GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 2276, 14 May 1921, Page 4

GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

A football which was blown into the sea during an Association match at Fishguard between Fishguard and Newport was recovered by William Henry Griffiths, aged IS, a Fishguard player, who stripped and swam through the breakers. Ho had it hard struggle to reach the shore against the ebbing tide, and was greatly exhausted.

There has been a disastrous fire at Onkbank, a Midlothian village noted for its old works. Not only were two men and a woman burned to death, but 12 dwelling houses .were destroyed, and 67 persons were rendered homeless, All the houses were tenanted by oil works employees. Originating in tiie house in which the charred bodies were found, the fire spread rapidly on ettcli side.

Alan Henry Bradbury, formerly a governing director, of Bradbury, Son, and Co., Ltd., coalowners and merchants of Southampton, who was under sentence of tyro years imprisonment for conspiracy and defrauding the Exchequer of about £50,000 in inborac tax and excess profits duty, died in hospital at Wormwood Scrubs prison following a seizure. At the inquest the coroner said it appeal’d to be a hard case, as the deceased know nothing of the frauds, but was responsible, as head of the firm for the actions of his employees. Death was due to heart failure, and a verdict of death from natural causes was returned.

An Ayrshire minister tells of an experience of his, unique in a long ministry, and possibly exceptional altogether. He was officiating at a marriage in a farmhouse in a rural parish. After (he ceremony an impromptu quadrille-was danced in (he drawing room, the eight dancer-, consisting of four pairs ol twins, all belonging to the one family Five were boys and three girls, one of the girls being the bride of l-he day. To complete the picture, another brother, not a twin, played the violin. Considering how rare it is to find even two pairs to twins in on« family, the occurrence of four must be almost without parallel.

Last summer, on the Midland railway between Moreeanibe and Wenningvon stations, a pigeon used to accompany the passenger trams. It would tiy with the train close to the engine chimney, only leaving that position when a bridge was approached, and resuming it when the bridge was passed. When the train stopped at a station it would either rest on the station roof or on a signal, or tly round for a little additional exercise, and then continue its

race with the train when it moved off. In the cold weather "the p.hn' , as the railway people call this companionable bird, ceased to make too

• ■ustoinary journeys, but it hanow returned and taken up its duties, or pleasures.

An Armenian doctor ha- been -un-cess lull in experimenting with silkworms with a view to make them produce silk of diffcrni! colours. This remarkable development iachieved by a new method of feeding. which is at present a secret. A range of 18 colours is obtained, from the Usual while to deep black, including a rich gold and a parti.'ularly brilliant purple. No citemii ~] js given to the silkworm- in order to make them produce -ilk of ■ lie required colour.

Lavnieu as well a> medical im > the country over, -ays a New \ »d

mc.-'sagc, are ini ere.-led in vim ca-m • T eight-year-old Miriam Rubin, ..vlui, *ave for three intermissions (M about an hour cadi, talked, or rather prattled, ine.‘*-aiilly lor 230 *'ours, For *omo time (lie extraordinary ease battled the physician* and surgeons. The consensus oJ view of those wjio examined the child in her home at Waukegan, Tliriui*, was that she was *uf!cr.ng from a malady akin to sleeping sickness. Then it wa* discovered that there was a partial dislocation if the second and filth vertebrae. The departures from alignment appeared to he of long-standing, and were though! to be probably due to falls in early childhood, the result* of which did not manifest themselves until the girl began to take lessons in interpretative dancing, which made it necessary for her to I brow her head back vigorously, increasing the pressure on the spinal nerves and inducing the outburst of prolonged garrulity. The vertebrae were manipulated into place, and since then the child has had long periods of slumber, her temperature which was very high, has dropped almost to normal, her ills of talking have become briefer nnd less frequent, and she is believed to be on the road to complete recovery.

Among the astonishing medley of new theories being attempted at English schools is Ihe setting up of a sort of Soviet in the das*. In one Co-educational school the hoys and girls are instructed to decide for themselves just how they shall be marked by their master; how much given for each subject and on what principle the marks are to lie allotted. More than this, they arc at liberty to haul their master over the coal* if he is adjudged to have transgressed certain rules. The argument is that all children are more likely to obey rules of their own making than rules imposed from above. The master is allowed to be present at the Soviet, but he may only make suggestion, and has no more power—he may have less influence —than any other member of the form or class. He must in

any case obey and adopt the final verdict. Outside the Soviet the principle of the so-called Montessori teaching i* being extended to

older as well as younger children. It is that pupils should do what they like doing; and in certain cases individual pupils are left for a number of lessons entirely to their own devices. It is said by those who have had experience of-1 he system in working that the girls take much more kindly to it than the boys.