GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 2395, 21 February 1922, Page 4

GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

Witton Gilbert’s ultimatum to his wife was that if she returned home she must not speak to him. She declined these terms, and the Durham magistrates granted a separation order. The husband alleged that his wife constantly nagged him.

As a last self-imposed task before, going into the workhouse at Henley-on-Thames, an old man of 93 made his own coffin. He died later m the institution. He was originally a baker of Wycombe, and at a meeting' of the Wycombe Board of Guardians instructions were given that the old man should be buried in his own coffin and interred in the parish in which he had lived all his life.

While gendarmes at Cherbourg were inspecting the hold of the steamer St. Paul, carrying empty wine casks from -Algiers to Cherbourg, they discovered a man hiding in one of the barrels. He proved to be a French convict named Andre, who had escaped from Cayenne and was trying-to reach Paris. He will be returned to Cayenne.

A curious polling reversal following on a second municipal election has taken place at Daventry, Northants. Four Independent candidates were returned at the first election. Misconduct having been alleged, the successful candidates resigned and offered themselves for re-election. The result of the second poll was that two of the four candidates were defeated by Labour nominees. The* Duchess of Marlborough is entering with zest into the working of the Blenheim estates, and is looking after the welfare of tenants and workers. She was recently seen taking her place with the potatopickers. She worked with them for an hour in order to find out how hard it- is, so as to give her views to the estate manager on what they ought to be paid.

There will be no “rickshaws” in Scarborough next, season. It was proposed to start a service of these light two-wheeled vehicles which are so familiar a feature of the streets in the Far East. to be drawn by men of colour, but the Watch Committee have refused their permission on the ground that they were not satisfied as to what would become of the- men at the end of the

season. Henri Reynard, aged nine, was skating on the Rhone canal with some of his schoolmates when one. of them, aged six, disappeared under the ice. Reynard at once slipped off his skates, took off his heavy overcoat, and, diving after the little fellow, recovered him and helped him to where the ice was thick. A bargeman, attracted by the cry for help, got both boys out of their predicament.

Prompt obedience of a horse to the sound of its master’s voice saved the life of Charles Baumber, a Grimsby timber carter. A displacement of some of the timber threw him from the vehicle, and right in the path of the wheels. With great presence of mind Baumber shouted “Whoa!” The horse obeyed instantly, and the heavily laden cart stopped with the wheel touching, but not crushing, the prostrate man’s body. i 'A warvtime romance which began in France had its culmination at Paoli, Indiana, when Mr Herbert Harriman, a millionaire member of the Harriman railway family, was married to Miss Sarah Hunter, an Irish girl without fortune. Mr Harriman, during his war service in France, met Miss Hunter, who was a Red Cross nurse. Miss Hunter returned after the war to her home in East Side, New York, but Mr Harriman sought her out, and the courtship was resumed. Miss Hunter was born in Belfast. She came to America at the age of sixteen. “I have seventy-two godchildren of my own,” said Judge Sir Alfred Tobin at Westminster County Council Court when a question arose regarding the mental powers of a child. This statement occasioned surprise in court. It establishes the judge as the holder, probably, of a social record. Sir Alfred Tobin is unmarried at sixty-six, but, like many bachelors, is devoted to children. “It is quite true,” said Sir Alfred Tobin. “I adore children, and I am an expert on these matters. I can see nothing startling in the fact. You must understand that all judges are not so ferocious as they are sometimes made out to be. Many of us are really quite kindly people at heart, and as I have hosts of friends, I have naturally a corresponding number of young people to be godfather to.”