GENERAL ITEMS.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 25 September 1917, Page 2

GENERAL ITEMS.

A DANGER TO AEROPLANES 'Any excessive movement of the air during a thunderstorm tends to attract the electric fluid, and at the speed aircraft travel at the chances are that, with a storm in progress, they would not be the safest place to be in. One of the British air raids on Constantinople, however, was successfully carried out in a rather severe thunderstorm. SIXTEEN DAYS IN SUBMARINE. The British and Foreign Sailors’ Society has received information that the chief engineer and two naval gunners of a merchant ship, torpedoed by The enemy, were kept imprisoned in the German submarine for sixteen days before a chance offered the German commander to put them ashore. SHOOTING GAME IN FRANCE. Licenses to shoot game in France—which has not been allowed since the war began—are to be issued when the crops have been gathered. The new policy has been adopted chiefly to satisfy the farmers, who complained that their produce was being ruined by the enormous increase of game and vermin owing to the prohibition of shooting. No game license will be needed by soldiers on leave. Special regulations will be made for the zone of the armies. JUST THE MAN FOR THE ARMY. One of our most distinguished commanders (says the Liverpool Post) was recently home in London on leave. Glad to get rid of uniform for a while he dressed himself in mufti and went one evening to a music hall. In the promenade ho encountered an Australian private —just a little exhilarated who entered into conversation with him The bearing and manners of the general delighted the Dominion soldier, who finally laid an admonitary hand on his shoulder and said, “My boy, you ought to be in the army.”

MYSTERY OF SMALL BRASS STARS

A number of six-pointed brass stars which were found in a London suburb immediately after the German aeroplanes had passed overhead. The stars were, says the Express, taken away from a small child in the street, These little articles were apparently lying about in thousands, and children were gathering handsful. There may be nothing whatever in this incident, but is certainly seems extraordinary to find such things lying about. It has been stated that one of these stars held tightly in the fingers soon produces a burning effect.. THE MAD “MAJOR.” Legends always multiply in war time. Many men back from the front tell thrilling stories of the exploits of the “Mad Major,” who flies in aeroplanes over the German lines disdaining to rise more than fifty or a hundred feet and who has never been touched. The “Mad Major” is known from one end of the line to the other. Yet no officer of the R.F.C. can tell you his name or anything about him. There probably is ho such person at all. But until tor performs any particular daring the end of the war, whenever an i v.iaachievement, it is sure to be added to the “Mad Major’s” exploits. GUARDS REFUSED ORDERS. Twelve privates in the Irish Guards who refused to fetch their bayonets when ordered to do so by a sergeant pleaded guilty at a general court-mar-tial at Westminster to a charge of disobeying a lawful command. It was [explained that |t)io men, who were shortly to go to France, were merely irritated by a rumour that their pay ■would be delayed, and were not actuated by and motive of disloyalty. The trouble only lasted for a quarter of an hour, and the men paraded with their bayonets at 2.15 instead of at two o’clock. The decision will be promulgated in due course.