately bolted. Mrs Matthews says that when she was ill the parrot has murmured, “Poor old girl,” and said the same on seeing someone fall.

An olpeial report on the religious quarrel at the famous Sikh shrine at Nankana, in the Punjab, says it cannot be stated with certainty how many Sikhs were killed, but the number is not less than 67. The rioting was the result of a disagreement upon matters of religion between the party of reformers which lias recently been active in the Sikh districts and the official managers of the Gurdwara (Sikh temple). Order was restored by a force of 200 troops, who found, the bodies of many Sikh victims, which had been burned at or near the shrine.

A work of art, 1,500 years old, was recently sold by auction in London. It is part of the fresco in one of the Rock Temples of Ajnnta, in Central India, removed by General J. E. Williams when lie was in command at Khampti about 1810. It consists of four heads in a group from one of the “Stories of the Births of the Buddha.” depicted on

the plaster covering the rock-hewn walls. In this cave is an inscription on the rock stating that the cave was given to a community of Buddhist monks, and fixes the date as the fifth century. No portion of the frescoes, except that to be sold, is known to have been removed from the temple. A five-roomed house is being built of compressed earth on land at Haves, Kent, acquired for*n poultry and fruit farm. The walls are 18 inches thick, soil dug from the farm being compressed between wooden shutters. Compressed earth for building purposes is not a new material. Pliny mentioned that Hannibal’s watch-towers were built of it. It <Aves its introduction into

England, however, to Mr St. Leo Strachey, editor of the Spectator, who has been experimenting in its use for five or six years, and has a small-holder’s house and steading of the material at Merry Downs, near Guildford. The estimate for the exterior walls of this cottage if built of brick was £200; their cost in earth worked out at under £2O. Baron Deeartier Demarehienne, the Belgian Ambassador at New York, says that at least 25 vessels will compete in the trans-Atlantic race for King Albert’s Cup next, summer. Several syndicates, be , says, are being formed iff England j and Belgium to enter candidates. It is believed that Sir T. Lip!on will enter the 28-metre Shamrock. j