GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 2378, 12 January 1922, Page 1

GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

A villa outside (lie walls of Romo

has been the seene of a duel between Count Pietro Rusconi and Lieutenant Altobelli. Although Rusconi had lost two fingers in the "’or, (he two were evenly matched*. They were separated by the seconds and the doctors after 78 rounds, in which neither was seriously wounded. They then declared themselves reconciled. A sleeping-car porter working on a train travelling between Vienna and Buda Pest has become a millionaire by smuggling money across the frontier. A customs official at Vienna was caught passing money to him, and on investigation it was found that he had more than 1,000,000 crowns in (lie dining ear safe. Millions more were found in the bank accounts of railroad employees engaged in smuggling. Miss Jennie B. Fuller, of Gresham, Nebraska, a former nurse in the army, won the prize farm at the Gosham Hole land drawing for exservice men and women at Torrington, Wyoming. Several other former nurses also won farms. About 3,000 applications were filed, but fifty ex-service men reached Torrington too late to make applications. The hundreds of men gathered on the Courthouse lawn eheei’ed lustily as the names of lucky girl applicants wore read.

Encounters with eagles above the Pyrenees are reported by British pilots who deliver aeroplanes to the Spanish Government. The eagles reach a height of 10,000 feet, and approach a machine in an aggressive manner, but after flying level with it for a distance, they dive away to some mountain eyrie. Before the war a French pilot crossing the Pyrenees in a small monoplane was attacked by a large eagle, and had to fire repeated shots before he could drive it off.

After living lor 38 years in the heart of the country without ever travelling in a train, Mr Harry Brown, of Downon, Wiltshire, came to London recently on a vjsit to the Leather Fair at the Agricultural Hall, Islington, N. Mr Brown found London a little dazing. A trip in a motor-omnibus through the crowded streets immediately after a trip in the strange railway train glutted him with novelty. “I like the noise

and the people, bul I should not like to live here,” tie told a Daily Mail reporter. “Downton is too quiet, though. There is nothing to do there in the evening. I should like something between the two.” Revelations made bv the Mnnieh Post concerning the activities of a volunteer force, which had its headquarters in Munich go far to prove that the Germans are determined to flout the Allies by maintaining auxiliary forces. This corps, which purports to he a force to conserve order in Upper Silesia, is organised with marvellous skill. It possesses an excellent espionage service, and a special housebreaking department, the business of which is to steal letters and documents. Lieutenant Pongratz is the head of a sub-department for spying on officers of the Inter-Allied Disarmament Commission.

Although lie fell 20ft. from a window at Batlersea, England, John Ilowes, a 10-months-old baby, was picked up uninjured. He was found sprawling on his hands and knees, and it was only after an interval that a cry escaped from its lips. Hi* mother told a Daily Mail reporter that when she left the front room to prepare her husband’s dinner, he climbed on to a sofa, from which he reached the window, and fell into the street. “Cries of ‘The baby has fallen into the street’ reached me,” she said, “and I expected to find my child dead. There was only a dis-

coloured spot op his head when we reached the hospital, and I was told I could tnke him home again. Not even a bandage was used.” A novel experiment in the shape of an attempt to stimulate spiritual emotion by (he use of lighting ef~ foots is being attempted at the Church of St. Mark-in-the-Bowrie, one of New York’s-old colonial pla - ces of worship. Mr Charles Bi’agdon, a prominent theatre architect and a devour churchman, has devised a system of using the lighting effects for heightening fho influences of music and prayer upon the emotions of the congregation, rendering (hem more inclined to religious devotion. As the service proceeds the qualify and volume of light is varied to emphasise its emotional appeals. “A combination of blue and green,” says the rector, the Rev. William Guthrie,” produces a soft glowing light giving a powerful suggestion of tranquility and spiritual peace. Amber and rose combined are stimulating and elevating. By dimming, we get an atmosphere of mystery and conunuuion.”