GENERAL NEWS ITEMS

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 2362, 1 December 1921, Page 1

GENERAL NEWS ITEMS

A contortionist, who hail achieved the posture of a cripple without arms and legs, excited the sympathy of a woman in a New York street recently, and she asked Patrolman O’Sullivan to go to the man’s aid before lie fell off the curb. O’Sullivan found the “cripple”, on the curb edge, with a-placard tied about bis neck reading: “Help a cripple of the world war.” “I’ll put you back; take it easy,” said O’Sullivan, bending over the unfortunate. . The slack sleeves and trousers legs suddenly became animated, and the “cripple,” with both legs and arms in action, wriggled away and dashed off. He was arrested later, and sent to gaol for 30 days. ;

A romantic story attaches to the suicide of Gabriel Callegari, a cuirassier of the Royal Household Guards of the King of Italy, who shot himself in barracks. The Royal Guards, gorgeously uniformed, are the t.aHost men of the Italian Army, and are subjected to stern discipline. They form personal guards for the Royal Family, and are on duly outside and within the palace, even in the ante-rooms of the induces and princesses’ own suites. The Italian Royal Family includes two young and beautiful princesses. It seems —from entries in C'allegari's diary—that he fall in love with one of the princesses, whom he served with silent admiration, and killed himself because his hopeless passion made life unendurable.

Months of patient investigation bad their reward when Chicago police officers rounded up a gang of dynamiters recently. Having received the hint that the men were ahout to blow up a shoe-repairing shop, the police lay in wait, and when the leader of the gang appeared with a bomb in his hand, 40 detectives ordered him to surrender, covering him at the same time with their revolvers. Instead of surrendering, the man flung the bomb, wrecking the whole front of the shop. A fusilade of shots brought him down, whereupon four other members of the band surrendered. Search of the dynamiters’ headquarters resulted in the discovery of 1,400 sticks of “T.N.T.” The police declare that these arrests will clear up a whole host of outrages, committed this year, involving, in some cases it is believed, officials of certain Labour Unions.

A number of Egypt ion women who were recently attacked in the vernacular press for bobbing their hair and wearing short, skirts, have replied that the so-called modern fashions are as old as the Pyramids. “We have .merely revived the styles,” they sa v, “which may be seen in any museum on the sarcophagi encasing the mummies of every Egyptian princess. Bobbed hair, concealed ears, and short skirts were in vogue more than 3,00(1 years ago.” Wrist watches for dogs is the latest novelty to be sprung at Atlantic City, U.S.A. The innovation was started by Miss Bertha Stone, of Washington, when she appeared on the sands, accompanied by Mike, a thoroughbred Boston bull dog. Attached to Mike’s foreleg, two inches down from his chest, was a jewel-studded gold wrist watch. When asked the time, Wike raised his paw in a friendly manner, and allowed the inquirer to hold it long enough to get if exactly. Mike’s nails were carefully manicured as part of his make-up.

Three young Neapolitans, all good swimmers, escorted a big cheese out to (he Italian litier San tliorgi, while she was lying in the harbour of Naples ready to sail for New York. The cheese was not strong enough to support the Italians, although of a ripe brand of Gorgonzola,, and they look turns towing it. They clambered aboard the liner by the anchor chains i(i darkness, still carrying the cheese, and they stowed it and themselves away under the canvas cover of a big lifeboat. On the third day out the cheese began to appeal to heaven. Sleuths trained in pursuing Gorgonzola traced it to the lifeboat, and the young Neapolitans were uncovered. They had subsisted on the cheese, about a third of which was eaten, and a small quantity of biscuit.