GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 2346, 25 October 1921, Page 4

GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

Increased activity was shown foil several days recently by the volcano Vesuvius. Enormous columns, of smoke which arise from the crater have a very impressive appearance, especially when seen at night by the light of a full moon. It is thought likely that the eruption will prove serious.

The police of Deauville are searching for a number of individuals who "in the past few weeks have been carrying on a brisk trade with gullible visitors. They sell “cocain” in small blue paper packets at a high price. An American woman who purchased a packet had the contents analysed, and the ingredients were found to consist of bicarbonate of soda and menthol. A message from Nova Scotia reports that the township of Newhavon has been destroyed h.v a forest; fire, but it is believed that all its sOf)' inhabitants have escaped. The fire also threatened Oxford, but it is thought that its progress was checked by a thunderstorm. Lumber valued at thousands of dollars has been damaged at Nelson, where sevioral houses have also been destroyed.

“The most handsome man jn Paris” was chosen at Chalillon-sous-Bagneux, a Paris subrub, recently. Votes were restricted to women, who were considered the best judges of masculine looks. They apparently decided that weight and substance were the first qualities to be demanded. The. ’’beauty fling” elected is M. Ilollmann, a 26-year-old electrician. Ho is clean shaven, boasts a tall, portly figure, and weighs, according to the official scale, just Hist. ’L’he mystery of a series ol murders was solved at Berlin by the arrest of a butcher, Karl Grossman, Berlin’s “Jack the Ripper.” Tho bodies of two more women have been found in the River Spiet, which brings the number of victims to five. The inhabitants of a house in a poor quarter heard groans, and fetched the police, who broke open the door, and found Grossman holdin- a club. A middle-aged woman was lying on a bed bound and gagged, and she died without regaining

consciousness. A story of a man’s uncontrollable anger against a six-weeks’-old kitten,’which had robbed him of lus breakfast, comes from Scarborough A shopkeeper discovered the kitten eating a‘mackerel intended for his morning meal, and in a fit of temper he threw the animal against the wall and then over a hoarding. The kitten’s leg was broken, and the animal was afterwards shot by an inspector to end its sufferings. Ihe shopkeeper was fined 10s and os costs. Mine. Guyonet probably owes hei life to her black cat. This elderly woman, who lives at Fontenay, near Paris, while attending to household duties, found herself face to face with a man, who seized her by the throat. At this moment her black eat, catching sight of a rat, jumped off the kitchen table, upset a bottle, which crashed to the ground, and started off in pursuit of the rat into the, room where the man was attempting to strangle the cat’s mistress. Frightened by the noise, the criminal released the woman from his grip and ran off. Next morning the police arrested the man, who confessed to an attempt to murder, tho woman. According to a St. Malo telegram, a young English girl, whose name is given as Miss Kathleen Emery, of Surbiton, was killed in a trameai accident at St. Malo, the Normanby bathing .resort. Accompanied by a Miss White, she was going to St. Malo from Parame. She dropped her camera, and jumped to recover it. Losing her balance, she slipped, and lire body fell under the following car. When picked up, Miss Emery was found to have a fractured skull and a broken thigh. First aid was immediately forthcoming* but the victim died before reaching hospital.