GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 2515, 7 December 1922, Page 4

GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

A waterspout in the Tyrrhenian Sea (between the islands of Corsica and Sardinia and Italy) is reported by the Petit Parisian to have drawn two fishing boats with seven men on board, up to the skies until tltey disappeared completely. A spun, threatened a fishing llect.and tb< boats were hurriedly seeking shelter when a ferriffic waterspout appeared and scattered them. Two boats were caught by the spout the rest escaped. A report from Nairobi stale- that a woman visitor, sleeping on the ground floor of a house, was awakened by a noise in her bedroom. The men on the place arrived with lights and guns and found the room disordered. With the morning light the spoor of a leopard was discovered. It was found that the animal had jumped in through fl ( i<• open window and landed in a tin hath on the floor. The noise emitted by the hath so alarmed the leopard that it leaped out of the window a ini made off. A woman’s leap into a canal to escape an attack by a swarm of wasps was described hv a newspaper representative at .Newport, Mon. Miss Ethel Morgan was walking on the canal bank when she was surrounded by the swarm. She was slightly stung, and fearing further attacks jumped into the canal. Mr Thomas Jones rushed In her rescue and both landed on the hank opposite the wasps’ nest. They were immediately surrounded and so badly stung that they required medical attention. Probably one of i lie smallest sums ever left by a peer is that of Lord Napier of Magdala. whose will

has just been proved at £l,Oll Is lOd. Son of the first peer, the famous Field-Marshal who captured Magdala in the -Abyssinian campaign of 1868, lie succc.iig.lrd to the pension of £2,000 a year granted to his father for his services on that

occasion. This pen-ion wa- for two lives only, and ceased with the death of the late peer, who as a very junior subaltern look part in his father’s Abyssinian victory. He is succeeded by bis brother. Colonel James Napier. There was a Police Court sequel at lilyth recently to the arrival in harbour of Sir Waller Rum-imams Sunbeam, the famous yacht, owned for many years by the first Earl Brassey. Captain G. 11. Collins, the master, was charged with smuggling eight and a-half pounds of tobacco. Tf was stated that live and a-half pounds of tobacco were found in Hie drawers in the captain’s berth, and the other three pounds underneath the mattress in his bunk. Captain Collins explained that lie was thinking about the ship’s accounts when the customs men asked him about dutiable goods, a supply of which they usually carried for the crew. He expressed regret and was lined

£ll 15s, double value and duly. A dramatic scene occurred on the Australian Commonwealth steamer Ausiralford at Hamburg. One of the stewards, Malcolm Duncan, who had been troublesome <-11 ibe voyage from Melbourne, went ashore and overstayed his leave. When he returned to the ship.he was lined two days’ pay and ordered to go to work hut did nothing. In the evening, it was alleged at West Tarn Police Court, lie burst into the captain's cabin and presented an automatic pistol at his head, demanding £2. If he did not get the money, the captain, he said, would lie a “dead man.” The cjiplain. who was ill, temporised with Duncan until other ship’s officers arrived, disarmed him and threw the pistol into the sea. Duncan, who pleaded that lie had been drinking and saw “snakes,” was sentenced to four weeks' hard labour. A little-known peculiarity of the law secured the dismissal of a summons at,Sutton, Surrey, a few weeks ago. Horace Garrard, of Epsom, was summoned for stealing sweet peas worth 5s from H. T. Wing, also of Epsom. The two men have adjoining allotments, and witnesses stated that they saw Gerrard pick the sweet peas, and heard him say that Wing would not mind. The blooms won second prize at a flower show. For the defence, Mr E. N. Gibson quoted the following author-ity:-—“Trees growing crops, fruit, and similar vegetable production, while still annexed to the land, are not subjects of larceny, although it was common law as theft to lake them after they had been severed.” It was theft for anyone to. take (lowers which had been gathered by some other person, said the solicitor, hut not theft to take the (lowers without removing the plants from the soil. The magistrate agrecd and dismissed the case.