From Many Lands

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1004, 21 June 1930, Page 21

From Many Lands

TABLOID READING FOR THE WEEK-END,

the airplane habit for hotel guests A Paris hotel has Inaugurated a private air plane service tor the convenience of clients, particularly those driving from foreign parts. Two planes are constantly at the disposition of guests —to meet liners French ports, to carry departing clients to ships, or take them anywhere in Europe at standard rates. ILLUMINATED DOG leads blind ex-soldier Blind ex-soldiers in Cologne are supplied with trained dogs as leaders. * These dogs are perfectly safe guides in daylight, but at night (the blind man’s holiday) a “mix-up' Crecuently occurs, because the dogs are not readily seen and are kicked or trodden on. With the aid of an inventive friend one blind man has overcome the diffi culty. His dog carries three electric lamps, one on the breast and one on each flank. Dry batteries strapped to the dog’s back furnish the necessity curx-ent. THE ROUND TOUR! NEEDLE’S STRANGE HOME While Mrs. Evans, of Eiddwen House, Nelson, Glamorgan, was going about her household duties she fell downstairs and fractured her right krist. When the doctors at Cardiff Infirmary X-rayed the broken wrist they found embedded in it a needle which entered Mrs. Evans’s left hand 30 years ago. BOILED ALIVE LOBSTERS HAVE CHAMPION Are lobsters cruelly treated when they are cooked? This question was raised in the House of Commons recently when Mr. P. Freeman asked Mr. Compton, the chairman of the kitchen, if lobsters supplied to the House were boiled alive. Mr. Compton said they were cooked in the ordinary way and death was instantaneous. A question from Commander Southby, asking if he would take steps to prevent the brutal method of eating live oysters was greeted with laughter. The House, said Mr. Compton, had abolished capital punishment, and if Mr. Freeman would provide a humane killer for lobsters he would consider it. This remark caused loud laughter. BIGAMY WITH HUSBAND’S CONNIVANCE A 70-years-old Sheffield publican, John Hinchcliffe, pleaded guilty at Leeds Assizes recently, to aiding and abetting Amy Dungworth, a married barmaid,, to commit bigamy by going through a form of marriage with him at Sheffield. The woman, in pleading guilty to the charge of bigamy, said that her husbanu had given her and Hinchcliffe permission to marry. Mr. Justice Humphreys sentenced Hinchcliffe to two days’ imprisonment, which was tantamount to his immediate discharge, and bound Dungworth over in her own recognisances for 12 months. THE FISHERMAN’S YARN NO LONGER POSSIBLE No loQger will the fisherman be able to spin his yarn about the size of the big one that got away. Mr. T. T. Reynolds, a Texas fisherman, has perfected a device which attaches to a fishing-rod, and indicates at a glance the weight of the fish. He has secured a patent on the invention, which can be attached to almost any fishing-rod. A cylindrical scale fits into the hollow of the rod handle, and by attaching the fish to a pivotal hook, the weight can be seen through a transparent strip in the handle. BIRD BURGLAR RAIDS LETTER-BOX A tomtit that stole ninepence has been detected in Wiltshire, where a farmer put coins in a private letterbox for the purpose of stamping letters. Subsequently the farmer watched the birds extracting farthings, but the whereabouts of the hoard was not discovered. It is believed that the tomtit resented the coins interfering with the comfort of the letter box, where tomtits had nested for eight years. HILARIOUS CHESS PLAYED WITH WINE With a billiards table as tho chess board, and bottles of various kinds of ■wine as the pieces, a rich Budapest land-owner and several guests at bis home, recently played a most original game of chess. Pieces in the game were represented thus: Kings—Bottles of Champagne. Queens —Bottles of Bordeaux. Bishops—Bottles of Tokay. When any figure was lost by a Player it was opened, according to the special rule adopted for this game, and its contents drunk. Now this chess match began very solemnly. It continued cheerfully. It developed hilariously. But it was never finished. The pieces themselves won a decisive victory. Long before the last pawn was 'in the thick of the fight the players were in such a condition that they could not distinguish a rook from a knight. Untimely beheadal of two strategic chessmen, by removing their respective corks, caused the game to be called a "draw.”

