NEWS AND NOTES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 2561, 29 March 1923, Page 1

NEWS AND NOTES.

Howard Young, known as the “Human Fly," who recently fell eight stories while climbing the front of a tall building on Broadway, Now York, and was dashed lo pieces before the eyes of 20,000 spectators, was a veritable fly, and possessed the most marvellous muscles in his hands and fore-arms. He was not a big man physically —probably 5 feet 8 inches in height, and weighing about !J stone. He disdained to take off bis coat when undertaking his amazing saunters up perpendicular walls. Bather he dressed with meticulous care, buttoned lus coat and sported a straw luit. Once lie could grip miv projection he could draw his head and body up without any sign of effort, and lor sheer delight lie would hold on with one hand and swing his body like a pendulum above the crowds of people, who longed to shut their eyes, but could not take their gaze from the tiny figure defying all 1 lie ordinary conditions of life.

A blind girl in England possesses the remarkable gift of being able to detect sounds and distinguish colours by means of her nasal organs. She can listen to a conversation by resting her lingers on the speaker’s throat, head or chest. She can even “hear” by holding a billiard cue one end of which is placed against the person talking. These facts are made possible by the fact that she has learned to translate the vibrations caused by speech into words and sentences. By placing her fingers in the receiver of a telephone she can conduct a conversation without difficulty. Her sense of smell has been developed to an extraordinary degree. She tells the colours of objects by smelling them, and in the same manner she can describe the dresses her fellow stu- . dents are wearing.