From Many Lands

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 880, 25 January 1930, Page 19

From Many Lands

MATRIMONIAL bliss an IRISH RECIPE Mr Michael Coughlan, of Tullamore Offaly, Irish Free State, is reto be 107 years old and his Site is nearly 100. They have had so years of married life, and their pbilosopny, according to Mr. Coughlan, 13 "'uke th e good and bad in life as it comes. Be satisfied with your fate. If you find yourself in an argument get out of it as quickly as possible. FOOTBALLERS’ SERVICE COMPLETE WITH WHISTLE Footballs and miniature goal-posts ■were hung over the pulpit and lectern at St. Paul's Chdrch, Kingston Hill, Surrey, at a special service for footba'lers’ of the district, and the reserved pews for Kingstonian Club members were decorated with the club colours. . "•be vicar “kicked off his sermon bv blowing a referee’s whistle. All sportsmen, he said, should adopt the slogan, “Smash the Slums.” SPICES FROM THE ORIENT PROTECT LONDON WORKERS There is at least one group of people in this world who never have a cold. These lucky people are employees of the Port of London Authority, who work on the “cinnamon floor.” When entering a warehouse by the London docks one’s nostrils are charmed by the odours of spices from the Orient. On the cinnamon floor the air is almost always charged with a fine dust from the bales. Buyers and samplers have a special tool for rubbing the dust from the rolls into the air to catch the aroma. Cinnamon is sold there by auction, many of the buyers being manufacturers of medicine for the prevention and cure of colds and other Ills. ROYAL KNITTER ARISTOCRACY’S NEW PASTIME Whi'e knitting as a pastime for mer. has gained popularity lately, it was learned with surprise that the Prince of Wales had taken it up. Three scarves knitted by the Prince ■were exhibited at the display of Queen Mary’s London Needlework Guild, with three others done by Prince Other distinguished male knitters include the Earl of Harewood, formerly Viscount Lascelles, who is the husband of Princess Mary; Baron Cainford and Baron Holmpatrick. BYRON’S WILL “NO FUNERAL POMP” The will made by Lord Byron shortly before he left England "without regret” in July, 1809, was recently for sale at Hodgson’s Rooms, in Chaneery Lane, London. Byron was for a long time out of favour with collectors, but since one of his manuscripts, of “Marino Faliero, Doge of Venice,” realised over £5,000, and one of his first editions, “The Waltz,” sold for £1,650, any Byron item now arouses enthusiasm. This will, which is written in a scrivener’s hand on seven quarto sheets, each of which is signed by the poet, is also sealed on the last page with the family arms. The opening clauses of the will deal with legacies to his mother and to his servants. He also bequeaths his whole library to his college friend, Lord Clare, while subsequent clauses give instructions as to his burial, “with as lktie pomp as possible,” and “no burial service or clergyman, or any monument,” at Newstead Abbey. TERRIFIC VELOCITY WIND HOLDS UP PLANE Army flyers at Rockwell Field, California, we.e discussing a story told by Lieutenant I. A. Woodring, who reported that he flew for about thirty minutes, high above Tijuana, Mexico, at an air 3peed of 130 miles an hour, without making any progress, due to terrific wind velocity. Equipped with oxygen tanks and other apparatus for flying at a high altitude, Woodring took off from Rockwell Field planning to join a plane piloted by Lieutenant W. R* Casey, 25,000 feet up. „ “By the time I made that altitude, said Woodring, “I found myself over Tijuana. Heading for the field again, I cruised for half an hour at 130 miles an hour. At the end of that time i was still over Tijuana.” Casey confirmed the report of me high wind velocity. HAIRDRESSING CONTEST YOUNG SERBIAN’S TRIUMPH Twenty-four of the world's leading hairdressers met at the Royal Hotel, Russell Square, Bloomsbury, recently in the International Hairdressers Society’s annual contest for a £lO5 challenge cup. The competitors were all men. They were given 45 minutes in which to create a coiffure in pastiche. Their models, young and attractive girls, were first given a complexion to suit the transformation. Fantastic rolls of waves and bunches °f curls grew under the nimble fingers of the hairdressers. They took infinite pains with their work, raising a curl here and there "with a hat pin or a long wooden skewer, then standing back or going upon one knee to admire the result. The prize-winning head was in silver-grey hair with a splash of white at the front and over the ears. The creator of it, a young Serbian, M. Yowauowitsh, wras wildly applauded hy his fellow hairdressers when he w as presented with the cup. He is unable £o speak a w r ord of English, hut he showed his delight by smiling and nodding to the audience.

