From Many Lands

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 750, 24 August 1929, Page 21

From Many Lands

TABLOID READING FOR THE WEEK-END.

RAILROAD PASHA? namingjurkish baby New Turks no longer name children, as the old Turks inevitably did, for the wives and followers of the prophet. The Anatolian city of Konia wins the prize for “modernisation'’ with the recent bestowal upon a boy baby of the name of “Railroad.” He was born on a train. HUNGARIAN MAGIC new television promised Denes von Mihaly, Hungarian inventor now living in Berlin, claims to have solved the problem of a movable television apparatus which can be taken into the daylight and can make scenes immediately visible to millions. In connection with his transmitting apparatus. M. von Mihaly uses a lens functioning much like that of the photographic camera. According to the inventor, it is no longer necessary to use a dark room. DRIVING AT NINETY! ALWAYS FOND OF THE ROAD Mrs. Julia Hames, aged 90, has just learned to drive a motor-car. Mrs. Hames, who lives at Richmond Park Road, Bournemouth, told a reporter that she had learned to ride a bicycle at 62, but. her daughter made her give it up four years ago. Recently, after half an hour’s instruction, she was able to drive her son-in-law’s car. ”1 don’t mind 40 or 50 miles an hour when somebody else is at the wheel, but when I am driving I don’t go at more than 20 to 25 miles an hour,” said the old lady. “When I was a girl I used to drive horses.” THEATRE ON TRAIN ENTERPRISE IN ENGLAND The England that spurns central heating, Ice water and other modern American conceits, stole a march on America when a theatre was instituted on the London-Glasgow train. The train will also have a radio with loud speakers in every coach, a barber's shop, a valet and an especially luxurious dining-car. The extra smooth road-bed makes it possible to show motion pictures and to put on stage productions. The walls of the “theatre car” are heavilydraped and thus made sound-proof. SCIENTIFIC FARMING THREE EIGHT-HOUR SHIFTS Mrs. Ida Watkins, of Sublette, Kansas, recently began to cut wheat cn 4,500 acres of land. She is one of the foremost wheat raisers among women, and this year expects to have a yield averaging 18 bushels to the acre. Mrs. Watkins uses seven combines, each cutting a 24ft. swath and personally supervises the harvest. She plans to store her wheat for a better market in immense galvanised sheds on her farms. Her employees work in three eight-hour shifts. Meals are served from a commissary car that accompanies the combine outfits. At night the tractors are hitched to ploughs and the stubble is ploughed under, FORGOT HIS CAR ABSENT-MINDED GENERAL A motorist general's absentmindedness was mentioned at Brighton recently. Brigadier-General Julius Ralph Young was lined 20s for obstructing a thoroughfare with a motor-car, and 10s for failing to carry the licence. It was stated that the car was left in a road for six hours. After that the police took it away, and it was not claimed by the general until two days, later. On the general's behalf It was stated that he was undoubtedly very absentmiDded. He bad just gone to Brighton to live and was staying in a boardinghouse. He was looking for a flat, and in doing so completely forgot the car. BACKHAND STROKE TENNIS CHAMPION’S HINTS Most lawn tennis players are deplorably weak at the backhand stroke, according to Karel Kozeluh, the world’s professional champion, In an article he contributes to "The Graphic.” In reality, he says, it is very simple If you follow these six rules: — Don’t flip at the ball. Don’t get too near it. Remember to keep your eye on it. Hold the racket lightly while waiting to play. Take a full sweep back, well away from the body. Hit at the top of the bounce. So there you are, when once you know! AIRWOMAN BRIDE RUTH ELDER'S THIRD HUSBAND The engagement Is announced of Miss Ruth Elder, the American airwoman, who in October, 1927, attempted to fly the Atlantic with Captain George Ilaldeman, says a Central News message from Chicago. Her fiancO is Mr. Jack Pine, the son of a clothing manufacturer. Miss Elder and Captain Haldeman, in attempting to fly from New York to Paris, were forced down into the sea 500 miles from the Azores, owing to a broken oil pipe. They were rescued by a Dutch tanker after seven hours in heavy seas. This will be Miss Elder’s third matrimonial venture. At the age of 17 she was married to Mr. Claude Moody, a school teacher of Clayton, Georgia. When this marriage was dissolved she married Mr. Llye Womack, an electrical accessories salesman. There was a divorce last December. Miss Ruth Elder will be 29 next September. She lias recently been eueaged in film work.

