INTERESTING ITEMS.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 236, 28 June 1915, Page 2

INTERESTING ITEMS.

A TERRIBLE FATALITY. William James Stanford, cue of the oldest mechanics in Hoo airship station, met a terrible death. He was helping' to secure an airship on her return, to the aerodrome, when a sudden gust of wind caused th© vessel to reascend. Stanford was carried up, clinging to a guide rope, to a height of 700 feet, and then fell to earth, his body striking with such force that a ihole 2ft deep was mad© in th e ground. Every bone in his body was broken. A PRISONER'S CLEVER RUSE. By means of an apt reference to the parable of the Prodigal Son, Sergeant F. Pinchien, of th c 2nd Battalion Man-' chetser Regiment, who was captured at Le Gateau, has managed to inform his wife at Ashtou-under-Lyne that he is starving at Doeberitz. In the course of an apparently cheery message he says: “I hope at Easter you will read my favourite verse (Luke xv., verse 17).” Puzzled, his wife turned up her Bible and read, “And when h e came to himself he said, How many hired servants of my father have bvead enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger.” — < THOSE WAR BABIES. ______ Th© Bishop of Carlisle, in a sermon at St. John’s Church, Carlisle, said he had been reading th© other day of the number of illegitimate births that were likely to take plac e in the course of three months, and that a considerable proportion of the mothers would be girls under sixteen years. Pie was certain, h e said, that the main cause of all this sqflrow was found in the lack of home discipline and the carelessness of mothers and fathers. They often left their young girls to wander about streets any hour of the night. Pie did not.know anything more cruel to children than to allow them to do just as they liked. “NO BONUS, NO CHARITY.” The Government having refused to grant a war bonus to postal officials, tb e trunk telephonists in Liverpool Central Post Office have entered upon protest. They say: “No war bonus, no charity,” and they intimate that they will not continue their weekly contribution to the Post Office relief fund for dependents of postal employees who are killed or wounded in action. Seventy out of the staff of over 100 or so protested, and the girl telegraphists have declared that they will follow suit, Postmen in outer districts ave pursuing a similar policy. The movement has not been engineered by the trade unions, and is stated to be unofficial and spontaneous. In the House of Commons the PostmasterGeneral stated that, regarding postal employees’ demand for a war bonus, the Cabinet rad decided to remit the matter to arbitration and to abide by the decision. BABY'S BODY IN A BOX. The mother of the dead body which was discovered in a box on a Liverpool tramcar —Margaret Ann Nelson, domestic sevant —was found guilty of wilful murder by a Liverpool Coroner’s jury, and was committed for trial at the Manchester Assizes, Evidence was given to the effect that a conductor on an Aigburth tramcar discovered the child’s body in a cardboard box on the rear platform. Nelson, who was seated inside the car, was pointed out to a policeman as the mother of the child, and she told him it was her baby, j and was born two days -previously. She j was taking it to her sister. It is stated that a towel war. twice twisted round | the neck of the child. A knot was tied under th e chin, and the end of the towel was in th e child’s month. Hr. Sidney Palmer told the Coroner that death was due to strangulation, and a verdict of “Wilful murder” was therefore returned. v i TWICE WRONGLY CONVICTED. It is officially announced that His Majesty, on the recommendation of the Home Secretary, has been pleased to grant to Mrs Mary Johnson a free pardon in respect of her convictions at Surrey Bessic/ns on the 15th October, 1912, and Ist July, 1913, upon charges of sending threatening letters. The Treasury have sanctioned payment of £SOO to Mrs Johnson, who suffered two twins of imprisonment , for offences of which she has now been proved to be innocent. The Press Association says; Mrs Johnson was twice sentenced in connection with the sending of threatening letterrs to persons residing at Redhill, and on being charged a third time the jury stopped the case. One cf the witnesses in the case ■ was subsequently charged with the offence, and sentenced to eighteen months’ hard labour. Mrs Johnson served two terms of imprisonment—-one of six months and one of twelve mouths.

LORD BYRON AND GREECE. April 19 was the anniversary of Lord Byron’s death at Missolonghi in 1824. As is th© custom each year, the only memorial of the poet in London, the statue behind Apsley House, was richly decoratel with llllies and roses, the flowers for which, in his “Hours of Idleness,” Byron expressed such a decided preference. Among the blossoms were several tributes in verse, and to one magnificent wreath was attached a scroll hearing the hitter line from 1 “Child© Harold”: — “Ah! Greece! they love thee least j who owe thee most.” During the morning a number of persons, mainly members of the Greek colony in London, assembled before the statue and listened to am address from M. Anastase E. Batistatcs, one of thc volunteers of 1896, who lost his right arm in that campaign. He declared that there was hut one path fO£ Greece today. Self-interest, duty, honour, and gratitude all pointed the same way. He daily prayed, and he knew his friends they prayed with him, that they would speedily hear that the?r dear country had emancipated herself from the foreign influence that had benumbed her so long, and had entered that path with vigour and resolution.