MAIL ITEMS.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIII, Issue 9079, 20 February 1908, Page 2

MAIL ITEMS.

Oranges were sold recently in the London-streets at ten for a penny. The Rev. Sidney Staelffon, of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, has been fined £5 for selling whisky without a license. . ■ , _ _ , , Among the inmates of Su. John s Workhouse, Highgato, is an old man named' Roberc Thomas, who is still hale and hearty at the age of 101. Trained by the New York Association for the Blind, five sightless women operators are now working in the city’s telephone exchanges. Four miners were committed for trial atl Chesterfield on a’charge of killing a |child by letting off a toy cannon on November sth. In order to teach a lesson in punctuality to a bride and bridegroom who /arrived latent St. Just’s Church, Penzance, for their wedding, the vicar postponed the ceremony for four hours. ' . With the object of attracting visitors. f the Potchefstroom (Transvaal) Town Council has taken over the local golf links, and will maintain them out of the rates. “Londoners are growing so short nowadays through cigarette-smoking and riding on tramcars that they are becoming almost dwarfs.’’—The Rev, F. B. Meyer, at Ilford. A little teapot of Bristol ware, formerly owned by Edmund Burke, realised the sum of £441 at Christie’s. Twenty-seven rare old Grown Derby figures fetched 480 guineas. A carrier named Tanswell, who was killed by his van at Dorchester, had travelled the same road for twenty years without a break, covering a distance of nearly 80,000 miles. The National Bank of Wales, which has been in liquidation for fourteen years, was finally wound up at a meeting of shareholders held at Cardiff. The assets involved amounted to £2,000,000. A woman visitor to Sandown, Isle Of Wight, was so moved by a sermon Steadied by the vicar of Christ Ibnrch that she has sent him a cheque for £l5O in aid of the men’s and boys’ club in the town. Canon J. W. Willink, Vicar of Yarmouth, has been offered the rectory of Bishopwearmouth, and the Archdeaconry of Auckland, yielding a joint income of £I6OO per annum, but has declined the "offer because his work in not yet completed, Bilboquet, a game even older than 1 diabolo, has been revived suddenly in Paris, where it has become a formidable rival to the latter. Bilfeoqnet is nothing but a complicated form of cup and ball. Enthusiastic French people play the game with brooms, mouse-traps, and even hi cycle handles. President Fallieres and M. Glemenceau (the Premier) are experts. - _ ~ , At Sunderland it has been decided to throw open the council schools every evening for the benefit of the thousands of unemployed. Fires, lights, reading matter, games, etc., will be provided for them. • At an inquest at Dudley recently oa Rosalind Parsons, a girl of four, it was shown that she died through swallowing a small meat whistle, Which the doctors were unable to extract. She could not take any food, and gradually died from starvation. A verdict to this effect was re- _ tamed. , , “Did he back horses?” asked a Juror at Stepney. “Only in his mind,” replied the witness. “He used to make out slips’of paper and keep them in his pocket, and after seeing a paper would remark, ‘There you are; didn’t I know that would

win.’ ” . During the homeward voyage of the Indian mail steamer Egypt, a second class passenger committed suicide by shooting himself. A. telegram which was waiting for him at Aden said, “Draw all at once.” During the past summer 1209 baud performances were given in the London parks by the three London County Council bands and others hired for the purpose by the London County Councils. The receipts from the sale of programmes and the use of the chairs amountd to £1206.