GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 2452, 11 July 1922, Page 1

GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

The mystery attaching to the death of Rev. Father P. Crapsauce of the Great Bear Lake R.C. Mission, has at last been cleared. Major G. L. Jennings, officer commanding the R.C.M.P., has received a report from Staff Sergeant S. C. Clay, in charge of the Fort Norman detachment, • which shows that the missionary lost his life by drowning in the waters of the northern lake. As is customary with the mounted police, every avenue of evidence in connection with the tragedy was explored, and the report emphasised the thorough manner in which investigations at the top of the map are made by Canada’s frontier force.

. Professor . Winkler, of Vienna University, has published the results of his long investigations into the effects.of various avocations on the duration of life. Longest lives are lived, in an equal degree, though by a curious combination, by farmers and mental workers. In the latter class are especially philosophers, mathematicians, orators, and artists. Diplomats also come within the long-lived category. Proffessor Winkler found that among the professions the practice of medicine tends most to shorten life. Of artisans, statistics show that joiners are the longest, lived. By far the shortest lived are brewers and public- house employees. . An extraordinary tragedy of a child who fell out of a hospital bed and was strangled by her nightdress was described at an Islington inquest on Aubrey Joyce Ling, aged' fifteen months, the daughter of a dental mechanic. It was stated that the child was admitted to St. Mary’s Hospital, Islington, suffering from measles. She became restless in bed, and was secured by a bandage tied to the waist-belt of her nightdress and fastened to a rail at the head of the bed. It was noticed afterwards that the child was hanging out of Led, and a nurse found that she was dead." She had fallen out of bed and the nightdress was drawn round her neck. Inhabitants of Tristan da Cunha (in the South Atlantic) enthusiastically greeted the Rev. Martyn Rogers and his wife, 30 of the islanders coming out in boats to meet the steamer which brought the visitors to them. The 127 people in the island live in a very primitive way in thatched cottages. They have no form of Government, their civil regime, being a kind of communism without even a judge. There is neither a doctor nor a teacher on the island. Ships rarely call, and there is only one mail a year. This lonliness will now be somewhat mitigated, as Mr Rogers has taken a wireless receiving apparatus, and it is proposed to instal a transmitting plant. An American lias purchased the ruins of the famous shrine of Bell Croix, dating from 1350, which crown an eminence in the hood of Villeneuve, near Avignon, France, and has announced his intention of transporting them to the United States. Travellers in Provence will remember these ruins, consisting of a great arch richly carved, which probably formed the original entrance gate to the little clmpet. Despite the protest of the local inhabitants, the buyer has sent a number of experts to Villeneuve. Every stone of the' ruin has been photographect~~and numbered and hundreds of packing cases have arrived in which to carry this “Wx hopr,” said the leading article in an American paper apologetically, “that our rxadxrs will pardon thx appxarnnex of this wxxks ‘lntxlligxncxr,’ and thx sxxmingly mystxrious absxncx of a cxrtain lxttxr. Shooting Sam Biddxr camx into our officx yxstxrday and statxd that as lix was going shooting and bad no amm'unition hx would likx to borrow somx of onr typx for shot. Bxforx wx "could prxvxnt it bx grabbxd all thx lxttxrs out of thx most important box and disappxarxd. Our subscribxrs can lixlp in rxplxnishing our stock if all tliosx shot by Sam will savx thx chargx whxn it is pickxd out of 'thxm. and rxturn it to us. Nxvxr mind if it is battxrxd.”