GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 2527, 9 January 1923, Page 1

GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

A prim story of tlie sea was told when the steamship Hunstanton, of Newcastle, reached Chatham from West Africa. During - the voyage fhe crew were stricken with malaria and for 2,000 miles the ship was managed hv three men. The mate was on the bridge for three days and nights continuously. One of the men died .just as the ship arrived in the Med wav.

One of the foulest series of crimes in history has been unearthed by the Moscow Criminal Police who have arrested a band of live persons who have confessed to murdering 10S people. The murderers roamed the country exterminating whole families, two of which consisted of 10 members each. A scries of rape and robbery crimes and axe murders followed by the firing of houses, was the programme of this band of criminals.

Miss Fritizi Hansen, a Madgeburg girl, still in her teens, after keeping her glider in the air for five minutes—the first time such a feat has been accomplished by a woman —fell at the second attempt and received injuries to the face. The a>--eident occurred at (lie W’asserkrnpI'c testing ground, when the launching rope failed to release the machine, and was not due to any lack of skill or nerve on the part of the airwoman. The glider, a Hiu tb Messcrselimidt, was wrecked. On the Dover sea-front recently a 12-year-old boy named Carvill was seen suddenly to lie enveloped in flames. Four men rushed to his assistance and tore off his clothes and the boy was taken to hospital. Two of the rescuers also had to lie treated there for burned hands. Several large tubes containing a mixture of phosphorus have been washed ashore at Dover, apparently from war wreck. The tubes are thought to have been used in the war to make smoke screens by vessels of tlit* Dover Patrol which attacked Zeebruggo. Carvill went on to the beach and put some of the mixture into his pocket, and as he walked on to the Parade it set fire to his clothes. The tubes will he examined and' handed over to the military or naval authorities.

Scalped as a result of lie) - hair being caught in a shaft working a fan, Miss Annie Davies was, at Liverpool Assizes, awarded £1,750 damages against her employers, Messrs Allmey and La.vlield, Ltd.,

sugar millers. Jt was stated that Miss Davies was still in hospital and that six grafting operations had been performed, skin being taken from her legs and grafted on to her bead. If the operations were not successful —and it would be two years before it would be known whether she would have a skin on top of her bead again—Miss Davies would have to wear a metal sheet on lop of her head for life. It was also doubtful whether she would be even able to wear a wig. Caps were provided for the girls employed at the works, hut these, it was stated, were onlv ornamental.

A case in wiiicli ;i cat had been among- the eliickens was heard at Lincoln when Francis Smith, a retired farmer, of ffykeham, sued Matthew Cook and Frank Richardson, of Hvkehniffi for £2 Ids, for the loss of a cat. Cook counterclaimed for £2 4s for the loss of eight chickens. The Judge, Sir Sherston Raker, sa-id that if the catwent on to a neighbour’s premises and killed chickens or did other mischief, their course was not to shoot it, lutt to catch it if they could. They must then keep it until (lie owner came to redeem it, and paid all the expenses of its keep. The elaini of £2 10s for the eat was an extremely large sum as there was no evidence that the animal was of great merit, hut simply a mongrel cat. Plaintiff would he awarded 5s on his claim, and Cook £2 4s- for the loss of his chickens.

-• Four gigantic ’Tables’* of reinioreed concrete, each with 94 legs, are to lie constructed in Southampton Harbour for the mooring of the world’s largest floating dock, now being built on Tyneside for the London and: South-Western Railway Company at a cost of about £1,000,000. Three hundred and seventy - six miles of reinforced concrete, each (50ft. long and weighing eight tons, will he driven 18ft. into the bed of the harbour from wooden floats anchored over the site. Many of them will he driven at a considerable angle to resist the to and fro movement of the 70,000-ton loader dock. The task is further complicated by the fact that even at low water there is 32ft. of the river covering the site. Round the heads of these piles will be constructed the four rectangular slabs, forming the dolphin tops, each 70ft. long, 32ft. wide, and sft. thick, weighing about a thousand tons.