GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 2504, 9 November 1922, Page 4

GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

Through his beard catching tire a Carlisle man, John Barwise Douthwaite, bas lost his life. In the middle of the night he struck a match to see the time. His beard caught fire, and the flames spread to his hair and shirt. He died in an infirmary.

Mr Glen H. Curtiss recently flew for 40 seconds in a marine glider over the waters of Manhasset Bay, U.S.A. It is believed at New York that this is the first time a glider rose 12ft. in the air after being towed a quarter of a mile by a motor boat travelling at 35 miles an hour. There was no breeze.

Professor Marcus, of Stockholm, speaking at the Neurological Conference in Copenhagen, claimed to have located the music centre of the brain. He stated that a musical patient suddenly developed a perverted hearing of all musical sounds, and investigations disclosed that a particular part of the brain had been attacked by phlebolite, a formation of a mass of solid matter in a vein.

Tree cutting, with the roof of a motor omnibus as a platform, is one of Greater London’s little-known occupations. When ever a tree overhanging a road threatens dangei to passengers, application is made to the people on whose grounds the tree stands for permission to remove the branches. The cutting is done as a rule by the London General Omnibus Company’s own fores-

try experts, who work from the top of an omnibus. A party of over 2QO excursionists wore flung into the Seine at Arpajon a few weeks ago, through the collapse of the pier. They were waiting on the pier to hoard a ferry boat, when the structure collapsed under their weight. A large number of persons suffered from broken limbs and fright. There would have been a big death-roll if the tide had not been low. The people dropped about sft. into the mud. The use of water as a symbol of purification would appear not to be confined to Christian ceremonial, in the light of evidence given by a Maori, TTori Wahaio, at the Arbitration Court at Auckland (says the Herald). He stated that, when lying on the ground after a collision between two trucks at Xgongotaha, and being in considerable pain, he thought he was dying, so he put water on his head. “Why did you do that, Flori?” asked Mr Justice Frazer. “Just an old Maori custom, as if to confess,” was the reply. Subsequently other Maoris, who were witnesses in the ease, said it used to be a common custom among Maoris to put water on the head of the dying, hut it was not often practised now.