GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 2325, 6 September 1921, Page 4

GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

A quarryman named John James Else, of WirkSworth, England, was pinned to the quarry rock with a steel rod by an explosion. An hour elapsed before the. crucified man could be released by sawing off the rod. An operation was performed in hospital successfully. Else is now recovering. The rod just misse'd liis windpipe.

Cambridge established a record in June in the number of degrees conferred. These totalled 704 Bachelors of Arts and 97 Bachelors of Laws. Over 1,100 candidates in the recent examinations have taken degrees. On the day that the degrees were awarded many of the new bachelors played marbles in front of the senate house to indicate their freedom from the rules'and regulations which govern undergraduates.

A point of dispute arising iu the settlement of a separation claim at Sheffield was settled in an unusual fashion. A solicitor suggested that he and his opponent advocate should toss up in Court as to whether the husband should allow his wife 35s a WCOk or 40s until she obtained rooms. The solicitor representing the wife called heads, and won the toss. An order for payment of £2 was accordingly made. Lord Tredegar has given King’s Hill House, Newport, ns a residence for the bishop of the new Monmouthshire diocese, which is to be carved out of the present diocese of Llandaff. The property, which includes about three acres ol' land, is valued at £IO,OOO, in addition to which his lordship has promised a donation of a year for three years toward the bishop’s stipend of £3,000 a year. King’s Hill is a sylvan retreat lying on the slope between Stowhill and Commercial Street, Newport,

The use by school teachers of lengths of rubber hose, straps, and whips to discipline school children is ordered to be discontinued in a bulletin by the superintendent of schools at Pittsfield, Massachusettes. • The bulletin says that a ’’light rattan applied on the palm of (he hand should suffice.” Complaints .concerning the form of corporal punishment used by some teachers was given as the reason for the issuance of the order. ‘MI a pupil refuses to take his whipping, send him home and report the ease,” was a further instruction.

The anticipation which they, in common with others, had entertained with regard to the likelihood of a great increase in crime after the war had not been fulfilled, said Sir Evelyn Ruggles-Brise, chairman of the Prison Commission, at the annual meeting of the Central Discharged Prisoners’ • Aid Society in London. There were two reasons for this. One was that of the new principle of unemployment pay, and the second was that there prevailed to-day a higher standard of conduct and of dignity on the part of the working man, which had prevented him- from having recourse to crime.

The perfect shopgirl will shortly make her appearance at the counter. At least, she may be expected to make her appearanco next winter after she has taken a course of lectures which are to lie given at the Polytechnic, Regent Street, London, by arrangement with the Drapers’ Chamber of Trade. “Our idea is that shop assistants ought to have an opportunity to learn more of tho origin and history of the things they are called Upon to sell,” said Mr Quiltcr, of the Drapers’ Chamber of Trade, to a Daily Chronicle representative., “After attending the lectures, assistants should certainly be ixf more help to customers who are in difficulty.”

At a meeting of the union of Hungarian women’s associations in Buda Best it was resolved to urge upon the government the necessity of taking rigorous measures against the short skirts. It was proposed to equip all policemen with slicks with a metric scale, in order to measure the distance of the skirts from the ground if necessary. In all cases where this distance is found to be more than 25 centimeters the wearer of the skirt shall lie prosecuted for having sinned against the public decency. Men who are found in the society of such women will be boycotted. The meeting was presided over by Countess Apponyi.

When Magistrate Francis X. McQuade sentenced John McNally, an alleged pick-pocket, to four months in the workhouse at New York, McNally leaped for joy. “You helped me win a bet, your Honour,” he exclaimed. “I hot one of the boys in the finger-print room fifty dollars 1 could make a plea that would win your Honour’s greatest consideration and get me off with less than six months. He said I’d get a year. Thank you so much.” Magistrate McQuude laughed, and told McNally his pleading had been more effective than many lawyers, and to go ahead and enjoy his four months on the island. McNally was convicted of disorderly conduct, and pleaded police persecution. China is making an attempt to substitute a phonetic alphabet for her present system of ideographs. At present the Chinese system of writing comprises more than 40,000 separate symbols, each representing a. different word, and consequently the memorising of at least 3,000 word-signs is necessary in order to read or write. The Government has recently devised and introduced an alphabet whose use pßonuses to become universal. The new national phonetic script consists of only 00 distinct characters, which represents each verbal sound of the language, and, in combination, any word; accordingly it requires only a

month’s intensive work to master it, whereas ten years’ study was formerly necessary. Instruction in the new plan is now compulsory in elementary schools.

Strange directions for the construction of his grave were given in the will of the Rev. Francis Minnitt, of Torrington Square, London, who left property worth £14,074, He wrote: —“It is my wish to be buried in a vault with cement and 14in. brickwork, or in stone, for which more than the usual ground must be taken, so that the dimensions of the interior may be ample. This vault should be cellared, and if possible drained, the cellar being iloorcd with polished Hags or slate, and covered with slate polished on both sides, or stone Hags so polished. Any shelves should also be of like material and permanently lixed in the structure, access to the vault being provided either from a central passage or from the front or side, provision being made for drainage in every case, as I do not approve of the iron girders used to separate coffins.”