GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 2365, 8 December 1921, Page 1

GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

Louis P. Swift, jun., of Chicago, son of the millionaire packer, and Dr. Geoirge E. Neovious, also of Chicago, pleaded guilty recently to having taken a drink of alcoholic liquor in Zion, Illinois, They were fined £4O each. “Provided that visitors behave normally, they have nothing to fear from any of the animals,” said an official of the London Zoo to a Daily Mail reporter, while he was watching “Barbara,” the Polar bear who mauled a boy recently, and has since had her home covered with strong wire-netting. “We shall really have to have two kinds of cages in the zoo —some for animals and the others for visitors, with a 'noman’s land’ in between.”

Chester, the Paris chef made famous by William Orphen’s portrait of him, has quit England in despair and returned to Prance. The reason is that Britons insist on kippers, bacon, eggs, gruel, and other “a I voces” for breakfast. Chester admitted they liked his art for luncheon and dinner, but their failure lo appreciate his omelets and conMlures early in the morning was a wound to his artistic soul —and, besides, an English winter was coming. A man dressed in white, and wearing a green mask, laid a gruesome gift on the doorstep of Lawrence Pierce, of Ogdensburg, New Jersey, recently —a woman’s foot, embalmed, wrapped in green tissue paper, and tied with crepe and encased in a box. The authorities say (lie foot had been buried three or four years. Pierce heard a knock on the door, and saw the apparition deposit the box and run. Many Ogdenbcrg residents believe it was a ghost, and there was some alarm.

Aldershot was the scene of an extraordinary phenomenon recently. A whirlwind of considerable circumference started without the slightest warning. Women were spun round and round, a cyclist was lifted off liis machine, and children were I brown down, while everything portable was lifted skywards. A long fence was blown down, and palings were scattered, and a great column of dust and paper rose with a roar into the air. The whirlwind subsided in less than half a minute.

Housework is largely responsible for the increase in lunacy among women in England, according to a report to the Easlbourne Guardians, Sussex, by Ihe asylum visiting committee. And the thing that is sending more women to asylums than anything else is the everlasting task of dish-washing, according to Or. Marie Slopes, author of “Married Love,” who says that the nervous tension of housework is not generally realised. A taxicab ride of 800 miles was made by an elderly Scotchwoman, of London, who, desiring to visit relatives in Braomar, Scotland, decided that it was too warm to travel by train. So she stopped Frederick Clarke, a, taxi-cab driver, as lie was driving past her house, and had him lake her to the North of Scotland. Clarke picked up passengers for shorter hauls on his way back, so that his entire journey of 1,000 miles, which lie covered without even a puncture, was decidedly prolitnble. Besides a, substantial fare, the elderly woman gave him a £lO tip.

The courage of some pedestrians in the streets of Cette, in the south of France, was responsible for the capture of three bandits who had just robbed an official of a handbag containing £40,000 in notes and securities. M. Boillot was leaving his house, carrying the bag, when he was attacked by three unknown men, one of whom stunned him with a club. The three made off with the money, scattering the people with revolver shots, but some passersby produced firearms and started in pursuit. The bandits were cornered near the station, one being hit by a rifle bullet fired by a young man, and another being killed by a motor driver who had joined'in the chase. The third was rounded up soon afterwards.

For the third time in four years IV. IT. (Holly) Griffiths has been sentenced to life imprisonment in the State penitentiary at Moundsville, Virginia. The jury in the case against Griffith in connection with the killing on January 13th last, of Ira Roush, a riverman, l’eturned a verdict of ' guilty of first degree murder. Recommendation was that the prisoner get life sentence with one years’ solitary confinement. Judge J. H. O’Brien pronounced the life sentence, but ignored the solitary confinement recommendation. Griffith, who was serving a life term 'after being convicted of murder, escaped from the State prison early in January. The night he escaped another prisoner was killed, and Griffith was captured, tried, and adjudged guilty in connection with his death. The second life sentence was passed on him at that time.