From Many Lands

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 774, 21 September 1929, Page 23

From Many Lands

TABLOID READING FOR THE WEEK-END.

£ 100,000 FENCE golf CLUB'S PROTECTION To keep airplanes from landing on , fairways, damaging the greens •nd frightening golf players, a New! York golf club with links adjoining , woosevelt Airdrome is erecting a Eel-mesh fence 2,000 ft long and 12. r ,ft j high between the course and the air- : The cost is expected to be i about £IOO,OOO. the thanksgiving hens geyser ride hen flew down a 95ft well at the fraud Union Canal Company’s pump- j station in Bowyer’s Street, Bir- j mingham. When the pump was I started three days later, the hen was ( shot up the shaft by the rushing water, and rescued from the sluice by j t workman. When placed on dry land it immediately laid an egg. TAKING POLITICS SERIOUSLY determined voter slain Elections in India are often at- j tended with grave risks to voters. \ The Chief Court at Oudh recently ] -entenced one man to death, and three others to transportation for life, for cudgelling a villager to death. He had refused to vote for their c andidate in the Bah Naich District | Board elections. HIS “MISSION” all ready for a hanging A man who knocked at the door of j Swansea Prison sought admission on the ground that he was the assistant public executioner, who had come to j carry out his grim duties. He was fully equipped with ropes, J straps, an electric torch, a badge bearing the words "Assistant Public Executioner,” and other articles. ' He was admitted to the prison pre- 1 c incts, and the police were informed. I Later the man was examined by a J doctor and taken to the workhouse j infirmary. BREAKFAST OF BLANKET boa constrictor s diet boa constrictor at the Zoological Gardens in Cincinnati swallowed an Army blanket when making a meal of pigeons, and all the efforts of the keepers to recover the blanket failed. The officials first attempted to insert a tube with a metal hook inside the snake. It took 10 men to do this, but all thetr work was in vain. They then poured half a gallon of oil into the snake but this also had no effect. The creature suffered evi- | dent pain. PAPAL STAMPS WILD RUSH TO PURCHASE Remarkable scenes were witnessed I at the opening of the new post office | in the Vatican city. Purchases of the new Pontifical j stamps made enormous sums. One buyer paid for stamps to the j value of 3,000,000 lire (more than £32,000), and another paid 10,000 j lire, while several took 5,000 lire j worth of stamps each. Crowds had waited from an early hour. Letter boxes were overflowing before the time of the regular collection. and had to be specially cleared. In the afternoon there was still a large crowd. MAGNETIC POLE “WOBBLES’* SCIENTISTS’ NEW DISCOVERIES That the North Magnetic Pole, considered by many mariners to be “constant” is “wobbling," is declared by | seven scientists who have arrived in San Francisco. On behalf of the Carnegie Institution, they have been voyaging in the j nonmagnetic ship Carnegie. Their 1 voyage took them to such widely separated places as Iceland and the South Pacific. Incidentally they found two submarine mountain ranges—one rising U>,oooft above ocean floor of Ecuador, and another off the Chilean coast. Raster Island, recently reported by >rnp s to have been submerged, is | still above water, but scores of islets . to the eastward have sunk below the ; surface of the ocean. SEEKING A SUPERMAN EDISON'S QUESTIONNAIRE 1-flison. in his search for a superman i° *°H° W his footsteps, sub- | u.ed 54 questions to 49 aspirants, ; Tv Save 1b ” m five hours to answer. ! youth best able to (lo so won! ;iio *' tbson scholarship and became { Tv, 8 ’ 681 iuventor's protege. , v . e Judges, in addition to Edison, Ex’t ° r ' Lewis Perry Phillips, of the eter Academy. Mr. George Eastman, aiwirw Undberg, Mr. Henry Ford, if th W. Stratton, the president j Teehn l assac husetts Institute of Here are a few of the questions:— | ._ . y ou were marooned alone on a | „. , island without tools how j a you move a three-ton weight. ■ • tvs 8 a bou *der? (io . uew discovery or invention ! i. ‘UU believe would be of greatest i uent t 0 m an tti n( i ? lar % ou .’ lvere to inherit a million dol- ; the next vear what would •°u do with it? , hi Place in our daily life do you I *h e motor-car will have 100 ! • srs from now? to i S K ,tle presen t relation of capital • “\Vh UI " reas °flably fair? of,h • is the underlying principle j „ ae internal combustion engine? j kotuw* a brief statement of what you ' to l >e a typical dav of your life i>o years of age?”

