From Many Lands

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 648, 27 April 1929, Page 23

From Many Lands

I TABLOID READING F( SPAIN PUNISHES “HERESY” i gaol sentence for woman WHO SAID CHRIST HAD BRETHREN With a few introductory remarks to! the effect that the old home of the In-! quisition easily can leave Dayton. Ten- } nessee, behind when it comes to defending the doctrines of the Church against scientific and other criticism. German j newspapers recently printed an account 1 of a case in Spain where a woman was j sentenced to two years, four months : and one day in gaol for having ventured i to assert that Jesus Christ had sisters | and brothers. It appears that when Senorita Car- ' men Padin Alvarez made this state- I ment in a conversation in the street, she was overheard by somebody who I promptly reported her “heresy” to the local authorities. She was tried in the court of Pontevedra on the charge of denying the virginity of Mary, the mother of Jesus, and despite her citation of the 55th and 56th verses of Chapter xiii. of The Gospel According to St. Matthew, where Christ’s old neighbours are quoted as saying, “Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary? And his brethren James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas? And his sisters, are they not all with us? Whence, then, hath this man all these things,” she was found guilty. An appeal was taken to the Supreme Court in Madrid, where the verdict of the lower court was sustained and the scanty possessions of the defendant were ordered sold to cover the court expenses TWO DOGS SAVE SEVEN PERISH IN FIRE AFTER WAKING SLEEPERS After dragging Mrs. Catherine Mondschein, aged 55, from her bed when she was overcome by smoke, and awakening six other occupants of a burning house by barking and leaping on their beds, two highly trained shepherd dogs perished in a fire at Merritsville, Maryland. The dogs. Brownie and Dixie, saw flames breaking through the roof of the house. Brownie leaped through a window on the first floor, followed by Dixie. Going through the smoke-filled rooms, the dogs barked and jumped on the beds, arousing the sleepers. In Mrs. Mondschein’s loom Brownie jumped on the bed, grabbed her by the hair and began pulling her with the aid of Dixie. In a few seconds she revived sufficiently to realise that the house was on fire. She managed to gain the stairway just as Mr. Mondschein was coming to her aid. By this time the fire had gained much headway and flames were shooting from all sections of the roof. The Mondscheins and the farm hands escaped in their night clothing and were cared for by neighbours. Two minutes after Ladislaw Mondschein, a relative of William Mondschein, had escaped through the window broken in by Brownie, the roof of the burning dwelling caved in and the faithful dogs perished. WRESTLING PANTHER FOUR STRONG MEN WITH AN AXE A gruelling fight between a panther and four Mahratta wrestlers is reported from the Poona district, writes an Anglo-Indian correspondent. Passing through some fields, the wrestlers unwittingly disturbed a panther with a cub. The mother sprang at one man and began to maul him. Another wrestler seized the animal round the middle, and swung it round. It bit one of his hands to pulp, and tore the muscles of both arms. A third wrestler, who had a small axe, ran up and struck the panther on the middle of the back, inflicting a severe wound, but the brute retorted by tearing the villager's chest open and inflicting other injuries. Seizing the axe, the fourth man split open the panther’s skull, but not before a stroke from the animal’s claws had ripped off part of his scalp. One of the four wounded wrestlers has died. MURDERESS AS A SERVANT “NICE” PRISONERS OF BORSTAL CHIEF Light on I.he lives of murderesses and other long sentence women at the Borstal Institution, Aylesbury, of which she is Governor, was thrown by Miss Lilian C. Barker, in addressing Liverpool Rotary Club. “At Aylesbury/’ she said, “I have star convicts—women who are serving life sentences for murder. We make their sentences as human as possible. “One woman breeds Angora and Chinchilla rabbits. Another has pigeons and others have their gerdens. “It is easy to place these women In situations after they have served their sentences, although they are murdresses. Some of them are the nicest women I have met. “One of them, who murdered her two children, is in the service of a doctor, and she is most reliable.” “If a girl is to be self-respecting she must have a pair of light stockings and an up-to-date hat and frock,” continued Miss Barker. “Many young criminals are brought to these institutions as the result of bad legislation. Most of the girls are more sinned against than sinning.” LIZARD-SKIN INDUSTRY A PROTEST FROM BENGAL The Forest Department of the Bengal Government in India has sent to India House in London and to the Bengal Chamber of Commerce a memorandum on the slaughter of lizards in India, a practice which has greatly increased since lizard skins became popular 'for women’s bags and shoes. It is asserted that unless the hilling is restricted this harmless and useful reptile will disappear. This the department deplores for the reason that the Indian lizard, of which there are several species, feed °n young venomous snakes, snake eggs and many poisonous insects, and serve generally as scavengers of Nature. Ith increased destruction of the lizards, it is contended, the number of venomous snakes will measurably increase, with a consequent addition to India’s already heavy death-roll from snake-bite. Proof that trade interests are not unmindful of the threatened extinction of the lizard is shown by the fact that certain firms which deal in the skins have petitioned the Bengal Government for a close season for the reptile and complete protection for ten years for the giant monitor lizard in order to save it from extinction. In 1925 this species was protected for a year. Other firms asked that protection be extended to water lizards of the larger species, and the decree for protection was so contested that it is now a dead letter*

