GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 2344, 20 October 1921, Page 1

GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

Mr. Robert Adds, of Battersea, fell into a vat of boiling ginger beer. He was seriously scalded, and died in the St. James* Infirmary the next day. A verdict of accidental death was returned at the inquest.

Mr. William Haywood, leader of the Independent Workers of the World, when he returns to the United States from Russia, will not only face a prison term of twenty years, but also an inheritance of more than £25,000, representing onethird of the fortune left by his wife, who died intestate in Nevada. A man walked into the Deanville casino in an immaculate white dress juit and white silk shirt, with a much-be-frilled front and lace cuffs of King Charles period. The stranger walked from table to table in the baccarat, room giving away leaflets advertising a firm of Paris tailors. Several visitors protested and the man was asked to leave.

The Hungarian Union of Relief Organisations has sent to the Norwegian Consul at Budapest a memorandum addressed to the Nobel Committee of the Norwegian Parliament asking that the Nobel Peace Prize be awarded this year to Queen Wilhelmina of Holland, on the ground' that of all the neutral nations Holland did most to re-es-tablish peace in Europe. The unique occurrence of a hawk being killed by a golf ball in flight is reported by a Kettering corresspondent, who writes: “When driving from the fifth tee on Kettering golf links, I rather lofted the ball, which, in its (light at a fair height, struck and brought down a line specimen of the sparrow hawk. This, I believe, is the first time on record that a hawk has been killed by a golf ball.

A homing pigeon that dropped exhausted on to Broadway, New York, bore a message that Mr Edmund Heller, the famous naturalist and explorer, had become lost among the Hoodoo Mountains in Yellowstone Park, and was in urgent need of assistance. The pigeon had travelled 2,000 miles in four days with the message. Friends immediately telegraphed instructions for a search party to hasten to the mountains.

An angry woman stopped a cricket match at Kingsthorpe, Northampton, by refusing to return a ball which had landed in her orchard. One side had batted and made 90, and their opponents had scored 30 for two wickets, when a batsman made the drive which sent the ball into the prohibited ground. The players made pressing solicitations to recover the ball, but the wife of the occupier of the orchard remained adamant, and the game had to l)e abandoned.

Mr George Hauser and Miss Mildred Armstrong, both of New York, ascended 4,000 ft. in one of Mr Hauser’s machines, and became engaged before they had passed the 2,000 ft. mark. When Miss Armstrong disembarked from the aeroplane she was wearing a solitaire diamond ring. Mr Hauser confessed later that he had intended . to ask Miss Armstrong’s hand in marriage on several previous occasions, but had lacked confidence while on the ground. “Up in the air it’s different,” he explained. “An exaggerated optimism is one of the elements of flying with which an airman has to contend.”

Heavy rain was accompanied by a curious phenomenon on the northern fringe of Greater London. A few minutfs after the rain began t« fall numbers of tiny frogs, about half an inch in length, made their appearance in the gutters at Whetstone. Their numbers grew so rapidly that by midday it was almost impossible to walk across the pavement of any street without crushing several of them underfoot. It was noticeable that the frogs were as numerous in streets remote from any water as in those in close proximity to the brook which skirts the district? The general question was: “Where did they come from?” “I passed in Kingsway a Chinaman of the student type, who I have no doubt at all was a leper.” This startling statement comes from Mr W. H. P. Anderson, general secretary to the Mission to Lepers. It raises the question whether there may not be many lepers walking about in London. The question whether lepers can reach this country undetected is of great importance,” said the medical officer of an important East London institution. Leprosy is transmitted in practically the same way as tuberculosis chiefly byAhe inhalation of bacilli. The danger lies in the difficulty of detecting the disease at the beginning. Every care should be taken by the port medical officers when a vessel arrives from the East. My experience is that they just accept the word of the ship’s medical officer and the captain.”

By astounding daring, a thief

made a haul of £42,000 at the Bordeaux branch of the French Treasury in a hall crowded with depositors. . The cashier of the big bank was standing at the desk to pay in £41,000 (over a million francs) in bonds and £I,OOO in banknotes. The money and bounds were in an attache case which he laid on the desk at his side while he filled in the deposit slip. It Was while he was engrossed in this task that the thief, who must have been following him since he left his own bank, whipped away the attache case and bolted for the door. A hue and cry was raised just as he gained the street, but, although everyone near joined in the pursuit, he escaped with his haul.

A small village elementary school at Grayswood, near Haslemere, is probably one of the most up-to-date in Britain, for wireless is a regular subject in the school curricu-

lum. The headmaster (Mr R. J,

Hibbard) is a wireless enthusiast, and soon after his appointment he introduced it as part of the ordinary lessons. At his house, which stands a few hundred yards distance from the school, an old windmill has been fitted for an aerial, and a wire runs into the schoolyard.

Mr Hibbard uses a small wireless set to give demonstrations, and as messages are received they are written on the blackboard. Boys and girls' take a great interest in the subject, and good results have been obtained from the first course of instruction, which has just been completed.