GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 2569, 19 April 1923, Page 1

GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

Girls of school age should play •or a shorter period than boys, and hockey, lacrosse, tennis, and cricket are all suitable games for them. The thinnest camera in the world lias just been invented by an American: it measures only half an inch in thickness and weighs 3.20 z. Motor traffic is so heavy in London that roadways are now built up on concrete foundations 12in. thick instead of Gin. as a few years ago. Playing from the 37th tee at Burnham Beeches, Mr Levi sliced his ball, which dropped into the coat pocket of Mr 0. P. Horliek, who was playing about 100 yards away.

Before 32 hours had elapsed after the death of an old woman at Atherton 300 persons had called at the house to see if it was to let. Three persons were there immediately after the death became known.

Sergeant George Richardson, a veteran of the Indian Mutiny and the oldest posessor of the Victoria Gross in the British Empire, has died in the military hospital at Ontario. Sergeant Richardson won the Victoria Cross in 1559.

For the first time a message direct from an airplane was received in a Fleet Street ollice in London recently, coming from a machine which started from Croydon at (1.25 p.m. in connection with the night service to Paris. When the machine was about to cross the English coast at Folkestone, a Press Association representative succeeded in getting in touch with his head office, when lie was heard on an ordinary telephone. A mother’s tragic journey with a dying child was described at a Bethnal Green inquest. Finding her 35-months-old daughter foaming at the mouth. Mrs Bradshaw rushed with it to the infirmary Imt it died on the way. Tt was stated that a piece of haeoli three inches long was found lodged in the child’s throat and had caused suffocation. She had never given the child meat or bacon, said the mother, and did not know how the child had got the piece.

As Marion Millie Day, aged nine, played in the road at Luton, she was knocked down by a trailer attached to a (lour waggon. She was dying when Robert Lacy carried her to a cottage and knocked at the door. The cottager mumbled something about it “not being convenient” and the child was laid down outside. The coroner’s jury at Luton expressed the opinion that a man who refused shelter to a dying child deserved the severest censure. Lacy said that lie did not know the man or the number of the house.

Not often does a publisher knowingly refuse to undertake the publication of the work of a living Royal personage. Yet it lias happened. King Luis of Portugal spent 25 years of his life in translating Shakespeare. Then he sent it to a leading London house to he brought out, preferring, he said, that it should first see the light in Shakespeare’s own country. The linn first approached, however, would have nothing to do with the venture. Nor would the next, nor the next. The conditions were too onerous. In the end the disappointed and disgusted monarch had the manuscript returned to Lisburn, and it was there printed and published by a Portugese firm at His Majesty’s own risk.

Lincoln's senior centenarian— Airs -lane Lister, who is believed to be I lie oldest woman in Knglnnd—enlered her 108th year last month. I'p betimes, Airs Lister sported a posy of primroses on her birthday. In happy and cheery humour she sat by the window at her house in Tent ere roll Street, enjoying the sun. She followed• the long-estab-lished custom of inviting it number of old friends to a birthday tea. “Avoid worry” is one of her mottoes for a long life. Born at .Minting, near llornoastle, in 1810, Airs Lister has lived in six reigns. She has been a widow for about 40 years. A neighbouring centenarian is Airs Mary Foley, of Lincoln, who ascribes-her longevity to temperance and hard work. Violins have a romance all their own, apart from their price, but £590, the sum paid some time ago for a violin by Antonio Stradivari, seems an enormous price to pay fox an instrument the original cost of which to the maker cannot have exceeded ss. But this price is a bagatelle in comparison with some of the prices paitl for the orations of the prices paid for the creations of years ; i > £2,000 was paid foi a ‘‘Strati” at Stuttgart and there are others in existence which even a “King’s ransom” could not buy. Senor' Sarasate, the great violinist, owned one such. It was presented to him by Queen Isabella, of Spain, when, as a hoy of ten the infant prodigy of those days —he played ‘before her at the Court of Madrid.