GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 2403, 11 March 1922, Page 1

GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

A brilliant girl chess player of Cuba, Maria Teresa Mora, who is 17 years old, may possibly win the women’s open chess championship this yenr. Capablanea, the world’s champion, considers her to be “the equal of any woman player in the world.” He is to bring her to England. Mr L. P. Rees, secretary of the British Chess Association, [old a press representative that there •could be no doubt about her selec. tion. Efforts are being made by Chatham townsmen, headed by the Mayor, Mr H. F. Whyman, to save the cruiser Chester, in which the boy Jack Cornwall sei-ve<l so heroically at Jutland, from destruction. The Chester, with other vessels, is marked for destruction, and the Mayor has addressed a letter to the Admiralty asking that the ship be maintained in the Medway as a national relic. It is claimed that the preservation of the Chester would stir the imagination and pride of future generations. “What depresses me . is to see well-dressed'people placing a penny in [he plate,” says the vicar of St. Alban’s*, Teddington, in a recent monthly letter to his parishioners. “Many of them,” he continues, “could easily pay half-a-crown, and

in some cases a note, as their proper offering, considering the amount of money they pay for their clothes, food and amusements. It is not unknown at church to see a hand with rings on it worth from £SO to £IOO drooping a copper coin into the collection plate.” A party of officers and the crew of a tug have narrowly escaped being killed by the guns of a destroyer near one of the English naval bases. Ten 4in. shells were fired at* the tug, one knocking away the chimney of the cook’s galley. According to a Devonporl message, while engaged in night-tiring practice a destroyer of the Devonport local defence flotilla turned-hip* guns on to a tug which was towing the Argent. It seems that they mistook the canvas wind-screen around the wheelhouse for a target. A number of officers and the crew of the tug, directly the .firing began, threw themselves down on the deck. Ten shells passed over them before the officers on the destroyer discovered their blunder. In consequence of the alleged kidnapping of girls at British ports and the carrying of them half round the world locked in a ship’s hold, the port authorities at Glasgow, who were approached on the subject by the Charity Organisation Society, have taken action which it is hoped will prevent such incidents in future! It. was alleged that at Glasgow two sisters, one of whom was: a restaurant worker, went, on the invi-

tafion of sailors, to have tea on boiird a South American boat. While they were at tea the boat sailed. At Liverpool, where the vessel c&lled, three other 'girls were taken on board, the first two meanwhile being kept in the hold.' The master did not know the girls were on board. At Colon, on -the Isthmus of Panama, they and the men were transferred to another boat, in . which they went to Callao, in Peru, where they were taken to a house of doubtful character. They escaped from this place, and the British Consul, sent. them. home. “I request that I be condemned to death ; if not ..then send me to prison for life, so that I shall be rendered harmless to. society.” Such was the dramatic demand made in a Berlin Court recently, when five burglars were on trial. The man who made this strange request is a blacksmith named Paul Walter, who has been passing himself off in Berlin as Prince Pless. The surprised Judge sent him to prison for 18 grant.any such request. “Well,

-then,” said Walter, “put me under •police supervision for 20 years, and I think you will see I will not do anything wrong again, but will reform myself. If Ido not, then sentence me to death next time.” The Judge sent hi into prison for 18 months, and passed sentences varying from /three months to two and a-lialf years on the others. All the prisoners thanked the Judge, and .Walter added that he and his friends would accept the sentences gjadly. *