GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 2516, 9 December 1922, Page 4

GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

A cyclone hurst over the Department of Seine-et-Marnc. France at a recent date, doing damage estimated at a million franks. Mail fell so thickly that it did not melt for many hours. In Seinc-ct-Oise also, there was a fall of enormous size. They were heavy enough to break through root's of houses and workshops. In the fields hares, rabbits, partridges and birds of all kinds Were killed in such numbers as to strew the ground. John and Sarah Dolmar, aged 74 and 75 respectively, livin'* in a small cottage on the outskirts of Folkslon, lost their lives by the burning of •their cottage. Smoke was seen coming from the house and a sun-in-law, with some neighbours, who forced an entrance found the old couple lying dead, arm-in-arm, on the Hour of the upper room. They had evidently left the room in which they were sleeping hut found their escape cut off by the burning of the staircase and were suffocated.

Although bullock teams for bush work are fast disappearing in New Zealand, they are si ill largely employed in the hardwood forests of New South Wales. The fact was noted by Messrs T. R. Overton and A. Seifert, of the Horowhenua' PnwBoard, who recently visited the other side. Bullocks, are remarkably sure-footed, no matter how rough or boggy the going, or whether up or down grade. The strainin"- teams of six or eight span form an interesting link with the earlier days of transport and hush workin this country. Many Pariscnnes find that three weeks' seclusion for a set of new eyelashes is not too much time lost. The operation is highly recommended by one who lias undergone it. A little fine needlework and then the long rest, and now. she says, her eyelashes make her the centra! point of any gathering. Seen close at hand —and naturally her friends press close about her to see how it is done —they show no sear or rim round the eye to betray the surgeon’s touches. The lashes are sewn on the edges of the lid. Ini', they take root, and therefore cannot he lost either by laughter or tears.

IP an Indian convict behaves well for a time, he is rewarded with a wife. The most important Indian prison is at Port Blair, in the Andaman Islands. Most of the criminals sent there arc “lifers" and if a male prisoner has served a sufficient term of his sentence, he i> allowed to take a wife from among the women prisoners and to settle down on the "island and bring up a family. First lie informs the chief warder of his wish, and is taken to the women’s prison on the other side of the harbour. The convicts arc lined up with the women who want husbands, and each man's number is called out in turn. Tie selects the woman In; fancies most, and the matron ol the prison asks her if she will have him. Perhaps the woman refti-es. in which ease the man tries again until lie is accepted or refused by them all. The woman invariably ask's the matron for particulars of the mans offence, and if he is a wife-murder-er she usually refuses him —just in ease. Of course, the women are criminals as well as the men, hut the latter seem not to mind this fact. When the convicts have been paired off ihey arc brought before the Commissioner, and if he approves they arc duly married and given plots of land on which to make their homes.