GENERAL NEWS ITEMS

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 2331, 20 September 1921, Page 1

GENERAL NEWS ITEMS

The Duke of Connaught, presenting the prizes at Dulwich College, advised the boys not to give up their athletics when they left school. “I am getting on in qse now,’"lie said, “but still do my physical exercises every morning. I do not think I should be happy without them.” An interesting item appears in the will of Mr Arthur Pilkington, glass manufacturer, of Lancashire, who left £380,076. He bequeathed to his wife his motor vehicles and accessories, and his aeroplanes and aircraft. This is believed to be the first time the world aircraft has appeared in a will.

“Don’t marry,” “There shall bo light,” “Thou slialt - not hit thy

father or mother,” and “Don’t swindle,” were recently given among the Ten Commandments by a number of New York schoolchildren.

A chance telephone call from a fellow M.P. was the means of saving Mr W. C. Howard Grit ten, .M.P., from serious injury. While he was dressing at his London residence he was called to the telephone, and immediately after he Jett his bedroom the ceiling collapsed. Some hundredweights of debris fell on the spot where Air Grallen had a lew moments before been standing.

“The linm's lungs were as black as a miner’s,” said a doctor, at an inquest on a Shoreditch old-age pensioner. The Coroner: Is not it found that Londoners’ lungs are a dark slatey colour, and that people who Jive in the country have pink lungs? Witness: Yes, but this was a very exaggerated ease of black

lungs. An acrobatic comedian, Thomas Jones, who appeared in public under the name of “Little Tommie,” was suffocated in bed at his lodgings recently. Although a dwarf, Jones was very powerful, but the shortness of his legs and arms made it impossible for him to turn over when lie was on his face. It was thought that Jones rolled over on to his face, and could not alter his position. A verdict of accidental death was returned.

Three Basingstoke, Hampshire, girls left their clothes under a bush while they bathed in Fleet Pond, near Barnborough, and when they came ashore they found their clothes had vanished. The girls told a passing cyclist of their dilemma. He found silting under a wall a rag and bone collector inspecting silk stockings and other garments, and carefully placing them one by one in bis little perambulator. It was nut long before the cyclist returned the clothing to the delighted girls. In recognition of her piety and prettiness, Miss May Gough, the seventeen-year-old daughter of a postman, of ITolsworthy, England, has been presented with 50s, under the terms of a bequest made many years ago by a former Rector of North Petherwin, who also left £1 a year for presentation to a spinster over 60 possessing “the like vir-

tues.” It is some years, however, since there' has been any claimant for the £l, It was stated that Miss Gough has not missed an attendance at church for 12 months.

Walthamstow, England, has begun tin experiment that will bring joy into the lives of thousands of children. Possessing a Labour chairman and a Labour majority on the district council, the local authorities, who own the tramways, have decided that any adult travelling by tram between 10 and 4 during the school holidays may be accompanied by two children, not over 12, for whom no fare will be charged. This concession means that during their period of summer freedom the children from this crowded workingclass district can be taken out even as far its Epping Forest under proper supervision.

As a result of the recent armed daylight robberies in Paris, euhnb noting in an attack on a dealer’s shop in the heart of the city, when £20,000 worth of diamonds was t stolen, the Prefect of Police has ordered all policemen to be armed with revolvers by day as well as by night.- To protect the gems at a certain jeweller’s, thin and almost invisible wires have been placed behind the plate-glass. If the window is broken the wires make an electric contact, and the show cases immediately fall into a steel recess, while the iron shutters which at night guard the shop front: are released.

A village priest of Briec, France, has been prosecuted by the owners of a restaurant and a dancing hall, who accused him of urging young people not to go to dances in their hall. The priest told a young coupje about to be married that if they intended to go to the restaurant and dance after the ceremony he would no marry t them. The justice of the peaee decided that the priest had acted to the prejudice of the restaurant proprietor] he was ordered to *■ pay 200 frs. (normally £8) dam-

ages. The priest appealed to the Quimper Court, where lie obtained a reversal of the judgment on the ground that his remarks were made privately and in a religious capacity.