GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 2308, 28 July 1921, Page 1

GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

A complete bathroom, the first ever fitted in an aeroplane, is a feature of the 1,200-horse-power biplane, the Lawson L 4, just built in the United States to carry passengers, goods, and mails over a number of routes. In this aerial bathroom, which is white enamelled with a tiled floor, there is a shower-bath, washstand and towels, mirror, and lavatory. Hot and cold water can be had for the shower, and icewater for drinking purposes. Two remarkable new sweets are reported from the caa-che, a Paraguay plant. One constituent of the plant is a glucoside called estevia? and this is estimated to*be 150 times as sweet as cane sugar. The other material, rebaudin, is probably a, compound of estevia with sodium or potassium. The sweetness of rebaudin is even greater than that of estevia, and is placed'at 180 times lluit of sugar. *

Tear gas had to be employed by the Paris nolice to overcome a man ironworker named .Duspenux, who, after trying to shoot his fiancee, locked himself in his room and threatened to kill anybody who came near him. He had two revolvers. The police inspector entered the next house, bored a hole through the wall, and pumped tear gas into the room. After three minutes, the police, broke open the madman’s door* and found he had shot and killed himself.

Can a person live without a stomach? The answer is “Yes,” and the proof is the curious phenomenon of a woman whose gastronomic organ has been completely cut out, and who was presented to the French Academy of "Medicine by Dr. Victor Pauchet, the surgeon who performed the operation. The woman is 50 years of age, and is in a perfect state of health. The operation was rendered necessary on account of an ulcer.

“You cannot prosecute me, as I am only 13,” said a boy to a man who caught him stealing tennis balls at Highgatc, and he added that his captor “would be exceeding the law if he laid hands on him.” Mr F. Beale, the clerk at Highgatc Police Court: He knows more of the law than T do. The boy’s Christian name was Tommy, and later in the case he was referred to as “Tommy the' lawyer."

Clara Karapenne met her death recently at Meaux through wearing high heels. While crossing the railway line at Meaux station she got one of the heels of her hoot.-'wedg-ed in between the sleepers. Officials shouted to her that a train was due, and, seeing that she could not release her boot, rushed towards her to render assistance. But it was too late. An express train dashed through Meaux, and the mangled ream ins of the woman were found several feet away from the track. The heel was found still wedged in the same place.

A cobra in Ibe act of “mesmerising” a king crow in a field near Calcutta was attacked by a mongoose, and, after a fierce struggle, killed. The cobra was so intent on capturing its prey I bat it did not tiolirc the mongoose, which pounced on its neck from behind, just as it was about to strike the bird. The cobra, fought furiously, writhing and hissing, but the. mongoose won. The mongoose then disappeared as iptickly as it bad come. When tlm bird was picked up there was no marks on its body, but it. was dead —apparently from shock.

Two disasters, each caused by boll-ringing, nmrred the Ascension Day celebrations in Tuscany. At San Donato, about four miles from Florence, a large bell swung loose and crashed through the roof just as a procession was enterng the church. A young girl was killed and 20 others were injured. At Villa Basilica, in the Lucca province, joy bells caused the collapse of an old church steeple, which had been badly cracked by the lasi earthquake. Here, too, a procession of women and children was caught by the falling masonry. A girl of 10 was killed, and three women and four children had arms or les broken. It is reported by the Rome newspapers Epocea, that Gabriel D’Annunzio has wedded the young pianist, Luiso Baccara, who kept him company throughout his dictatorship of Fiunie to the' end of the siege. She is the daughter of an ex-colonel of Bersaglieri, and is affeetibnately known among the soldiers as ‘‘The Little Venetian of Santo Stefana,” the parish wherein she was horn. It is stated that D’Annunzio, before quitting Fiume, got the local authorities to grant him a sentence of divorce from his wife, the Duchess Maria di Gallese, and that the new marriage was quietly celebrated in a small town within the Swiss border.