NEWS ITEMS OF INTEREST.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIV, Issue 9415, 8 April 1909, Page 6

NEWS ITEMS OF INTEREST.

Tbe Settler reports that some Maoris secured a great eel ic the Oroua-Kiritaki f stream on Sunday last. The monster turned tbe scale at 451 ba and measured ?ft 3in in lengtb. There were 14 young trout, each about six inches in length, in its stomach.

Pin parts of Alaska is found a kind of fist) that makes a capital candle when it is dried. The tail of the fish is stack into a craok of a wooden table to hold it upright, and its nose lighted. It gives a good, steady light of three candle power, and considerable heat, and will barn for about three hoars.

On a recent Saturday, says the Sydney Daily Telegraph, the six-year-old son of James Joyce, cokeburner, aib North Ipswich (N.S.W.), carried three dynamite detonators home in a matchbox. He handed them to his mother with the remark that they would go off. Mrs Joyce held the detonators in her hand and scratohed one with a hatpin, whereupon the three exploded, blowing her left hand to pieces and injuring three fingers on the right hand and Bcorching her face. She was removed to She hospital, where the left hand was amputated at the wrist. Her condition was considered critical.

In his first public lecture since his return from the mysterious land of the Tibetans, Dr. Sven Hedin related several interesting stories r of his adventures there. Some of the lamas, among whom he sojourned, spent their lives in grottoes, be said, into which not a ray of light could penetrate. One of them had entered a grotto when he was sixteen, and had lived in darkness for sixty-nine years. The lama who imprisons himself in this way does so because he believes that when he is dead he will be reborn into a very happy existence. He has no communication whatever with the world. The other monks convey food to him by means of a long pole, passed underground. If one day they find he has not tonohed his food they conclude that he is dead.

"I think it is gforions to have such a gift from God that one is enabled to goto another country and entertain the people there just as at home." That was the remark which Harry Lander made on his return to England from New York last month (writes our London correspondent). He stood on Fone of the promenade decks of the Lnsitania, and had just finished shouting greetings to the crowd of friends on the landingstage. "I had to hustle, for I travelled 15,000 miles, and played k o seven audiences every day tor eighteen weeks —the biggest attendance numbering 4500 people. O course, I had to sing on Sundays, and I didn't like that at all. It is very hard to select any of my songs and say it was for they all seemed to be favourites. But I always gave 'I Love a Lassie' at the end of each programme. And now I have got such a thirst for travel that I want to go to Australia and New Zealand, and all over Canada—on business, of course, for I would not lose the money for a lot. The first chance I get I shall go back to America."

A lady travelling from France to England concealed a large quantity of lace by wrapping it about her person. The present popular style of dress, however, does not readily lend itself to these conditions of transport. The initial discomfort had grown into positive pain before the vessel got under way. The lady found the torture unendurable except when maintaining an upright posture. To make matters worse, the vessel ran into a fog, which necessitated steaming at half-speed. It was the reverse of comforting to overhear the conversation of two fellowpassengers, one of whom was affirming from experience that the penalty in a detected case of smuggling was three times the value and duty relating to the goods. Visions of departing pin-money rose before her eyes, and she paced the deck a bundle of mental and physical agony. How she ultimately disembarked and satisfied the revenue challenge she scarcely knows, but when she reached her hotel and divested herself of her spoils she was in a state bordering on collapse. But success was hers. She had run the Customs’ gauntlet, and the exciting details promised to combine in a thrilling story lor the delectation of her friends. Only once was the story unfolded as stirring drama. It was transformed into roaring comedy when a member of her first audience tendered the information that England has levied no duty on lace for about half a century. For Children’s Hacking Cough at night, Woods’ Great Peppermint Core, Is 6d and 2s 6d.