GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 2400, 4 March 1922, Page 1

GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

Imprisonment for motor-cars is one of the innovations contemplated by the Paris Prefect of Police in the struggle which he has undertaken with the traffic problem. Every car responsible for an accident it is proposed to lock up for a period of detention in the Fourriere, a kind of city “pound.” This system, says the Prefecture, would permit of a close examination of the car, and would prevent the frequent excuse of drivers that their brakes refused to work. Five hundred new trafficpolicemen are undergoing a special course of training in Paris. Ernest Savy, who had just served 15 years in a penitentiary in Central France, was recently called to the office of the chief gaoler and invited to sign a liberation form and receive 35 francs to enable him to “start afresh” in the world and seek an honest living. Savy noticed that the safe.in the office was open and contained a packet of bank notes. This was too much for him. He worked so cleverly that the pile of Holes found their way from the safe into his trousers pocket. Then he departed after shaking hands with the" chief gaoler, who an hour later discovered that the scamp had made off with £2,000 belonging to the prison, and about £1,200, the chief gaoler’s personal savings. How the life of one of girl Siamese twins was saved by her being severed from her sister, who was on the point of dying, was described by Dr. Lefiliatre at the last sitting of the French Academy of Medicine. When the twins were three months old they were taken ill with an infectious disease. A turn for the worse was noted in one of the girls, Madeline —and an operation was resorted to. 'lt. was extremely difficult, as the viseerae were intermingled. Madeline died three days after the operation, but her sister Suzanne is now a healthy girl of eight.

A strong-minded young woman visited the Berlin Public Prosecutor a fe\y weeks ago. “My young man,” she said, “is in prison waiting his trial for burglary. But 1 want to get married, and therefore I beg you to let him out for 12/hours. 1 promise faithfully to bring him back in good time. The public, prosecutor hesitated, but the was so firm that he finally arranged matters for her and the young man was released at 8 a.m. next day. Punctually at 8 p.m..a cab drove up to the prison door. Out stepped the young woman in bridal dress and helped out her exceedingly intoxicated bridegroom. “I am sorry,” she. said, “to bring him back in such a condition, but the only way to get him here at all was to make him drunk.”

Yet another tragedy was added recently to the vast sacrifice of young French lives which has been made at Verdun. For four years a beautiful girl has been mourning the death of her only brother, who fell defending the famous fortress. She was 18 when he was killed, and up to that time brother and sister had been almost inseparable. Since the death of her brother Yvonne’s gay beauty had faded away. A few weeks ago, on the anniversary of his death, she made a pilgrimage to one of the military cemeteries near Verdun, where her brother lies. After throwing on the grave an armful of flowers which she carried, and kneeling a long time in prayer, she shot herself through the head with a revolver, falling dead with outspread arms against his grave. “With a lowering birthrate, if one race is to survive, it is absolutely essential to take the greatest care in rearing the infants,” said Dr. Young at the Wellington Town ITall'on Tuesday. “That this is an effective policy in increasing the population was shown in Prussia, where statistics prove thai the Jews increased at a greater rate than the general population, especially in the excess of births over deaths. The Jews marry less frequently, and have fewer children, but they have fewer children stillborn and fewer deaths among those they 'rear. It is easy to advise women to keep the cradles full; but the problem, especially where there are other children in the family, is to obtain help for them during the period of the mother’s disablement. If the State had a domestic service, and could supply such help, it would probably do much more to encourage an increased birthrate than would a maternit\ bonus.’”