GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 2523, 28 December 1922, Page 4

GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

The 12-year-old daughter of Mr S. R. Stratton, of Fleet, Hampshire, Stella Gwendolyn Stratton, was killed in an unusual accident while motoring to Oldham Grammar School. The motpr car was going along a narrow lane at Dogmersfield, a hamlet between Fleet and .Oldham, and the driver, Mi- Eric Stevens, language master at Oldham School, pulled to the side of the road to allow a horseman to pass. Frightened apparently by the noise from the engine, the horse mounted the bank

and kicked Miss Stratton, who sat beside Mr Stevens, on the head, in- , flicting injuries from which she died j later at Fleet Cottage Hospital. j There were three other schoolchildren in the ear. | A Streatham verger, Mr Thomas i Denny, who is 77 years old, has a ' wonderful memory. He claims that he can recite 164 poems, ami whole chapters from the Bible, straight off without a break. “1 am uni so young as I used to be, but I could recite for twenty-four hours with- , cut stopping,” he said. *‘l had a > passion for learning poems in my , younger days, and I learned bun- j dreds of them.” During the war lie j entertained wounded soldiers with j his recitations. A cheerful-looking j old gentleman, Mr Denny is one of 1 the wonders of St. Thomas’ Hospi- j tal, for, many years ago in a ltemp- j ting to stop a runaway horse he was so badly injured that he was reported dead. He emerged six months later almost as well as ever. Uncle Johnny Shell, who has been frequently exhibited in countr\ fairs as the oldest man in the world died in his mountain home at Creasy Creek, Kentucky, a few weeks ago. He is reputed to he 134 but there are no records of his birth but tlicie are left behind him more than 200 descendants. His second wife died two years ago, aged 30. She left him a son aged 4. Relatives tried to take the boy from his custody but he resisted them with a smooth bore shot gun. Some years ago a New York physician visited Shell, finding him a wizened, shrivelled, bent man unable to stand without a cane, weighing 1031 b and sft. 2in in height. He had a massive head of white hair and a beard.