VITUPERATION PARROT’S S.O.S. A parrot belonging to Mrs. Linnie Millikan, of Indiana, swore so londly and continuously for several hours recently that neighbours finally went to remonstrate. They found the 71-year-old woman dead, and the bird frantically swearing in its cage nearby. CENTENARIAN RECEIVES LEGION RIBBON Joseph Zaleski, of Migneville, France, at the age of 103 years, has Just received the red ribbon of the Legion of Honour. This venerable peasant has been decorated by the French Government because of his professional capacities as a peasant and as a reward for his long life of labour. It is also given as a sign of France’s desire to keep people working on the soil. The Zaleskis have been French for several generations and the patriarch of the family still follows his occupation. His son is an octogenarian. SOUVENIRS COLLECTED BY U.S. TOURISTS American tourists on a recent Mediterranean cruise spent £15,000 on souvenirs. Mr. Herbert G. Weiss, cruise manager of the Calgaric, made this statement when he left Southampton for America on the White Star liner Homeric. Brass work from Damascus, Persian rugs, jewellery and anciques from Egypt, and holy relics from Jerusalem, including olive wood Bibles and crosses, he said, found most favour. THE SWEEP HABIT A MOTHER’S LAST WISH “I wish them both to put 10s into the Calcutta Sweep every year, and I hope they may be more lucky than their mother has ever been." This wish in regard to her son and daughter was expressed in the will d Mrs. Lucy Heaton, of London, who died recently, leaving all her property, £9,407, equally between her son Gerald and her daughter Estelle. CUSTOMS SURPRISED BY MYSTERY MOTOR-CAR A surprise awaited a French Customs official at Saint Ludwig station on the Alsatian border when he seized and opened an enormous chest weighing nine tons, which was addressed to the “EmperOr of Ethiopia.” It was found to contain a grand new Swiss motor-car with a specially constructed body enabling small guns and machine-guns to be mounted. Several smaller chests inside the car were filled with arms. LOCUST PLAGUE STORMS OCEAN LINER Passengers In the Orient liner Otranto, when the vessel was lying off Tangier, were disturbed when the vessel was stormed by' locusts. The insects came off the land, covered the decks, Invaded the cabins and crawled over everything. All the beautiful gardens of the English colony have been entirely eaten up by these pests, which swarmed over the city and surrounding country for five days. COMPELLED TO EAT WIFE’S POOR COOKING “A husband,” declared a judge in Vienna Central Criminal Court, "is obliged to take his meals with his wife, either at home or outside,” and supported his ruling by inflicting a line on Helen Pokorny for alienating the affections of the husband of Marie Gross. According to Frau Gross’s charge ncr husband refused to eat at home but took luncheon and dinner every day in the rooms of Frau Pokorny, a cook. The man declared that no affectionate relationship existed between him and the cook, but that he could not eat at home “because I cannot rouch what my wife cooks, and am being ruined in health by attempting it.” The judge was unsympathetic. lONS OF HONEY AND BILLIONS OF BEES Sixty billion bees were living in 1,700,000 hives iu Germany last year according to a statistical report made to the Reichstag. The production of honey during 1929, was 10.526 long tons, valued at 28,000,000 marks £1,334,000. The return from the sale of honey exceeds the value of the hop harvest by five million marks. DEATH RECORD FAMILY’S TRAGIC HISTORY Death in hospital of Eric Dunt, 45, of Australia, from a fractured skull received in his fall on to the concrete floor of the Capitol Theatre, Wagga, completes an extraordinary tragic family record. A few years ago Dunt’s brother had an accident while working on a building and was made permanently blind. Later on, he was knocked down by a motor-car and seriously injured. Another brother was the first private officially reported killed in the A.I.F. A third brother, Horace, died shortly after his return from the war. Auother, Otto, was killed while cycling between Melbourne and Geelong last Easter. The family recently buried the father and a sister. Mrs. Dunt, aged SO, who travelled from Melbourne to Wagga to see Eric, arrived just after his death.