MISCELLANEOUS.

Otaki Mail, 3 January 1923, Page 4

MISCELLANEOUS.

AN UNCONVENTIONAL MONARCH. The new -Emperor of Austria lias always been an unconventional man. On their honeymoon at the ancestral castle of Wartholz he and his bride frequently rubbed shoulders with the country folk at the local picture pal-ace—-incidentally supplying the owner with new films—and they entertained all the village officials at the castle. Once his wife lost a comb, and they stopped at. a hairdresser's Lo buy one; the Archduke just managed to scrape together 1/7 to pay for it. As they entered the shop officers who were being ■shaved sprang to the salute and upset the little udventure. When in Vienna, even in quite recent times the new Emperor was sometimes seen wheeling his children in a perambulator.

SUNDAY AND WAR. It is certainly remarkable how many important military events have taken place on a Sunday. It will be remembered that it was on Sunday , that the Germans made their hottest attack on our positions on the Aisne. Montenegro, Italy, and Uuumania ail declared

war on Sunday. The majority of the Zeppelin raids on England have been carried our on a Sunday morning. The forts of Tsingtan fell to the Japanese on a Sunday. It was also on a Sunday that the German cruiser Blucher was sunk in the North Sea by a British squadron. If we look back at history we find numerous instances of important military feats having been performed on a Sunday. To recall but a few; The battles of Salamauca, Vimiera, Puentes d’Onora; Ortliez, Toulouse, and Vittoria were alt fought on a Sunday.

WONDERFUL SURGERY. The wonderful remarkable case of nerve surgery is reported from one of our military hospitals. A man had part of the flesh portion of his arm shot away, carrying with it four inches of the nerve necessary to control the hand movements. The surgeon rang up several hospitals on the telephone till he Heard of what they wanted, the amputation that afternoon of a healthy limb. The limb happened to bo a leg, aud no sooner was it cut off than four or inches of practically living nerve were removed from the calf, placed in a saline bath, and rushed by taxicab to the other hospilal. Here the patient was already under mi anaesthetic. The wound in his arm was opened, tiie end of the indispensable nerve quickly found, and the circuit re-established, as it were, by menus of the lirst pntLutl’s four inches of filament. To-day the man is in u fair way of regaining the full use of his hand.