TABLOID READING FOR THE WEEK-END.

LAUGHTER CAUSES PNEUMONIA COMIC TALKIE RESPONSIBLE It -was an hilarious "talkie” and Lloyd Seay, an American attorney, laughed so uproariously he caused an internal rupture. Pneumonia followed a ? operation and he nearly died, physicians said, but his condition improved. Seay had planned to marry, but the wedding was postponed. DENTIST ABANDONS DRILL AND TAKES UP CHISEL, When a plan was suggested to have, a statue in Dodge City, Kansas, commemorative of the cowboy who dubbed the town the "cowboy capital,” the question of a sculptor came up. “I’ll make a statue,” said Dr. O. H. Simpson, a pioneer dentist, most of whose modelling had been for artificial teeth. In three months he completed a statue of concrete, and its unveiling was attended by 20,000 persons, many of them men and women who had been in the South-west fifty and sixty years. TOO FULL TO BUZZ!, BEES HOLD UP TRAIN A swarm of determined bees, rallying from an apiary, a mile away, round a shattered jar of honey in an open freight car, held up traffic for nearly a whole day near Karlovac, in Serbia. The freight car had been damaged and derailed by a switching engine. A few bees gathered round the dripping honey, sampled it, and promptly made for home with the good news, returning with thousands of their brethren. By this time a wrecking gang was also on the spot with the intention of removing the hindrance to traffic. But among the emergencies with which a wrecking gang is prepared to cope a swarm of bees is not included. After a few trials of strength the wreckers fled incontinently. The bees made the territory within a hundred yards of the freight car untenable. Only when evening came did the huge brown mass round the honey, little by little, resolve itself into its tiny constituents and stagger home, almost too full to buzz. A CYNIC’S WILL CASTIGATES FAMILY Bitter jibes against members of his family and others with whom he had been associated are contained in the will of a rich broker of Wall Street, New York, which was only recently admitted to probate in the United States. The will reads: “To my wife, I leave her lover and the knowledge that I was not the fool she thought I was. “To my son, I leave the pleasure of earning a living for 35 years. He thought the pleasure was mine. He is mistaken. “To my daughter, I leave £20,000. She will need it. The only good piece of business her husband ever did was to marry her. “To my valet, I leave all the clothes he has been stealing from me for the past 10 years. "To my chauffeur, I leave my ears. He has nearly ruined them, and I want him to have the satisfaction of finishing the job. “To my partner, I leave the advice that he take another partner Immediately, if he expects to do any business in the future.” GAS THE WORMS! CHURCH’S PLAN TO SAVE WOODWORK The famous folding altar in the church of Refermarket, one of the best-known examples of German woodcarving art of the Middle Ages, has become so badly worm-eaten that it has been decided to gas the whole church with potassium cyanide. This will be the first time the method has ever been used in Austria, but it is well known in Germany. Windows and doors are to be closely sealed and the church is then to be filled with the gas. A piece of badly worm-eaten wood is to be left in the church and brought out at intervals for examination by masked workmen. When all the worms have been killed —which may take as long as two weeks —the windows and doors will again be thrown open, but not for five days will the public he admitted. ANTI-JOYRIDE BILL WILL CRAMP UNDERGRADS Undergraduates at Oxford and Cambridge have for generations looked on the “borrowing” of bicycles when their own are not available, as a legitimate custom. But there is a clause in the new Bill which Sir Gervais Rentoul, Conservative M.P. for Lowestoft, will introduce with the support of all parties to stop joy-riding in borrowed motorcars, stating that the Bill applies to all vehicles, whether mechanically propelled, horse-drawn, or -moved by hand or foot. Clearly this will include bicycles. No more will an undergraduate, with a care-free smile, explain to the irate owner as he returns a mount that “it was only for an hour or so.” No more will the undergraduate dash off to lectures at the last moment on the first bicycle he can see, for he may he arrested, according to a clause in the Bill which states that no warrant will be needed. . What is more, if he is a hardened offender, the maximum penalty is six months’ imprisonment, a fine of £2OO, or both for a summary conviction. If this Bill is passed it looks as though one more time-honoured custom will pass into the limbo of forgotten things.