From Many Lands

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 780, 28 September 1929, Page 21

From Many Lands

TABLOID READING FOR THE WEEK-END

the pioneer male FATHER SHOWS SON “HOW TO PASS EXAM-’ A 55-year-old Bengalee, of Seraj- [ gang, 0“ 1116 Brahmaputra, Dalil Sarkar, has passed his matriculation examination. His object, says the "Pioneer Mail,” was to set an exam Ple to his son, ; who iras not very keen on his studies. He prepared for the examination and appeared last year, but failed. Nothing daunted, the old man kept up his energy and persevered -with SUCCOBB. 1 It is hoped that the young man will j uoiv follow in his father’s footsteps. TO WED AT 72 FATHER OF AUSTRALIAN TENNIS STAR Mr J. O. Anderson, father of J. o. Anderson, the Australian tennis player, and nephew of Sir James Outram, of Indian Mutiny fame, arrived at Southampton recently from Australia. Mr. Anderson, who is 72, journeyed to England to get married. His bride, whom he met last year when she was on a visit to Australia, is Miss A. Dixon, of Kendal. Westmorland. The couple will sail shortly for ! Australia. IN 4,350 PIECES assembling famous organ St. Paul's Cathedral organ lies scat- i tered in piles of pipes and zinc and ! wood and dumps of “wind-trunks.” It! has been dismantled for removal to its old position beneath the dome. It would seem as If “all the King’s horses and all the King’s men” could i never put all these strange-looking i pieces together again, but this will be accomplished during the next three months. ' There are about 4,350 pipes. A new metal one weighing nearly a ton is to be added. Many of the parts will have to be hoisted dozens of feet by special apparatus. \ THE STORK WON! TALE OF A CHIMNEY The “Basler Nachrichten” (Switzerland) tells the amusing story of a resourceful stork. He had built his nest on the chimney of a small mill. But the miller disapproved of it, and began to burn wet straw and other fuel. The stork, belng’a good mason, brought beakfuls of clay and managed to put an airtight lid upon the chimney, so that it was now the miller’s turn to suffer from the smoke. He owned himself fairly beaten, and desisted from troubling his neighbour any further. INDIAN BOVS FEAT LONG WALK TO JAMBOREE Prom Kangra in the Punjab, which forms a valley between spurs of the Himalayas, comes a story of pluck, stamina, and self-reliance on tlie part of an Indian boy scout. A Dogra lad, a pupil at the Hamirpur Government High School, was selected as one of the 55 representatives of the Boy Scouts of the Punjab to attend the World Jamboree at Arrowe Park, Birkenhead. The scout in question, Raghbir Singh, had no money to pay his train fare from Hamirpur to Simla, 95 miles away, where the Punjab contingent was to meet. Nothing daunted, he packed his requirements for the journey, and shouldering his bundle set off in blazing beat to cover the distance on foot; a feat which he succeeded in doing in three days. Raghbir Singh, from whose village I.ance-Naik Lallca, who won a V.C. in the war, also came, had never been more than a few miles .from home before. THE "DANCING CONDUCTOR” NEW IDEA FROM VIENNA Elsa Wiesenthal, one of the most refined dancers of Vienna, has hit upon the idea of conducting the orchestra by movements of her head. The impulse which used to come from the conductor will now come from the dancer. To this conception of a “conducting dancer” or “dancing conductor,’’ Frau Wiesenthal has given the name of “Battuta-Dances.” Dancing will no longer be passive, dependent on the music: it will now be an active driving force. Any sign given by the dancer to the orchestra is to be an “artistic stimulus,” or. as Frau Wiesenthal calls it, a “theme." This is to result in new and closer relations between the dancer and the music. The dancer’s movements will lead the orchestra, and at the same time he or she will be carried by its sounds. Under this mutual influence closer unity of dancing and music is to be attained, leaving wider scope for the imagination. CAT’S RUBBER HEART CANADIAN PROFESSOR'S EXPERIMENT Before the Nova Scotia Institute of Science, Dr. O. S. Gibbs, Professor of Pharmacology, at Dalhousie University, performed a remarkable fiveminute operation, during which he removed the heart from a cat and substituted a rubber organ operated by an electrically-driven double pump. . The cat revived, and remained alive j for pearly four hours. Canadian medical men (gays the . “Central News”) are confident that ; the discovery will have great scientific j value, and may be of immense benefit to humanity. Dr. Gibbs emphasises that there is j no thought of attempting to test the j rubber heart in the human body, nor j has he any expectation that it will be utilised in the treatment of heart j diseases. Its purpose is to aid j medical research, particularly iu the , study of the effect of poisons on the ; circulation system. ] Anti-vivisectionists and lovers or i animals have registered vigorous protests against the use of cats for the experiments.