OR THE WEEK-END. - j MAN-MADE LIGHTNING RECORD OF VOLTAGE MEASURED BY MILLIONS > *f or the first time, a bolt of artificial i lightning of 5,000,000 volts has been produced, the previous highest discharge made being 3,600,000 a year ! ago. Announcement of this has been ; made to the engineering societies in New York by F. W. Peek, consulting | engineer of the General Electric Com- ; P an y» in whose laboratories, at Pitts--1 field. Mass., the experiment was con--1 ducted. While the voltage directly produced by man has been increased to j 5,000,000, said Mr. Peek, a matter of I 10,000,000 volts has been measured, the result of reflection and conseouent doubling of the 5,000,000-volt impulse l at the end of a transmission wire. The fields in which the new high voltage will be used experimentally or otherwise are yet to be determined; but it will be employed in studying the effects of natural lightning on electrical generating and transmission apparatus, and the ways of protecting apparatus from damage. CRACKING AFTER 1,500 YEARS GOLDEN GATE OF STAMBOUL DOOMED The famed Golden Gate, Constantinople’s greatest historic treasure, seems doomed to destruction unless capital for repairs can speedily be found. English experts who have made recent investigations reported that the triumphal arch of the Byzantine emperors, which has stood for more than 1,500 years at the entrance to the City of the Golden Horn, is in a perilous state. Immediate bolstering of the great columns and mighty blocks of marble is needed if posterity is to preserve this jewel of architecture and monument of history. One slight earthquake, and earthquakes are common in this, region, and the Golden Gate will collapse, say the experts. They have approached the Turkish authorities, who are sincerely eager to act but who say that capital is absolutely lacking for the necessary repairs. MASS FOR PARIS BEGGARS STRANGE THRONG AT MONTMARTRE HILL Beggars’ mass brings together every Sunday morning the outcasts and the disinherited of Paris in the crypt of the great White marble church of the Sacre Coeur, high on top of Montmartre Hill. Two hundred of them, shivering in their rags, run down at tl\e heel, out at the toe, sometimes hatless, trudge up the steep climb for the eight o’clock service. They walk bowed with age, disease, sorrow or despair, but when they enter the church they lift their heads. They are visibly straighter as they sit on the wooden benches without backs. For they are in their own place. There is no world, prosperous or contemptuous, to watch them. And Mass is said for them by Canon Flaus himself, chief dignitary of the chuirch, member of the Bishops’ Council. As they leave each gets 25 centimes, or one halfpenny, and a card good for a big piece of bread. On an important church fete day each of the beggars gets a 5-franc note (lOd), and the Mass that day often is heard by as many as 800. “What of it?” says Canon Flaus. “God knows His own. And, anyway, I believe that in this great Paris, where these poor creatures find only hostile isolation, this sacred Sunday visit, this revival of old remembrances stirs their obscure souls. If there remains a spark under the ashes, it may be fanned to flame. Many there are who owe to their coming here the straightening of a broken life.” Familiar hymns are sung, and there are often wet eyes as recollections of better times are stirred to vividness. And afterward, on week days, those who go to Beggars’ Mass may go to a lay office, where men are helped to find work. They must have clothes for one thing, because in France one must be decently clad when applying for a job, however lowly. PASTOR BECOMES STOCKBROKER £IIO,OOO FOR SEAT ON 'CHANGE Six days a week the Rev. Chester Apy, 24, is to trade in securities and ‘ the seventh day he is to preach. Part-time minister of the Church of the Second Advent, in Brooklyn, he has bought a membership on the Stock Exchange for £IIO,OOO, having worked up in eight years from messenger boy, meanwhile studying theology. He believes that in the Stock Ex--1 change are 1,100 of the most honest and ethical men to be found anywhere in the world, that there is nothing unchristian in legitimate speculation and investment DECEITFUL GOLDFISH LIKE TASTE OF BRANDY Sir Arthur Keith’s recent assertion that fish do not think was contradicted in a letter to a London newspaper signed F. A. Williams, reading as fol- | ( lows: — I “Some years ago we kept several ! large gold and silver fish in a glass I tank which became frozen over. One ! day the frost formed delicate fern-like | leaves of ice which enclosed the fish in { frozen cells. “They became so still and lifeless that we were alarmed. My father . broke the ice and, lifting the fish out, ■ poured a few drops of brandy down ! their throats. Next morning, which was milder, we were astonished to find j them all in a row, motionless, pretend- ; ing to be frozen in.” BABOON EATS BROOM STOMACH LIKE A PIN-CUSHION When George, the mandrill, died j a t the London Zoo there were hosts of small mourners throughout the country. The giant jazz-tinted baboon with the jaws of a leopard had won the imagination of young visitors, and lie gave them such lovely nightmares for weeks afterwards. It was at first thought that he had died through some ailment coughed at him by human admirers, but at the last scientific meeting of the Zoological Society it was revealed that he had perished through a quaint vice of his own inventing. _ . The Zoo’s pathologist, Lieut.-Col-onel Hamerton, late R.A.M.C., explained to the Fellows that George had taken it into his head to eat the bristles from a cleaning broom behind the back of his keeper. The spiky morsels had turned his interior into a very fair imitation of a pin-cushion. So George evidently difr his grave with his own enormous fangs—like a few million humans.