GENERAL NEWS ITEMS

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 2302, 14 July 1921, Page 4

GENERAL NEWS ITEMS

Table-rapping' and spiritualism have, smys a German message, completely driven out of their wits a family of 11 people in the village of Knoktenhofen. The father and mother, with their nine children, burned all the furniture, broke the china and all the electric lamps, and then decided to offer up a burnt sacrifice to the spirit of “pure love. They chose the youngest child, a baby of three months, for this sacrifice, but were stopped by the neighbours, who called in the police. The whole family has been taken away to an asylum. Boxing is among the entertainments given in the Lama Temple, Peking, to raise funds, for repairing the famous building. The temple is noted as the place of retirement of Yung Sheng, of the bhing dynasty, prior to his enthronement. All the treasures of the temple were placed ou view, including many objects not hitherto displayed to the public, and a collection of musical instruments loaned by the Imperial Family. The hall used by the late Ching Dynasty for worship, containing many Buddhist images, was thrown open for the first time. In addition to the treasures, there were displays of Mongolian, Manchurian, Mohammedan, and Tibetan physical dull and boxing.

A man who, while in a London prison awaiting trial on a charge of passing a fraudulent cheque, made sufficient money by speculation to repay the hank he had swindled, was sentenced at New York recently “to be returned to England.” The prisoner, Leo Boroviteh, was arrested at Liverpool in February, and extradited on a charge of defrauding the American Exchange National Bank of New York of £IO,OOO, While in prison in London awaiting extradition, Boroviteh speculated in foodstuffs and made more than £9,000 profit. After his return to New York he continued operations while awaiting trial, and eventually repaid the hank and retained a handsome profit for himself. In court he pleaded guilty to a charge of grand larceny, and threw himself on the mercy of the judge, who marked the indictment: “Sentence suspended. This man to be returned to England.” By hiring out her baby at a penny a time, a young mother lias reaped a rich harvest at a Manchester gasworks, and enabled hundreds of childless folks to secure a ticket for additional supplies of coke granted to people with children. Scores of childless women assernbL ed daily in the queue outside the; gasworks, and the mother took-up her stand at the head of the queue. She invited every lonely person to accept the loan of the child for a penny. For three days no one-re-fused, and the clerks who issued the tickets cheerfully handed over an additional voucher. The mother, however, raised the hiring price to

twopence. Tins roused the wrath of women in the district, and the authorities were informed of the deception.

A curiou> question arose in the London Law Courts recently in eonneelion with the killing of a child in tjie -treet through the accidental fall of a scaffold pole. The question was whether a child of four had any value in money. And the decision by law wa~ that no such value is attached to a small child. But, shutting out till sentiment, -itch as liie missing of the cheering affection and the suffering of the parents through grief, causing a slackening of life’s more active forces, had the child's life no money value at four years old. in view of the possibilities lying before it that were suddenly blotted out/ Perhaps the Judge may have been right in thinking the child was not of money value to the father; but he would he wrong if he thought there was no money value for the world in the child.