GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 2408, 23 March 1922, Page 4

GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

A ease against George Macdonald, accused of theft in the French Police Court at Montreal, had been dismissed by the Judge, and the clerk of the court was writing “envoye” (dismissed) across the record, when the prisoner, who did not understand Fi’ench, said, “I plead guilty, my Lord!” He was sent for trial.

Discouraged because he has been unable to find work, Michael Dvdeck leaped into the Delaware River from a ferryboat a few weeks ago. When the cold water of the river closed about him, Dydeek struggled to the surface, splashed about and called for help. He was taken to a hospital. “To cold,” he explained to hospital attendants.' He spent his last dollar just before leaping into the river

M. Rethel, who owns a number of pigeons at. Stains, near Chantilly, while taking, a walk with his son Robert, 23, saw a local farmer, Marie, in the act of bringing down one of his birds with a- shot gun. They ran in the direction of Marie, and accused him of killing the pig.eon. The farmer’s denial led to a struggle, during which M. Robert Rethel was shot dead. M. Marie, who has been arrested, says that the shooting was an accident, and that he did not pull the trigger. Little five-year-old Shiela Bates ended a trip of 6,000 miles' alone when the steamship Cedric docked at Liverpool recently. She had come unaccompanied from Los Angles, and when she walked into her aunt’s arms at the pier she carried many presents given to her by'male

admirers on the sea trip. Among them was an autograph album containing the names of tlit* commander of the Cedric, the passengers and crew, | all of whom wished her good luck at her future home with her aunt at Wallasey. Saying that he was satisfied there was no felonious intention, Mr Samuel Pope, the North London magistrate, discharged Mrs Ray Gardner, against whom a charge was made of stealing a rug valued at £2, the property of Mrs Grace P. Mutholland. Mrs Gardiner took the rug from Mrs Mulholland’s motor car. She mistook the car for that of a friend, and,her idea in taking the rug was to play a practical joke on her friend for leaving the car unattended. It was stated that the police had now seen the friend’s car, and agreed that it was so much like Mrs Mulholland’s that a mistake might easily have been made. Remarkable feats of memory are being recorded in Turin, Italy, where a 20-year-old waiter named Jean Giorgi is nightly entertaining guests by reciting any portion of Dante’s “Divine Comedy.” With only a meagre education, Giorgi started reading Dante five years ago. Since then he has learned every line of the “Divine Comedy,” being able .to pick up lit tie-known passages, and also to sing songs without the slightest difficulty. Naturally, his talent in this direction is attracting the attention of literary Italians, many of whom are travelling far to see him and to hear him sing the praises of Beatrice, When he is not unrolling macaroni or uncorking dusty bottles of the best Caprian wines. Incidentally Giorgi’s income without his tips so far exceeds that of his fellow waiters that that they have threatened to strike unless they are allowed to share in the proceeds of his nightly recitations.

Helen Ferguson Drexler, of Waukegan, Illionis,.daughter of a Brooklyn family, who Admits she is a “nut on soldiers and sailors, but don’t like marines,” is in a cell at the county gaol trying to recall the names of eleven of her .fifteen husbands. Equipped with one baby and a penchant for bera husbands, the Government alleges ' Mrs Drexler has collected as high as £BO a month in soldiers’ allotment checks from the Government for the last three years. The baby was listed as the child of each successive husband, and drew an allotment too. In 1917, she says, ishe married Wilfred Taylor, a soljdier, and they had a son, now three i years old. Next she married Paul |Moler, a soldier; then Thomas Meehan, a sailor, at Great Lakes, and next Albert Drexler, a soldier at Camp Grant. Although she has retained DrexlePs name, there have been at least eleven husbands since him, she estimates. She never obtained a divorce from any of them, she says.. .

Sing Sing attaches reported recently that an honest man had been found among the crooks there. He found a valuable diamond and turned it in to the prison office. It has been returned to the owner. The finder hi Robert Heans, serving two to four years for assault committed in Brooklyn. He was committed to the prison' a little over a year ago, and is due to go home in four months. He received £1 reward for his honesty. Miss Gene Ennor, a vaudeville actress, went to Sing Sing to entertain the prisoners at the behest of the Entertainment Committee of the Mutual Welfare League. While there she lost a diamond from a ring. It weighed nearcarat, and was said to be worth £7O. She reported the loss to Secretary Hammer and other officers of the league: Several inmates, including some who were lured to their downfall by diamonds and other precious jewels, began ransacking the prison for the lost jewel.- While doing some -work in a washroom, Heans saw something glistening grilliantly on the floor. He was one of many inmates who had not heard of the actress’ loss. Heans went to the office and reported his discovery. The stone, which had been missing several days before found, was returned to the owner. The Mutual Welfare League voted £1 out of its funds as a reward to Heans. The attendants now hail Heans as “the square.st inmate of, the prison.” They , say Warden Lewis E. Lawes is proud of him.