STRUCK BY LIGHTNING MAN STRIPPED OF CLOTHES An inquest was held at Liverpool on Robert Sydney Hankinson, aged 21, who was killed by lightning while working in a garden at Knotty Ash, near Liverpool. it was stated that the lightning had stripped Hankinson’s clothing from the right side of his body. A NEW STRAWBERRY WILL BRUISE BUT WON’T SMASH A giant strawberry plant, yielding large, coreless fruit, is being cultivated successfully at Evesham, in Worcestershire. It so surpasses the commoner varieties that big growers in the district are bedding out thousands of plants. The plant was evolved by Mr. John Huxley, of John Huxley and Son, Common Road, who has grown it increasingly during the past four years. Mr. Huxley said: “The fruit has this peculiarity, that if you throw it on the floor it will not smash, only bruise. It is fine for jammaking.” MEN’S ANKLE BELLS FOLK-DANCING TO FIDDLES Men dancers clad in white flannels and cricket shirts gaily be-ribboned, and with anklets of bells, performed vigorous and graceful measures to the sound of drum and tabor at Hatfield, in Hertfordshire, when the English Folk-Dance Society’s annual country festival was held. Fiddles and flutes called dozens more men and girls to weave their brilliant way through the figures of the country dances of Old England. Jolly morris jigs set all feet a-tap-ping, and the sword-dancers thrilled spectators with their energy. Among the crowds of people who stayed for every item were several Americans. One woman said: “I have spent hundreds of dollars trying to get thin. But I guess this folk-danc-ing is the purest way.” HARD-HEADED SEAMAN'S AMAZING RECOVERY An amazing escape from death after falling from the masthead to the deck occurred on the liner Marella. When the vessel was bound to Java and Singapore a Malayan seaman rigging some gear aloft fell 50ft, and landed on the deck on his head. Dr. O. Bohrsmann, the well-known sporting medico of Sydney, who was making a trip on the liner as ship’s surgeon, and Captain Mortimer, held out little hope of his recovery after examination. The native’s scalp could be opened and shut like a teapot lid, and various bones in his body were broken. The medico tended the patient what time the liner was rushed into Darwin, where he was landed. The Malayan boys aboard held a funeral rite as he left. But the Malayan did not die in spite of his dreadful injuries. With the attention he had received aboard and careful nursing at Darwin, he recovered so rapidly that he was first aboard the Marella on her return trip, with a big, beaming smile. And, as the ship cleared from Sydney the same native sailor was aloft fixing the derricks as if nothing had happened. RUNNING AMOK NATIVE COMMITS 10 MURDERS A European employer in the Kitale district of Kenya Colony refused to renew a native’s agreement. The native, extremely annoyed, went off to his hut and murdered his wife and child. He then killed a neighbour, with whom he had had a quarrel, and proceeded in search of his daughter. On the way he met a woman carrying a load of firewood whom he speared and killed. Still unsatisfied, he caught his daughter, hiding in a wood, and killed her. He next came across a hut within which squatted two women and two children, all of whom he dispatched. Subsequently he met two men and women, one of whom he speared. Upon being captured, his first request. was for permission to go to his employer and collect the money due to him on his last labour ticket. In another case reported from the same district a native had his ears boxed by his employer. He stole a gun and fired it at his employer while the latter was in his bath, but only slightly wounded him. He then moved off to the hut of another native, with whom he had been gambling, and shot him dead. Walking over to the next farm, he shot a second native, explaining subsequently that he thought he might as well shoot a few while he was about it. FORTY-FOUR OPERATIONS! MAJOR GETS A NEW CHIN The last member of the Canadian Expeditionary Force to leave England for his home recently sailed for Canada in the White Star liner Calgaric. He is Major James Gillies, whose home is in Regina. He sailed from Canada with the first Expeditionary Force in 1914. Major-Gillies’s lower jaw was blown away, but a new one has been grafted on, and he has now left a convalescent hospital after undergoing 44 operations. His chief concern was that tribute should be paid to the surgeons who gave him a new chin. “Nothing was left below my lips,” he said. “I should like to express my thanks,” he said, “to Major H. D. Gillies, who did fine work at the hospital for«facial cases at Sidcup, to Major C. G. Arthur, of Canada House, Trafalgar Square, who did everything possible for my comfort and welfare, and to Captain Murdoch, of the Brighton Hospital, where I went during convalescence.” Major Gillies said he did not expect, to be able to stay in Canada during the winter, as his new chin was very sensitive to the cold.