GENERAL NEWS ITEMS

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 2425, 6 May 1922, Page 4

GENERAL NEWS ITEMS

Russian Soviet authorities, according to Petrograd newspapers, have just terminated abruptly the career of a monk, who, claiming to 1)0 a second Messiah, attempted to follow in the footsteps of' the notorious Russian mojik Rasputin. The monk, Vladimir Turabayev, founded at Novaia Derevinia, near Petrograd, a church of his own. He claimed wonderful healing powers and the credulous flocked to his cell. As the number of his followers, chiefly women, grew, Turabayev, according to Soviet officials, selected from among them a number whom he called his “angels,” who occupied his house with him. Turabayev was sentenced to three years and four months in prison. Tendering a worthless cheque in payment for liquor is not a violation of the law, Judge Harry B. Iveidan told a jury at Detroit in instructing the jurors of the case of Willard A. Smith of Kalamazoo, charged with giving George Brown a cheque for 640 dollars as payment for eight

eases of whiskey. Inasmuch as there are no property rights in liquor, the Court held its sale cannot constitute a legal transaction- and the exchange of worthless paper for it, is not a crime. Smith testified the liquor also was “worthless” and for that reason he made no effort to protect the cheque which he had drawn on a Kalamazoo bank. He was accquitted.

At last, ii would seem, a woman who is without vanity has been found. She is Countess Emmanuela Pignatelli, widow of Count Nicolas Pignatclli. Her portrait, painted by Bonnat, famous French artist, in 1880 was left by the Count to the Bayonne Museum, where it is now being exhibited. The Countess always maintained her .personal right to this picture and objected to it being exhibited publicly. At the present time there is pending an action concerning her rights to her husband's estate. After this action was tiled she brought another action in llie French Courts asking that her portrait he kept in a safe place and that it not be exhibited, at least until after her death. She has just won this case, the Court having ordered her portrait lo be removed from the mu-mum and handed over to-the custody of t lie judicial administrator of the estate.

Hindu silver gods from tin* palace of the Maharaja Gaekwar of Baroda are among the articles that were offered at auction in London recently. One of these was a fourarmed elephant-rheafied Ganesa, the god of Wisdom and Remover of Difficulties. It; stands 7-Jin. high, and is jewelled with rubies. Dr F. W. Edridge-Green, of the Board of Trade, who lectured at the College of Surgeons recently, -on “New Researches in Colour Vision,” said, that he knew a Royal Academician who could recognise only two colours. The artist painted the face in a portrait green, and had to ask his wife to select the colours for his pictures. A person with very acute colour vision could distinguish seven colours.