DANISH DOLL an IMPERTURBABLE TRAVELLER A life-sized doll which was sent : officially from Denmark to the inter- j national exhibition at Barcelona! made the railway journey alone. It left Copenhagen, . occupying a place in a second-class carriage, and it requested from its travelling companions the help necessary to effect changes of trains by means of a small sign suspended from its neck on which its appeal is written in Danish, German, French and Spanish. Danish consuls in the towns through which the doll has passed have attended at the railway stations and put themselves at the disposal of the quaint traveller, and news from Barcelona states that it accomplished the journey satisfactorily. IN SEARCH OF ART MILLIONAIRES’ WIVES ON TOUR A party of 28 wives and daughters of American millionaires sailed from Southampton in the Leviathan recently, having finished a four months’ art tour. They travelled 6,000 miles and visited 12 capitals in Europe. Mr. Dudley Crafts Watson, an extension lecturer of the Art Institution of Chicago, who headed the party, said that while Italy undoubtedly had the greatest accumulation of art treasures in the world, London was the ideal centre for art lovers, because its galleries were so beautifully arranged and were always open. BURGLARS’ JEST BREAK INTO GAOL CANTEEN It was discovered recently that burglars had broken into Brixton Prison and made themselves at home in the warders’ canteen. They drank wine and spirits, smoked cigarettes, and went off with liquor, cigars and cigarettes to the value of about £ 15. The canteen is part of the prison buildings, and is at the end of the “parade,” which is a cul-de-sac. If the raiders had been surprised capture would have been inevitable. They could only “escape” into the prison itself. The burglars smashed a window to get into the canteen from the roadway. Once in the canteen they apparently were in no hurry to leave. Cigarette ends littered the floor and empty glasses covered the counter. It is understood that a search by detectives for finger-prints was unsuccessful. The burglars are presumed to have worn gloves. PITY THE CONSUL! RUSSIAN WOMAN’S DEMAND Mme. Marakov, a young Russian woman, arrived at the French Consulate in Berlin with her husband and baby and asked to see the Consul, M. Binet, who willingly consented. The woman stated that she had been injured in a tramway accident in Paris, that she had been wrongly treated in hospital, and had in consequence had her foot amputated. As she had not obtained compensation from the French authorities, she added, she expected the Consul to pay the expenses of the journey of herself and family to Riga, The Consul refused, whereupon his visitors became very excited. Finally Mme. Marakov drew a revolver from her vanity bag and fired three shots -—but, fortunately, only the wall was damaged. “Whether she aimed at me or not I really do not know,” said M. Binet afterwards. The police, however, were sent for, and the Russians were removed to the police station. THE STITCH IN TIME SERVICE PROMOTES CUSTOM Here”, is a good story told by the trade organ, “Men’s Wear”: A well-known store in the North of England makes a special point of cultivating goodwill. A man brought in a pair of dress trousers slightly torn at the knee, and asked if they could be repaired. The salesman could not match the cloth, but when the customer returned a few days later, the tear was practically invisible; a small piece had been cut from the back of the trousers near the top, and used for patching. The customer turned out to be a professional billiards player, who alwavs played with jacket off in a blaze of light. He was offered another pair of trousers free of charge, but as the cloth of the vest and jacket could not be matched, this was useless. The firm gave him a complete new suit. The net loss was about £o. The customer told everyone he met about his new suit. The books of the firm prove that he now buys overcoats, shirts, underwear and hats from them. FISH’S DEADLY STING MONSTER OF BARRIER REEF A deadly fish that has killed people who have trodden on it by injecting poison into their feet is described in the “Natural History Magazine.” The fish, writes Mr. Geoffrey Tandy, 8.A., assistant keeper of the Department of Botany at the Natural History Museum, South Kensington, is called the stone fish. It was one of many strange things seen on the Great Barrier Reef of Australia by the marine biological expedition which sailed from Tilbury in May, 1928. . . ~ Mr. Tandy, who accompanied the expedition, describes is as “a genuine horror, both in appearance and effects. He is repulsive-looking, of a dirty greenish-brown colour, and very underhung. “His danger lies In the row of spines on his back. “These he can erect, and they contain a very deadly and, I believe, unknown poison.” A painful and unduly protracted death is the fate of most people who have made too close an acquaintance with the stone fish.