From Many Lands

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 904, 22 February 1930, Page 19

From Many Lands

FATEFUL COIN BRINGS young man to death Th 6 spin of o coin held 3. tr&gic fate for Mr. Owen Wells Morgan, the son of a magistrate at Petworth, Sl He eX tossed with Mr. John Gray, a friend to decide who should occupy the sidecar in a motor-cycle combination in a journey to Chapman, near Worthing. Mr. Morgan lost, and when they were at Angmering, the combination skidded into a telegraph P °Mr. Gray escaped injury, but Mr. Morgan was killed. PUBLICITY TELLS RUSSIANS CHECK INSOBRIETY High cost of vodka having failed to check drunkenness among workmen, the Ukrainian Soviet humiliates the inebriates by chronieiling their doings in the newspapers. Daily items appear like this: — „ “Ivan Lisenko, member of the Building Trades Union, residing at 14 KirilJff Street, came to work yesterday very drunk. He tried to pick a fight with his fellow workers.” The authorities declare this method working like a charm. It is seldom that the same name appears twice in print. TWENTY-ONE “BULLS” AIRMAN’S SHOOTING FEAT A South African Defence Force airman named Peckham, shooting at Vryheid, Natal, hit the bull’s eye 21 times in succession when firing seven rounds at each of the 300yds, 500yds, and 650yds ranges. The weather conditions were far from favourable. \ THE GUTENBERG BIBLE WORLD’S COSTLIEST BOOK The Gutenberg Bible, printed on vellum, the world’s costliest book, may appear in London for sale. It is thought that this example of the Gutenberg Bible is the one that for many years has been in a monastery in Carinthia, and which was the subject of previous negotiations. The price required, however, was hopeless. The monastery required £55,000, and with the necessary State commissions to be paid to Vienna, the price would be at least £60,000. MADE TO MEASURE TEETH FOR ALL TASTES Special adaptations of false teeth for pipe smokers and players of musical instruments are now demanded of dentists, according to reports to the dental section of the British Medical Association. A leading London dentist states that one of his patients has a collection of pipes, some of which have broad and some narrow mouthpieces. He has insisted, to ensure comfort, on several complete sets of teeth with special formations in the lower jaw. Another dentist, who attends instrumentalists, said: "Special consideration has had to be paid to the instrument played. The man who plays the brass has to have very strong front teeth, because of the pressure exerted on them. 1 PRISONER FOR SIX YEARS OLD MAN IN A BARN It is believed that a farmer named Mathan, aged 78, has been kept in seclusion for the last six years in a barn on a farm near the coast of Normandy. An anonymous letter led to an inquiry and search, and the old man was found in the barn. It is stated that he had been locked np, lying on a heap of straw, which he declared he had not left for six year’s. The barn is on a farm in the possession of the old man’s daughter and son-in-law. FOOTBALL CAP IN CHURCH HONOUR TO DEAD V.C. A school football cap, once owned by a Marlborough schoolboy, who afterward fell in the war, and was awarded the V.C. posthumously, has been added to the collection of war relics in All Hallows, Barking-by-the-Tower. Archbishop Lord Davidson dedicated It. The cap had belonged to Lieutenant Sidney Woodroffe, of the 7th Rifle Brigade. In July 1915 he was killed, leading the attack in which fell Gilbert Talbot, in whose memory Toe H was founded. DOG’S LIFE SPARED CONSIDERATION FOR OWNER Mr. Campion, the Marylebone police court magistrate, spared a dog’s life recently in order to save its aged owner from what might be a fatal shock. The dog belongs to Sophia Ann George, 82. of Westbourne Gardens, Paddington, who was summoned on the ground that the animal was ferocious and dangerous. Evidence was given that the dog had been at the bottom of nearly every dog-fight in the neighbourhood, and had bitten two people. Mr. Campion suggested making an order for the dog’s destruction. Mrs. George’s daughter said her mother had a great affection for the and if it were destroyed she feared that it would give her a great shock, and possibly kill her, for she had a weak heart. In view of this Mr. Campion did hot order the dog’s destruction, but said that it must be kept under control. Miss George also promised to get rid of the dog when her mother's health permitted.

