GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 2516, 9 December 1922, Page 1

GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

At Lemans Assize Court in France, Gaston Duveau, who was held to be entirely responsible for his actions, was condemned to death for the murder of his parents. He was ordered to be conducted to the scaffold in bare feet, clad in a shirt with his head covered with a black veil.

“Sometimes lads get hold ot sensational books and acquire all sorts of extraordinary ideas,” said the Norwich coroner in recording' a verdict of suicide while of unsound mind on Herbert Arthur Fondle, aged 14. Pendle, who was found hanging in a room at a factory, was described as a bright and happy boy. Florence Dunthorno said she had once seen Pendle-in a playful way put a piece of yarn round his neck to imitate hanging. She knew he was in the habit of reading detective stories.

Jack Dempsey, the heavy-weight boxing champion, was knocked out bv a moose in America recently. One of a party of which Dempsey wa> a member returned to St. John s. Now Brunswick, and said that Dempsey had been hurt by a large moose, j Disregarding warnings, he had sei/.- ; ed the animal by the horns. Ihe moose tossed Dempsey a distance ol 20ft. The fall completely winded him, except for bruises he was none the worse. Dempsey learned only the same day as this incident of the defeat of Carpentier by Battling Siki in Paris. He had never heard of Siki, but declared that he was willing to meet him al any time. The removal, bodily, of the 01)0 years old cottage, which is an obstruction to the road improvement scheme at Cheam, Surrey, to anew site a few yards further hack has been found impossible without risk of the whole building collapsing. On the advice of the society for the [.'reservation ot Ancient Buildings, the Epsom rural Council has decided to have it taken to pieces and rebuilt with new timber on the new site. It is proposed to use the cottage as an office for the parish records, the parish clerk and his assistants. An offer of £450 was made by a party of Americans for this cottage to he shipped to their country as a specimen of old English architecture.

Let us, then, he up and doing, With a heart for any fate; Still achieving, still pursuing, Learn to labour and to wait. Words of Longfellow’s Psalm of Life leaped into the mind of Doris Mine, a sixteen-year-old swimmer, in (.raining for an attack on the Channel, as she struggled with the waves in a test swim a few weeks ago. Miss Hine as a sequel fought the sea for eleven and a-half hours, a remarkable achievement for a girl of sixteen years. ‘.‘After the hirst two hours in the water 1 felt depressed,” she said to a newspaper representative, “but suddenly 1 remembered Longfellow’s Psalm ot. Life. I hummed it again and again and it put fresh life into me.”

The culmination of a remarkable romance of 1 lie war was witnessed al Milan when Ihe Archbishop of Milan united in marriage two rich sisters with two young men blinded and maimed in the war. The bridegrooms were L inhere Biauclu, blind am! minus both hands, and Marco Bala, blind and minus his right arm and they were married respectively to Marie and Hose .Moltcno, the (laughters of a rich .Milan family well known for its generosity. Ihe brides served recently as nurses in the blind wards of the hospital ot which the two bridegrooms were inmates. A strong attachment grew between the couples, and with the consent of the girls’ parents their marriage was arranged. Other people prominent in Milan society loudly protested against the weddings taking place, but the church was [lacked to the doors with those eager to witness the ceremony.

The police hud to intervene m nn uproiir at a Hall church when, owing to the clergyman’s forgetfulness a wedding' had to be postponed. Mistaking the date, the clergyman was visiting a. sick parishioner, when a messenger I’rom the church arrived and told hint that the young couple he had arranged to marry were waiting for him with their friends. When he arrived the vicar had to announce to the large number of people gathered to witness the ceremony that it was too late to conduct it- His profuse apologies were not accepted, and outside the church the people booed and hooted him. He offered to pay for a special license and conduct the ccremonv early in the morning, but l,e was derided by the crowd. Ihe crowd’s attitude was such that the police had to be called to disperse them, and the couple left the church unmarried, accompanied by the man and bridesmaids.