GENERAL NEWS

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 10713, 8 January 1913, Page 3

GENERAL NEWS

THE WORST OAT IX THE WORLD. In the small mammal house at the London Zoo a huge cat is to be seen (says the Standard). -It'was recently' brought from Madagascar, and. has the well-deserved name of Cryptoprocta ferox. It is not the first that, has been placed in captivity in Regent's Park. Another very much like- it, but riot quite so was taken some years ago to the Zoological Society's gardens, and.lived there quietly for fourteen years. It never showed the peculiar fierceness of its kind, and eventually it died of old age. This new one, which arrived at the Zoo on October 23rd, is a pale brown beast, bigger than a cat, but not the sort of thing that you would lite to make a pet of. No one knows its habits in its own country, . because they are nocturnal. TJie Malagasy people say that it comes out each night to steal goats. It prefers kids, but whenever - attacked shows the reason of its name, "ferox." It attacks the human proprietors of the goats so ferociously that all the natives dread the great yellow cat. SIR EDWARD MOSS'S STORY. Sir Edward Moss used to tett.a story of an incident that happened to him when he was staying at an hotel in the country. He was invited to a game of bridge by three bearded strangers. Amazing ■ luck attended Sir Edward's play, successive hands showing five honours and four acas. Just as he was beginning to be bored by the abundance of grand slams, one of the players rose and indignantlv denounced the winner as a cheat. He insisted on searching Sir Edward, who was found to have two aces up his sleeve and one in his pocket. To make the punishment fit the crime it was suggested that Sir ■■ Edward ! should go scot free oh payment of £IOOO to a charity and the; return of his winnings. But the blackmailing conspirators had managed to give themselves away, and on Sir Edward expressing astonishment that they should have taken to the wearing of beards the game was up. They disclosed themselves as a. popular comedian, a conjuror, and a singer intent on a practical joke. Sir Edward had the best of the joke, for he stuck to his booty.

FORCED TO BE AN IDLER, For perhaps tlie first time in the history of American Courts a Judge has ordered a man to refrain from work in order to keep peace in his family. The ease, the Chronicle says, is that of a hard-working man who married a woman with a fair income, relieving him of the necessity to work. The man, Joseph Girsch. worked for the sheer love of it, hut was arrested on a complaint by his wife because of the fact that his work JiV turned the hou&ebold. She complained that she could not stand his conduct any longer, and asked the Judge to put him under bonds oiot to work. "Do you moan that he is overworking himself." the Judge asked. "No." the wife replied. "T mean that work does not agree, with him, and he ought to l>e made to stop it. He is a moulder, and a good one: but when he is paid off he bin's liquor, and then comes home and Treats me, T ihayo got nlenty of money, and can support both him yind myself. anW 1" can't stand, it when he works." ' The Judge declarjed that the application was a little unusual, but finally made an order compelling the man to be an idler.