TABLOID READING FOR THE WEEK-END.

MAMMOTH TUSK WORKMEN’S DISCOVERY Workmen digging gravel at Henlow (Beds), recently, found a curved mammoth tusk—six feet long—about 20ft below the surface. HISTORIC VESSEL FOUND AFTER 1,500 YEARS Preserved in sand for nearly 1,500 years, the oaken vessel in which St. Patrick sailed to Ireland in 432 A. D., is believed to have been found at Colp Harbour at the mouth of the Boyne. Archaeologists are studying the relic. CHIP OF OLD BLOCK RESOURCEFUL DAUGHTER Recently the motor car owned by a West Australian Police-sergeant, was found to be missing. His daughter, disdaining to call on her father’s confreres of the C.1.D., set out with her friend on a motor cycle to make a round-up. They sighted the lost car with eight youths in it. The young woman jumped on the running board and forced the driver to drive to the Central Police Station, where the eight youths were charged. When examined the car was found to contain a quantity of groceries and tobacco. “HE WHO LAUGHS LAST—” A TRUE SNAKE YARN ■ It is not often that allegedly "suspicious” characters have the laugh on the detectives, and after their experience recently, three Australian detectives will realise that unlikely tales are often true. The detectives were patrolling in Surrey Hills, Sydney, and stopped to question two men. They searched onq, and found a quantity of pennies in his pockets. "Where did you get these?” they demanded. The man explained that his pal had a pet snake which they had been exhibiting for money. At such a tall tale, the police smiled patronisingly until one put his hand in the other man’s pocket and found the snake. WILD GOOSE CHASE QUEST HAS LASTED 200 YEARS Six years of patient study and research have just brought to a successful end a two-century chase of the elusive blue goose of the Arctic. The discovery was made on Baffin Island, by a young Canadian ornithologist, after 4,000 miles of travel by dog team and small boat. Even when the blue geese were observed in the proportion of six to one of snow geese, it took ten days of weary travel to find the first nest. HIS NAME’S MUD I AND NOT ASSUMED There’s a foreman on main roads work in South-west Australia whose name is Mud. Some consternation was caused in a Perth Police Court when a defendant said he was going to the Southwest to work in a road gang for a man named Mud. Official inquiries were afoot to prove his story, and elicited the fact that Mud really was the name. '2 TINY TRAVELLER LITTLE GIRL’S VOYAGE On a label attached to the coat of a flaxen-haired girl who arrived at Liverpool recently in the White Star liner Albertic were these Words: “My name is Muriel Hilda Griffiths. I am three years old. I am travelling alone. Please take care of me.” She had travelled 3,500 miles from Bradford, Pennsylvania, with only dolls for company. Owing to the death of her mother recently she had been sent to England to live with her aunt, who met her on arrival at Liverpool. BLIND MAN’S ACHIEVEMENT STUDIES FOR THE. CLERGY A man of 24 who has been blind from the age of 14 and has yet qualified to become a clergyman of the Church of England is to be ordained by the Bishop of Bristol. He is Mr. Charles S. Adkins, Wiltshire. Ten years ago on the beach at Newhaven, Sussex, he picked up an unexploded bomb. It went off, blinded him, and blew off the thumb and two fingers of his left hand. He was sent to the College for the Blind at Whittington, Worcester, where he learned to read Braille type. Thence he went to Durham University. The text-books he needed were transcribed into Bralile at the National Institute for the Blind. They enabled him to take the degree of B.A. in 1927 and a theological diploma last year. BLAZING TAXICAB AND A HOT PURSUIT A blazing taxi-cab chased by a fire engine—this extraordinary sight was seen at Acton, England, recently. And the taxi-driver did not know his cab was in flames . - . did not know till the fierce clanging of the fire engine’s bell made him look round. He stopped at once. But the fire had already gone too far Even the firemen’s promptness they had first sighted the flaming taxi as they returned from a house g re could not save the vehicle. It became a wreck by - the roadside.