NEWS AND NOTES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume L, Issue 3904, 7 February 1929, Page 1

NEWS AND NOTES.

A (prize Persian ,cat made a home for its kittens at Barnat, England, by scooping a hole in a pumpkin which was to have won another prize. A Portsmouth builder, summoned for not paying health insurance contributions, was said to be liable to a total line of £42,000. He was let oil' with £45. lii Iceland men and women are in every respect political equals. The nation is governed by representatives elected by men and women together. A beautiful boulder of blue granite, a "precious relic of the Ice Age, has been destroyed at New Mills in Derbyshire to save the cost ,of moving it. A seventeen-year-old girl named Martina, from JPlaffstadt, Austria, who was lately booked to appear in an English revue, stands 7ft 7in and is still growing. The total- number of persons on the registers of Employment Exchanges in great Britain on November 19 was 1,364,400. ■ This wa3 16,242 more than a week before, and 238,146 more than a year before.

The Thirteen. Club of New York was instituted for the purpose of flouting superstition. Its membership (says a writer in the Newcastle Chronicle) is restricted to 13, but when one of its periodical banquets is held the tables are laid to accommodate thirteen diners each. Before each plate a red candle burned in a holder shaped like a death’s head, and the member whose candle goes out first is to consider that as an omen. When the company are all seated, a new mirror is broken. The ices are served in the form of a s'kull reposing in a coffin. A forearm bone is used by the toastmaster in lieu of the usual gavel when demanding order. At intervals during the feast the members count up to 13 in the form of a chant. The announcement of the number is greeted with cheers. When the repast is over, the waiters file into the room to the tune of the Dead March, each waiter carrying aMt a chocolate cake with 13 candles burning on it and a- white skull and crossbones in the centre. The head of each table is supplied with an open umbrella to Haunt the rain superstition.