GENERAL NEWS ITEMS

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 2460, 29 July 1922, Page 1

GENERAL NEWS ITEMS

The White Star Dominion liner Canada left the Mersey a few weeks ago, having on board, among her passengers, for Quebec and Montreal, Miss Annette ODodd, aged ten years, and her brother Charles aged eight, who were travelling alone to Winnipeg to join their parents. Both the youngters are quite seasoned travellers, Annette having made six Atlantic voyages while Charlib is now making his fourth.

The late Sir Thomas Isaac Birkin of Nottingham, whose estate is expected to exceed £2,000,000, was the pioneer of the modern lace trade. He was the grandson of a working man who went to Nottingham from Belper, Derbyshire, in 1822, and learned the working of a primitive lace machine. He later started manufacturing in a small way, and was succeeded in business by his son Richard, who was four times Mayor of Nottingham. But it was the grandson Thomas •» who lifted the firm to the foremost position among the lace manufacturing firms of the world.

The Orient liner Osterley, upon her arrival a few weeks ago at Plymouth from Australia, reported that when the vessel was off Naples, John Henry Fyfe, a third-class passenger travelling to Dundee with his wife and 12-year-old daughter, was found dead in a cabin with his throat cut. He was standing upright with his head jammed against the wall. Mrs Fyfe, his wife, could not account for the, tragedy. Mr Fyfe was buried in Naples Cemetery.

All big cities are worried over the disposal of the thousands of tons of refuse which accumulate every day. New York lias tackled the problem in a courageous way. The refuse of the city is shot into barges which are towed down the East River into Long Island Sound and dumped on Bikers Island. When operations began, this was only a small plot of ground about 60 acres in extent. But, the dumping of some 22,500,000 cubic yards of refuse has very greatly increased it and the top has been levelled down and brought into cultivation. Already a space of about 100 acres lias been so treated.

The designs of the postage stamps of French Indo-China are about to undergo a change —in the interests of .public morals. It is stated that the models who posed for the types of native women delineated thereon are notorious women of the underworld of Tanol. The present designs -were originally introduced in 1907, and represent native women from the four provinces of Annam, Cambodia, Tonking, and Indo-China itself. A notice published in a recent number of the Journal Official invited the submission by artists of designs suitable "for three types of postage stamps symbolising the agriculture, commerce, industry, scenery, or customs of each division of the colony.

The snapping of a fifty-year-old girder was responsible for the death of Anthony Chappel, aged fortysix,. the subject of an inquest by the Lambeth, London, coroner recently. Chappel and two other men were working forty-five feet above ground taking down the gix-der at the gasworks in Nine Elmslane. When the girder snapped, Chappel, who was fixing a chain, clung to one portion of the girder, and was instantly killed. The other two men saved themselves by clinging to the chains in mid-aix’. The clerk of the works said that there was a latent flaw in the girder which had been covered by several coats of paint. Averdict of “accidental death” was recorded.

The Rev. C. P. Edwards, known as the “Fighting Paxton” caused a sensation when addressing an.openair meeting of the Epsom (England) Constitutional Association by striking; one of his hecklers in the face causing blood to flow. Mr Edwards was interrupted by a man shouting that he had seen the speaker drunk in Coventry. Mr Edwards absolutely denied this, and said that he had never been to Coventry. When the time for questions came, a man put one query, but Mr Edwards replied that if he was the man who made the accusation, his question would not be answei’ed until the charge was proved. The questioner thereupon repeated his allegation, and Mr Edwards jumping down from the platform, struck him. The meeting terminated immediately.