From Many Lands

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 792, 12 October 1929, Page 21

From Many Lands

TABLOID READING FOR THE WEEK-END

“THE OLD HOME” HOW IT HAD ALTERED! A man accused at Willesden Police Court of being drunk sat in court awaiting the hearing of his case. lie muttered repeatedb', “How the old He stated, when in the dock, that he was one of the first prisoners charged at the opening of the court thirty years ago, and he had never se en the place since. He was allowed a week to pay his fine. NIZAM’S WEALTH MAKING ROOM FOR MORE! The private treasury of the Nizam of Hyderabad has become so choked with gold and silver that he has ordered £1,000,000 worth to be transferred to the Imperial Bank of India. That relieves the strain on the old money chest, and makes room in it for more gold. The Nizam is the richest prince in India, and one of the wealthiest men in the world. His highness has a weekly income of about £IOO,OOO. £0 COMPLICATED! SWISS COURT’S PROBLEM The Swiss Federal Court at Lausanne has just had to settle the delicate question of the “marketable value” of a 10-year-old boy, who had been knocked down and killed by a motor-car. Besides the sum of 40 pounds granted to him by the court, his father asked for a further indemnity on the ground that his son would have been able to assist him in. his old age. After very complicated* calculations and with due consideration to all future possibilities and probabilities, the court allowed him a grant of 10 francs a month from his 60tli year onward. The present value of this old-age pension was fixed at 3SO francs. LOOKING FOR PROTECTION THE MENACE OF LIGHTNING During a recent thunderstorm lightning played havoc in a wayside calvary in O-Buda, a suburb of Budapest. The station representing Christ on the cross between the two thieves was struck. Although the figure of the unrepentant thief was smashed to fragments, the figure of Christ was unharmed, and the lamp burning perpetually beneath it remained alight. The incident, which is regarded as little short of a miracle is attracting crowds to the spot to search in the bushes for fragments of the smashed figure. The finders are confident that they will be preserved from being struck by lighting—a commoner form of death in Hungary than in countries farther west. "SAVE THE SEA BIRDS” PLEA FOR OIL SEPARATORS An international effort is being made by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds to enlist public opinion against the destruction of sea birds by oil pollution of waters. The society has had an adhesive stamp printed in red, green, and black depicting an oil-killed bird and bearing the words. “Urge shipowners to install oil separators and so. save the sea birds.” These are to be sent throughout the world. They are being printed in English, French, German and Italian. The assistant-secretary of the society said recently: “The fitting of all oil-burning ships with oil separa-. tors would be a very great step in the 1 right direction. No vessel is allowed to discharge oil within three miles of i the British coast, but that is no good; oil is carried a very long way by the tides and currents. PEELING THE POTATOES A PRINCE IN DOMESTIC MOOD When Prince George spent a few' | clays in Vancouver some time ago he remembered that across the ravine ; dwelt a young man who had been a j midshipman with him in training. He ! went out to look him up. As it chanced, when he arrived he | found the young man and his sister j at home, but the maid had been given a holiday. The prince seemed so ! glad to see his former shipmate, and both were enjoying the visit so much that dhe sister suggested that if the j prince did not mind “roughing it a little” they would be glad to have i him stay to dinner. “Now what can 1 do to help you?” \ ne asked the young hostess. “Perhaps you could peel the pota- , toes,” she suggested. So Prince George peeled the potatoes while she prepared the remainder of the meal. BLIND BIRDS CRUELTY. TO PRODUCE SONG When an unemployed man was j fined 10s at Old Street Police Court ou a charge of ill-treating two linnets j and two chaffinches, it was stated j that the chaffinches were blind and j both linnets had bad sight. Inspector H. Knight, R.S.P.C.A.. said that competitions for singing birds were held in the East End. and H had been found that blind birds f’ang better than those which had their sight. i “A bird which has been blinded.” | he said, “will sing at night. It will i also sit still in its cage and sing under ! conditions which would cause a j formal bird to keep hopping about.” Blinding, the inspector said, was done with red-hot needles, which were j thrust very carefully into the side of j the eye so as to leave no visible mark of injury. Mr. Clarke Hall: If you can bring tfio a case in which actual blinding j can be proved I shall treat it as a | v ery serious case indeed. Price said that he was entirely unaware that any of his birds were blind, j had done them no injury. [

