GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 2513, 2 December 1922, Page 4

GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

At the inquest following the execution at Pentonville prison of William James Yeldham, 23, for the murder of George Stanley Grimsliaw at Higlmms Park, Epping Forest, the coroner drew attention to. the press that brandy was freely given to prison officials before executions to prevent them from flinching. The governor, Major F. W. H. Blake, said that he had been a prison governor for 20 years and he had never seen a prison official flinch at an execution. It was untrue that a large bottle of brandy was kept on the governor’s table to supply drink for the warders. A bacillus, _ which is extremely rare in this country, was the cause it was stated at the inquest at Colwyn Bay, North Wales, of the death of Jonah Williams aged sixty-five, of Llanddillas. Its name is Bacillus aerdgenes capsulatus, and it is akin to the. tetanus germ. Williams was injured in the hand while securing a bull and the medical evidence was that death was due to a gas formed by the microbe, which might have been on the hand before the accident, and have been driven into the blood system by the injury. The doctor added that lie had had cases in France during the war when the microbe was driven into the system by gunshot. “Accidental death” was the verdict. The tomb of the Gibson family in a corner of Sutton, Surrey, parish churchyard, was opened recently, in the presence of churchwardens, in accordance with a request made by a member of the family 150 years ago. The vault, which contains the remains of James Gibson, merchant and citizen of London, and six members of the family, has, the request decrees “to he opened every year, on August 12, for ever.” To ensure this being done, a sum of money was left to the authorities of Christ Church Hospital to be distributed among the poor of Sutton each year. Tradition has it that when the last member of the family has been buried the vault is to be locked

up and the key taken on a specially chartered ship to Palestine and thrown into the Fiver .Jordan.