From Many Lands

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 768, 14 September 1929, Page 21

From Many Lands

TABLOID READING FOR THE WEEK-END.

THE BLARNEY STONE kissing fees doubled

The price for kissing the Blarney k as doubled and is now a shill- ' Tiie Cork Tourist Association, t' l ' rin" that tourists may not consider the chance of a lifetime of good luck worth that much, has asked the owner Of Blarney Castle to restore the old rate of sixpence. HIS BEST GIRL £600,000 for childho6d friend Mr Arthur Siliman, the millionaire bachelor head of a life insurance comuanv at Hartford, Connecticut, who Jifpij recently at the age of 75, benueathefl. £600,000 to his childhood sweetheart, now a spinster of 65. The pair were at one time engaged, but the woman’s parents forbade the marriage in view of the young man’s poverty, and “lack of social standing.” DOG-PENSIONER £2 A MONTH FOR LIFE The late Mrs. Charlotte Frederica Percy-Boulton, of the Orchard, Wargrave, Berkshire, widow of Dr. PercyBoulton, left an annuity of £l3O to her coachman, Mark tVickens, and directed him to take any horse of hers to the zoo that it might be put to death. She also left her dog Fugi to him and £2 a month for Its maintenance. BURNING AFTER 45 YEARS MINERS WHO “STARTED SOMETHING.” A group of angry strikers 45 years ago set a car of coal afire and pushed it down a mine at New Staitsville. Ohio. The fire is still burning today, spreading many miles from its starting place, destroying valuable coal deposits and rendering hundreds of acres of surface ground sterile. THE WATCH-GOOSE DAISY’S INTERESTING JOB A grey-white goose sitting outside a butcher’s shop in Bloomsbury does duty as watch dog all day long. She answers to the name of Daisy and gives an affirmative cackle to children and grown-ups of whose appearance she approves. She furiously forbids all dogs to approach the shop door. She deals rapidly and effectually with cats which attempt to slink inside by catching them by the tail and slinging them into the street. Mr. G. Stone, owner, explains that Daisy came from his uncle’s farm in Devonshire with another goose at Christmas time four years ago, and his father decided to make a pet of her, though the other one w£ts killed. Daisy, who appears to be very fond of city life, lays eggs which weigh 31b. each, are sold for 8d each, and take 15 minutes to cook. • BOWLS IN PYJAMAS WOMEN START NEW VOGUE Do orange-coloured pyjamas constitute correct garb for women bowlplayers Two San Francisco women say they do, and point to the costumes they are wearing at the Pacific Coast Bowling Congress at Fresno, California. Other women contestants do not all agree. But the men bowlers —that is another story. The San Francisco women appeared in their unconventional costumes and there was a warm discussion as to whether or not they ought to be allowed to compete. The pyjamas finally won. OPERATION ON DOG BOY’S APPEAL TO SURGEON A St. Helens, Lancashire, boy whose dog's head was battered with a brick by another boy asked a surgeon at St. Helens Hospital to put his pet out of its misery. The doctor was touched by the boy’s distress and he operated on the dog, removing a broken piece of skull over the brain. When the boy revisited the hospital he found the dog taking food and able to wag Its tail in welcome. The dog is now an outpatient at the hospital. • CONSTABLES REWARDED BRAVERY OF FOUR LONDONERS 111 recognition of acts of conspicuous bravery involving risk of life, four members of the Metropolitan Police were at Bow Street the other day presented with cheques of £ls each from the Special Reward Fund. The recipients were P.C.’s George James Cole and George Riddle Kirkup, of the D Division; P.C. Thomas Marshall Smellie, S Division; and P.C. Ronald King Lovejoy, A Division. Describing their heroic conduct, Sir Chartres Biron stated that Cole, hearing shouts for help from the top floor of a blazing house in Molyneux Street, Marylebone, rushed up the staircase and found a man, two women and a child in a state of exhaustion, and succeeded in getting them down to the street. Believing that other persons were still irf* the building, he re-entered, accompanied by Kirkup. While searching at the top of the house Cole was overcome by fumes and collapsed, and was carried downstairs by Kirkup. One woman in the house was burned to death. In regard to the case of bmellie, he commandeered a motoroar, on which he overtook a runaway horse and van. Springing from the footboard into the back of the van, he seized the reins and brought the horse to a standstill outside the main entrance of the Zoological Gardens, j Lovejoy dived into the Thames from j the Albert Embankment to the rescue of a would-be suicide. From the effects of his immersion he was on the s >ck-list for more than a month.