TURN OF TIDE HATE TURNS TO LOVE Four years ago, when traffic policeman Raymond J. Mullaney arrested Miss Vera Ulrich, then a co-ed at Northwestern University, Chicago, for speeding, she swore she would hate him the rest of her life. But hate, the poets say, is akin to love, and today she is Mrs. Raymond J. Mullaney. THE AMATEUR A FREE “CINEMA” SHOW John Wood, a joiner, of Commercial Street, Perth (Scotland), stopped ouiside the general post office in broad daylight as mailbags were being loaded, took a Very-light pistol from his pocket, and, putting one hand on a mailbag, said, “This will be a stunt for the cinema.” He then walked off. The postal authorities made no report of the incident, but the police charged Wood with causing a breach of the peace. Holding that there was no criminal intent, Bailie MacGregor discharged him with the advice to give up his cinema stunts. SOLO FROM DOCK TUNELESS“POOR OLD JOE" A police constable arrested a man playing an accordiou in the street and charged him with begging, because there was no rhythm or tune. At Woolwich Police Court the man said he was playing “Poor Old Joe,” and at the request of the magistrate played it again from the dock. “I’ve never heard it played worse,” said the magistrate. “If l remand him iu custody will there be tiny opportunity for him to practise?” he asked the warrant officer. Music is not encouraged iu prisons, and alter the magistrate told the man to learn to play the accordion properly he ordered him to pay Is. WIGS STILL POPULAR DIFFICULT TO MAKE Wigs, ever a subject for jest, are still widely used in the United States. The work of making them is one requiring expert training. Each wig must be made specially, great care being taken to see that all hair is alike in colour and of the same shade as the future wearer’s natural hair. First a wax impression of the head is made, to get the exact contour. Then each hair is punched into the artificial scalp with a fine needle having a tiny fork at the end.

"GUT FLUG” CARRIER-PIGEON CONTEST Three hundred an forty-seven German carrier-pigeon breeding societies took part in a contest which opened at Budapest recently. The pigeons, numbering 15.000, were brought to Budapest in a special train of 28 wagons, and soldiers were told off to unload the cages for the start, which was delayed for an hour owing to weather conditions. The birds were set free in batches of 2,000, and provided an Interesting sight as they flew off to cries of “gut flug” (good flight) from their owners. The average speed of a carrier is 1,000 metres a minute, but many four-year-olds among the German birds are capable of doing 1,256 metres a minute. Only four birds refused to start, and a fifth, which damaged its wing on a post, returned to Hanover by train. 100 YEARS HENCE DRAPERS’ SHOPS OF FUTURE A vision of shops of 100 years or so hence was given by Mr. Joseph Hill, the architect, at the annual summer school of the Drapers' Chamber of Trade at Oxford. “Most of onr big stores,” he said, ! “will probably have a hanging pave-: raent or wide balcony, around which : people will be able to wander gazing | into shop windows on every floor. j T think it is certain that the day ! will come when our great shops will have open colonnades or wide balconies with railings and the display windows all up the front of the building. “They will be reached by staircases leading to the various floors from the I street below.” Mr. Hill added that this would be a solution to the problem of very narrow pavements outside some of our shops today, which often meant that people were pushed away from the windows. NEW SKY ROCKET TO ASCEND 200 MILES? Dr. R. 11. Goddard, backed with funds furnished by the Smithsonian Institution at Washington, is perfecting a rocket which he hopes will ascend at least 200 miles to the limits of the earth's atmosphere—if not beyond. An experiment which he made recently near Worcester, Massachusetts, with a newly compounded propellant, resulted at an undetermined height in an explosion of the rocket which he had fired from a tower by night. That gave rise to reports that the rocket had been designed to reach the moon. Dr. Abbot, secretary of the Smithsonian. explains that no such -wild project is contemplated. What is being sought is to find a method to gather meteorological and atmospheric data in outer space which man cannot reach by aerial navigation or balloons or kites. When completed, the rocket will be equipped with a parachute, containing delicate instruments by which it is hoped to obtain samples of the upper air for chemical analysis, measurements of temperature and pres- j sure, camera spectographs of the sun I beyond the ozone layer (which now j shuts out the ultra-violet) and eventu- ■ ally measurements of conditions of the j atmosphere for aircraft.