GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 2554, 13 March 1923, Page 4

GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

Aroused by the mewing of a eat, a Belfast householder, on opening the bedroom door, was driven back by smoke. He conveyed his wife to safety, - but a lodger, aged 63, was cut off in a back room. His charred body was found in the ruins.

While presenting a new wing to the Plymouth Albion Club’s grandstand at Beacon Park on Christmas afternoon, William Satehell Knight, Mayor of Plymouth in 1920-21, fell dead. He was in the middle of his speech, and surrounded by members of his family. When remanded for medical examination at Kidderminster, charged with, obtaining goods by false pretences, George Tupman, pleaded not to be put in the cells as at night he was frightened. He told the Court that though over 50 he served in France and Mesopotamia, was wounded thrice, and was discharged a nervous wreck and subject io fits. It would appear that a business is springing up in male baboons, wanted presumably for their glands. A Pretoria firm recently asked Graaffeint, a dealer, to supply 200 fullgrown animals at 15s each. This figure the dealer would not accept, and said he was by no means certain that £5 each was sufficient to secure such a supply owing to the difficulty of catching the animals uninjured. The passion for dancing is so great: in Preston that, according to the chief constable, it has become quite a common offence for impecunious persons unable to pay the admission charge to climb into ballrooms, through the roof. Special police have been placed on duty to watch for offenders. A young man who was fined 10s and ordered to pay 15s for damage done, was stated to have climbed a 12ft. wall, sealed the roof above, removed several slates, got through a hole, and joined the dance throng. The murder of a woman aged over 70 years is reported from Nogent le Rotrou. A young woman, the mistress of the victim, who is named Savarre, has been arrested. The neighbours heard voices raised in a quarrel between the two women. Immediately afterwards the only sound to be heard 1 coming from the house was the son singing at the "op of bis voice. It appears from riqniries made that the son sung n order to stifle the cries of the murdered woman. The crime recalls another infamous crime, in which the murderer sang and played whilst his victim was dying. A veteran couple at Tonbridge, Mr and Mrs Henry Bristow, of Tenbury Road, celebrated the 53rd anniversary of their wedding on Christmas Day. Mr Bristow is an octogenarian, and one of his earliest recollections-is of the old police patrols. “They wore a distinct dress, which you see now only in pictures,” he says. “They were spoken of as ‘extras’ and they took night duty at a shilling a night. "When a couple went off duty it was generally for a iveek or more. There were always plenty of volunteers for the job.” Jockeys are-proverbially superstitious and the death of Charles Hawkins in a hurdle race at Auteuil, has recalled that in 1909, after he had a fall, Hawkins consulted a fortune teller. He was warned never to take part in another steeplechase and that, if he did not heed the warning, he would have a fatal fall on the last day of an Auteuil meeting. The day on which he died was, in fact, the last day of the Auteuil meeting. Hawkins refrained from steeplechases for some time, and the owner for whom he rode did not insist on his riding. But temptation was too great in the end, and the fatal prediction was fulfilled to the letter.