GENERAL NEWS ITEMS

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 2332, 22 September 1921, Page 4

GENERAL NEWS ITEMS

Moonlight lawn tennis parties have been held at the Bellevue courts at Lerwick. Assembling at 10.30 p.m., the parties have played games up to midnight, when tea was served, and thereafter dancing was engaged in. A large peat fire supplied the warmth which the nights failed to give. The personal column of the Times contains the following advertisement :—Two public school and ’varsity men, bored, and depressed by limitations of careers otherwise open to them, wish to purchase small cheap inhabitable island, thus combining solitude with profitable employment. Warm climate assent ial.

A Swiss clergyman, Professor Stossel, aged G 7, was preaching in the cathedral of Basle, when lie dropped dead in the middle of his sermon, his body falling from the pulpit on the pews beneath. A doctor among the congregation examined the body, and announced that death was due to heat apoplexy. Rats to the number of 500,030 have been destroyed in the Paris Municipal Crematoriums since the city undertook the systematic destruction of rodents, who arc doing enormous damage throughout the city and endangering health. Four large crematoriums continue - the destruction a,t the rate of 1,200 to 1,500 daily. Up to the present the destruction has cost the city about £O,OOO.

Arrangements had been made for a wedding at the Battersea Registry Office, but the parents of the bride intervened and the ceremony was stopped. Later the bridegroom Arthur Thomas Wilkins, was arrested and charged with forgery. It was alleged against him that, in order to marry a sixteen year old girl, the daughter of Richard Allen, he had forged the signature of her parents to a document certifying that she was 21 years of age. Tongue twisters seem to have acquired new popularity through the recent feat of Mr H. J. Niss, J.P., of Isleworth, who won a prize at a local fete by repeating the phrase, “Some fountain pen” 78 times in 30 seconds. He challenged all comers to beat his achievement, and in reply has received acceptances from a young Hounslow journalist, and also from a speaker of the Labour Party from Kingston. Arrangements are being made for the contest. The first rival suggests that the phrase for repetition should be “six thick thistle sticks,” and the second, “Isleworth’s rotten roads.” A humble servant of the British Embassy at Washington, Charles M. Brown, has the distinction of being, according to official records, the only negro in the United States to receive the medal of the Order of the British Empire. The presentation was made in the presence of the full staff of the Embassy, gathered on the lawn of the Embassy. Brown has been attached to the Embassy as a messenger and clerical assistant for 35 years, during which time he has served under nine Ministers and Ambassadors.

Sir Auckland Geddes himself pinned the decoration on Brown’s breast, and delivered a felicitous speech reciting his long service. Some remarkable “freak” wagers are now being paid as the outcome of Carpentier’s defeat by Dempsey, says a New York message. A barber in Wisconsin, because of Dempsey’s victory, must shave Mr Arthur J. Haugen and cut his hair whenever required until July 2nd, 1920. He must also give him a 50mile motor car ride every Sunday for three months. Mr Haugen, an employee of the local post office, had wagered a two-acre crop of runner beans on the champion. Police officials intervened at Ottawa to prevent fulfilment of another variety of wager when they notified Raoul Mercier that they would not permit him to roll a monkey-nut four city blocks along Sparks Street, the main business thoroughfare.

With a penny to spend, a 3-year-old boy, named Thomas Stanley England, wandered through the streets from his home in Plaistow to Barking, where he was killed by a passing vehicle. The story was told at the inquest, when a verdict of accidental death was recorded. When a baby in the care of the Salvation Army, he was adopted by a couple named Hall. He was given a penny to spend one morning, and in his wanderings reached Barking in the afternoon. He was seen to be in danger when crossing the main road. People tried to save him, and motors swerved to avoid him, but he was knocked down, death being instantaneous.

An attempt to reach an Arctic Eldorado is to be made by the Donald B. Macmillan expedition, which leaves shortly for Baffin Land, says a New York message. According to Eskimo tales,' there exists in the interior one of the richest and most alluring islands in the frozen north. It is said to have great mineral deposits, and to possess high mountains and beautiful lakes which have never been seen by white men. The region is believed to be an immense breeding ground for water fowl, whose nesting habits will be the subject of study, while the programme of the scientists of the expedition also calls for field work in zoology, botany, geology, meteorology, and tcrrestial magnetism. Special observations will be taken of the magnetic pole.