A GLOOMY WARNING LAUGH IN THE RIGHT PLACE

The proprietors of a cinema in j Munich have posted the following | ; notive above the ticket-seller’s j j window: “ Those who snigger or laugh at the wrong time during the performance j will he at once ejected. ” 0 ALARM-CLOCK DOG QUEENSLANDER’S PRIZE A dog belonging to an hotelkeeper ! at Home Hill, a sugar-growing centre in the north of Queensland, is a neverfalling source of wonder to sugar ! w orkers staying in the hotel. ' The little dog, no matter where it may happen to be at the time, immediately it hears the words, “Five ; o’clock,” rushes inside the hotel and j keeps up a continuous barking as it I dashes about the corridors, j The explanation is that five o’clock i is the rising hour in the sugar season, and the ingenious hotelkeeper has ! trained the dog to -waken the milli hands by his barking. “NELSON,” THE CRAB PERISCOPIC EYE MISSING j | A family of 30 African land-crabs, | just arrived at the London Zoo, is ! such a bellicose community that there | is not a perfect specimen among the j lot. I Three crabs met their deaths in a faction fight, and another has lost all its legs and nippers on one side of its body. The missing legs will be replaced at the next moult. “Nelson,” an old veteran, has only one of his periscopic eyes; but he, seemingly, is unaware of this, as he I lowers the stalk of the sightless eye Ito clean it with the “brush” with | which he is. equipped in the peculiar | fashion of his kind. PIGEONS RACE AIRPLANE A WIN FOR THE MACHINE Something new in the way of sport was arranged in the air a few days ago between Chicago and Detroit, when a tri-motored airplane, piloted by a member of the Stout Air Service, tested its speed betwen the two cities with that of four Detroit homing pigeons. The pigeons were released at the Municipal Airport in Chicago just as the airplane took off at 4 p.m. The pigeons and machine circled the field, found their bearings and pointed Detroit-ward. The airplane landed at the Ford Airport at 6.28 p.m. Two birds at 7.47 flew into their home loft and the third arrived eight minutes later. The fourth pigeon did not reach home until hours later. “LOVE-SICK DONKEY” MOURNED MATE’S LOSS The death of two donkeys, one apparently of a broken heart, was referred to recently in the business of the Lambeth Guardians, England. They were Kitty and Paddy, both about 10 yOars old, who for seven years had been employed in the grounds of the Guardians’ children’s home and hospital at West Norwood, S.E. Kitty died first, and immediately after Paddy pined and refused food, even dainties such as sugar, oats and -bran. An official at the home said to a “Daily Mail” reporter: “They shared the same stable and if one happened to pass it when the other was inside they would exchange brays. It seemed as though they really loved each other.” * MAN BITES DOG OFFICER “MAKES NEWS” “If a dog bites a man, it is not news. But if a man bites a dog, that is news.” —Peking provides the example, says the British United Press. An officer in the American Marine Guard had a German police dog that had bitten two or three visitors to his quarters, but never its master. Then one night it was unwise enough to snap at its master’s hand. Tile officer grabbed the dog by the hind legs and the neck and began to bite it—thoroughly and severely. The dog, it is reported, has now given up biting. POSTMAN'S SAVINGS PROVIDING A LEPER WARD A new ward has recently been added to the Dayapuram Leper Hospital, Manamadura, South India, at the expense of a London postman, Mr. F. Cardinal, who lives in one room in Finsbury. Mr. Cardinal told a reporter that he saved the £250 required for the ward in three years out of his weekly wage of £3 10s. “I was able to do it,” he said, “by living very simply—and I had only myself to keep.” Mr. Cardinal, who is now 60, w r as first seized witli a desire to help the lepers when he was serving in India with the East Surrey Regiment. “When I saw them my heart was stirred,” he explained, “for I lyas appalled by their sufferings.” Mr. Cardinal was granted special leave of absence to go to Manamadura i to lay the foundation-stone of the | ward. „ , ; He is now raising a fund among j other post office workers for the provision of another ward. He has written a booklet on the work at the hospital, and proceeds from the sale ( of this, and contributions so far toiai £ll3 14s 5d