NEWS AND NOTES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 2618, 11 August 1923, Page 1

NEWS AND NOTES.

“The insane have no stigma branding them in Mohammedan countries because of a passage in ilie Koran: ‘Give unto those who are of weak understanding the substance which God hath appointed you to preserve for them; but maintain them thereout and clothe them and speak kindly to them.’ In this matter we may get enlightenment from the Turk.” —Inspector-Gener-al of Mental Defectives in his annual report. ' The tyranny of wealth! See now what it does for you. An old man who lived unknown in comparative poverty in a Darlinghouse boardinghouse died unknown in the public hospital. When the hospital authorities sent a clerk to his room to collect his belongings the clerk found a small cash box full of valuable securities worth £38,000. Practically nothing was know of him, except his name, which the papers refuse to give but it is thought that he was postmaster a I one time of one of the Sydney post offices. If the ruling of.the Attorney-Gen-eral of Massachusetts (U.S.A.) is upheld by the courts, thousands of persons in that State have been illegally married and their children are illegitimate, lie says no marriage solemnised by a retired min-" ister or an officer, of the Salvation Army—and there have been thousands of such marriages in recent years—is legal. A Salvation Army officer, according to the official, “is not an ordained minister within the meaning of the statute.”

“Bags-of money” is a phrase that always lias a fascination, whether you meet it in a book or in real life, and though often talked about, such things are very seldom seen. That was one of the reasons why the “flitting” of the National Bank from Queen Street to their line new t>lace'in Shorthand Street, Auckland, was sy keenly watched by passersby on Friday morning (states the “Star”). On a lorry standing in Wyndham Street a whole string of clerks kept coining out of the bank and throwing heavy bags about the si/.e of a small oatmeal bag, and as each fell on the floor of the vehicle it gave out that musical chink that you read about in the hidden treasure story. Each bag was neatly tied at the mouth and sealed with a generous wad of red sealing wax. One man kept tally entering each bag in a book as it was dumped down. “Was it gold, or silver?” the passer-by asked himself as lie thought of what a very small receptacle would suffice to hold his own coin reserves. As a matter of fact it was copper, but that did not detract from the pleasure of speculating about it. It was said that the gold was in squat little heavy wooden boxes bound with iron, and carefully sealed with the red wax which always denotes value or secrecy two things that always excite popular interest. If the boxes did contain the bright yellow metal discs that many of the younger present generation have never seen, it was most re-assuring to know that there was so much of it outside the United States.