GOOD MEASURE TWO EGGS IN ONE An egg within an egg was a remarkable exhibit in a shop window atj Forfar (Scotland) recently. Both eggs were perfectly formed. The -hell of the outer egg measured 9£ inches by inches. The egg weighed seven ounces, the inner egg being of aormal size. TREASURE IN MUD EIGHTEENTH CENTURY COINS A treasure chest full of gold and silver coins of the eighteenth centurv was pulled out of the mud by a [lredge on the Kibe River. Most of the money consisted of I silver coins dated from 1740 to 1811, | but there were also a number of h rench Louis d’or. Though the find j was made in broad daylight, it be-! u-anie known only when a policeman j saw a child near the dredge playing j with money. The greater part of the money was traced to two bargemen. j It is assumed that the treasure was j loot from Napoleonic wars. MUCH-TRAVELLED DOG I KILLED BY MOTORIST Tailwind, a Seaiyham terrier, who i is declared to be the only dog to flv round the world, has been killed in! West A yack, New York, by a hit-and- ! run motorist. The driver, unaware that he had struck anything more than a country mongrel, continued at ' a high rate of speed. Tailwind, a two-year-old, was owned j by John Henry Mears, who flew' round the world last June with Cap- } tain C. B. D. Collyer. Mr. Mears, I soon after their return, brought Tail- | w'ind to West Nyack to be out of the way of motor-cars. The dog has been deaf since birth, and Mr. Mears thought that there was no safer place in the world for a deaf dog. "THE ANGELS” A NOTE ON FREAK PARTIES Loudon’s night life is comparatively tame after that of New York, says Miss J. Grant, an American woman journalist. “I have been reading about Londons much-discussed ‘baby’ party,” she added. "We have the same foolish kind of parties in New' York, only more of them. "The other week a well-know'n American naturalist gave a party in which the guests went in costumes of 1950. Some appeared as angels as they calculated that they would be dead by that time.” FOR £1 A YEAR THOUSANDS OF SQUARE MILES Away up on the shores of Trout Lake, In the district of Patricia, Northern Canada, 129,320 square miles of territory has passed into the hands of the Government. This last portion of Indian territory was ceded to the province by the native tribes in consideration of a gratuity of £ 1 per j capita and annuity of £1 that must j be paid, to quote the terms of Indian I treaties, "as long as grass grows and | rivers flow.” In the final settlement certain areas were held back for the establishment of reservations for the Indians, the division being one square mile of land to every family of five, or to every five persons. DERELICT CHURCH MAY BECOME A CINEMA PALACE The problem of disposing of hundreds of bodies will have to be solved by the Home Office as soon as a definite decision is.arrived at concerning the fate of St. Mary’s Church, Greenwich Park, which has been abandoned since 1919. A notice board has proclaimed for 10 years that the church is “temporarily closed." The reason for the inaction concerning the church seems to be the differences of opinion concerning the best j way of disposing of it. One proposal is that it should be sold for conversion into a picture palace. PAPER HOUSE NOVEL AMERICAN HOME An enterprising married couple in Massachusetts, United States, have made themselves a summer home entirely out of newspapers, with the exception of the frame, the windows, and the floors. Panels of newspaper, prepared in several thicknesses and then varnished, were set in between wooden uprights. Diamond-shaped pieces of folded newspaper, tacked on like shingles, were then placed on the outside. Finally the whole house was given two coats of varnish. The couple w'orked for two years yetting paper ready' before they | began to build the house. The i paper bungalow has stood the test of j all sorts of Massachusetts weather so far, and show's no signs as yet of I deterioration. VICAR’S CLIMB RETRIEVING LOST SERMON The Rev. Arthur Henry Vernon j Housman, Vicar of Sompting, near j Worthing, was summoned at Steyning for causing wilful damage at the j cottage of P.C. Hampshire, of Wash- i ington, a neighbouring village. j Air Housman. admitted entering the constable’s cottage through the win- . low and breaking a flowerpot, but de- i died wilful intent. , i It was stated that Mr. Housman s j bag containing a surplice and sermon notes, dropped from his motor-cycle when he was passing through the village. It was picked up and taken . O the policemans cottage. V> hen . Mr Housman called for it there was no one at home. and. as it was important, he tried to get the bag by , •limbing through the window. j ' The defending solicitor suggested it was a trumpery charge, and the mag-1 istrates stopped the case, and d , missed it.