INTERESTING ITEMS.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 249, 12 July 1915, Page 2

INTERESTING ITEMS.

I A HUMANE HORSE. One cf our horses is a candidate for tlie Victoria Cross, writes a lance- | corporal at the front to his schoolmaster at Leicester. "It is a true story of animal devotion," h e adds. "The troops were charging at the time, and as one rider fell from his horse wounded the animal picked him up with his mouth by his clothes and carried him away to safety." SERGEANT'S FATAL RiDE. Sei'seant Alia?!, f othe First 4th West Lancashire Howitzer statione,i at Seal, near Seevnoaks, was riding out at Lord Hillingdon's park with an offlfUcer when his horse boted and ran with terrific force into a tree. The sergeant's head crashed against the trunk, and he; was killed instantly. When picked up h G was quite unrecognisable. Some military sports which were in progress were at once abandoned, THE SENSIBLE CENSOR. . .Hero is a little story of the Censor's department. The other day one of the examiners of messages for transmission : to a certain neutral country came across the following simple one adores sed to n gentleman with a Gorman looking name. It ran: "Mother seriously ill, father deceased." Somehow the Censor smelt code, so altered the last word to "dead." In a short time the simple Teuton's reply was received It was as folows: "Is father dead or deceased'*?"

CTJKITJ3 EFFECT OF SHOT. . The curious effect of a bullet wound in the head is related in the monthly circular of tlio Paris Society of Medicine. Dr. Pcraire, speaking of a patient who lias fracture of the skull, says —"Tie is doing well. Ke reads the papers, writes to his parent.-), and astor.i.SiM .•; everybody. Nevertheless, the bullet has pass.] transversely through his skull. It is an exceptional case. I know nothing resembling it. This'.man is perhaps more intelligent than ho was before, for the bullet which litis opened his skull has possibly increased ".>--. •',•.<''.'pHiiit of his brain." MOUTH ORGANS FOR HYMNS. An officer in an ambulance corps at the front, writing to a Surbiton lady, says the mouth organs sent out by friends have given much pleasure to ;;■• tu-iopji. : nd impromtu concerts were h:'U, ilie mouth' organ being the only iTs?t.nuriO'.:t, with excellent results. The ofrle.er «dd.«: "Our mouth organ band is lovely. The men really play the mouth organs ouite well. I could not have believe.! if possible. lam sending tin? men into a church service at a house some three miles away this afternoon, and the only music to start the hymns will be that from their mouth organs."

WHO IS BLOCKADED. If a hoc.ka.de becomes legal only when it is effective—and it is clearly illegal when it is ineffective —then the advantage so far as the law is conc-ernel is clearly on the side of the Allies and against Germany. During the month of February the imports of Great Britain exceeded by £.1.000,000 the imports for the corresponding month of last year. That is to say, the trade of Groat Britain is now much larger than It was before the war. On the other hand, the coast of Germany is effectually blockaded, it being impossible for any ships either to enter it or to leave it. Tliere may be irregularities in. the blockade for subsequent legal decision, but there can be no question of its actual effectiveness. —Argonaut, San Francisco. THE BRAVE BERNHARDT. Professor Douiee has just announced that Mine. Sarah Bernhardt has completely recoered from her operation. She has left th e nursing home and returned to her own house at Audernos. It is said that her courage and spirits ai'o marvellous. Before her operation the usrgeon asked her to give him five months, but she refused. Why? Because longing for the theatre filled her. She .said she would rather be mutilated than powerless, THE KAISER'S JOKE. The Schlessische Zeitung states that after inspecting a Grenadier regiment in the Xorth of France, the Kaiser, in conversation with the officers, told thorn the Russians had been seriously deceived when during their stay in Ksisl Prussn they stole the hartshorns in his Majesty's hunting box at Rominten. "All the harts herns were imitation?,! " exclaimed the Kaiser, toughing. ''The originals arc in my casue at Berlin."