GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 2414, 6 April 1922, Page 4

GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

Following the receipt of a petition from the prisoners confined in the county gaol at May’s Danding, Atlantic City, requesting that a new cook be employed for them, the Atlantic. County Freeholders voted to engage one. The prisoners complained that the cooking had given them indigestion and caused sleepless nights-. They also protested that there-was insufficient hot water to enable them to take baths regularly. This matter will also he adjusted.

Plans for an air service between London and Cork that would shorten the journey to America by at least a day are being prepared. The distance from London to Cork is 400 miles, and a modern commercial aeroplane could accomplish the journey in four hours. Passengers and mails could leave London the day following Ihe departure of the liner, and catch up with the boat at Queenstown Harbour, while incoming mails and passengers would leave the ship at Queenstown and, after a four hours’ air journey, arrive in London a day earlier than is now possible. One scheme is for a service of large amphibious flying boats, that can land equally well on land or water, which would start from the Thames near Weslminsler, and alight in Queenstown Harbour, tints eliminating the delays in travelling to and from terminal and aerodromes.

A man and his wife were injured by a fuse explosion at Croydon recently. The accident is thought to be due 'to a shell fuse —a war souvenii—having been placed in the grate. It occurred just after the fire bad been lighted. The woman, Mrs A. Johns, was more seriously injured than her husband. A dog, which was under the bed, was killed by a flying fragment. There had been no fire in the room since last wilder, and it is not known how the fuse got among the coal. A son who was lying in bed with influenza was unhurt.

“Pel day” in the Ileybrook rural school. Seattle, was a frightful and shocking affair, largely because .Johnny Berger insisted on bringing bis black bear cub. Miss Spargur, the teacher, who originated the idea of asking the children to bring their pets to school, and so be encouraged to be kind to animals, had already enough problems that morning in finding hitching posts, roosting places, and cage room for a veritable menagerie,.The sudden appearance of' the half-grown bear, however. turned ordinary excitement into pandemonn’im. The bear sniffed and beaded straight for the honey and jelly sandwiches of the lunch baskets, while a young mule, several dogs, cals, and fowls scattered in various directions, and then began to fight. The boys and girls lied for protection to Miss Spargur, who swooned from fright. The mule, dashing home at the unusual hour, alarmed neighbours, who came to the rescue of the teacher and children.

White slave traffic*, the morphia habit, and the practice of blackmail were joined ' to theft, fraud, and kleptomania in the “Dause-Maea-bre” of the band of Berlin shoplifters led by “Dashing Dora." Every step of the police investigations of the activities of this gang, eight of whom arc in custody, results in fresh sensational disclosures. Several members of the band plead that they are addicted to the drug habit, and are not responsible for their acts. Mrs Fours ter, one of Dorn’s “dashing” daughters, is in hospital suffering from morphia poisoning. Her husband was arrested last night as he was in the net of concealing stolen property valued at several thousand pounds. Louise Morvilius, her sister, has been released from custody in order that site may go to her sick child, lml not before she had confessed to the police that, for years she has been a white slave for her husband. Fank Morvilius, who is director of the German Disposal Board. Morvilius, she alleges, compelled her when a girl of fifteen to lead an immoral life, and give him the money earned by her shame.