NEWS AND NOTES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 3847, 20 September 1928, Page 4

NEWS AND NOTES.

At the Auckland Supreme Court yesterday Huia Keith Allan and William Joseph Whyte, two labourers, were each sentenced to six months’ imprisonment by Mi'. Justice Reed on 18 charges of theft from pleasure vessels. His Honour said it was a very serious offence. It was difficult to catch the perpetrators and when caught, they should be severely punished, as a deterrent to others.

At Nashville ('Tennessee), Henry Warner, a farmer, is suing Floyd Hanson, the inventor, because Hanson’s vacuum cleaner for chin whiskers went on the rampage during a demonstration. The machine is designed to remove cement and dust and grit from the beards of workmen, and thus prevent razors becoming dull too quickly. Hanson was doing well until Warner’s beard became entangled in the suction fan, and before Hanson could reduce the power a handful of whiskers and a couple of square inches of Wjarner’s skin disappeared up the intake.

Three cottages of a total- value of nearly £IOOO were burned to the ground at South Brighton, Christchurch, recently, and two scrub fires were started. A boy who recently set launches adrift at Brighton admitted in the Children’s Court to having set fire to the cottages and scrub. A thrashing was suggested by thq Magistrate, but finally, after a conference with the juvenile probation officer, under whose care the boy was placed after the launch episode, he was convicted and discharged.

“Why did you leave your wife?” asked counsel of the defendant in a maintenance case in the Magistrate’s Court in Wellington on Monday. The, defendant eyed counsel keenly, leant over the rail of the witnessbox, and replied: “Do you think this a fair thing,” he said, “for me to have to do the washing week after week?” “But you didn’t do that often, did you?” inquired counsel. “Oh, didn’t I —just didn’t I!” answered the defendant with some emphasis. “Why, week-end after week-end, I have done the washing.”

The grocer’s daughter had had a very successful career at school and the grocer had also made sufficient money to retire from business. It was decided to send the daughter to college. The result of the first day socially was interesting: Miss Snob with a sneer to the new arrival so that many of her girl friends could hear: “My mother remembers when your father kept a grocer’s shop!” Miss Newly •Arrived* like a flash: “Then if your mother has such a good memory she will remember the bill which she has never paid my father though it has been owing for years!”

A eow that ran amok while being; driven along a Hawke’s Bay road the other evening caused consternation to motorists who were in the vicinity at the time. After chasing the drover and others who tried to subdue it, it turned its attention to tlm ears as they came along and charged each one in turn. Some of them had the head-lights smashed, and Mr. Adamson’s bakery van was so damaged that it had to be abandoned and later towed back to Ormondville. The cow eventually got down into a stream, afterwards escaping into a farmer’s property, where it Avas left to recover from its “brain-storm.”

Some interesting facts about multiplication are disclosed below: — The multiplication of 987654321 by 45 gives 4,444,444,445. Reversing the order of the digits and multiplying 123,456,789 by 45 get a result equally curious 5,555,555,5505. If we take 123,456,789 as the multiplicand and interchanging the figures of 45, take 54 as .the multiplier, we obtain another remarkable product, 6,666,666,606. Returning to the multiplicand first used, 987,654,321 and taking 54 as the multiplier again, we get 53,333,333,331all threes except the first and last figures, which rend together 54, the multiplier. Taking the same multiplicand and using 27, the half of 54 as the multiplier we get a product of 26,666,666,667— all sixes except the first, and last figures, which read together 27, the multiplier. Next, interchanging the figures in the number 27, and using 72 as a multiplier with 987,654,321 as the multiplicand we obtain a product of 7,111,111,112—a1l ones, except the ■first and last figures, which read together 72, the multiplier.