GENERAL NEWS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 22 October 1913, Page 7

GENERAL NEWS.

HER RECOMMENDATIONS

An advertisement in a Berlin newspaper runs as follows:—"Young woman of ancient lineage, beautiful as Helen, prudent as Penelope, economical as the Electros* Sophia of Brandenburg, witty as Mmc. do Stael, austere as Lucretia, charitable as 1 Florence Nightingale, loving as Virginio, with tho voice of an angel, an artistic soul, and possessed of a splendid fortune, desires correspondence with a view to matrimony."

TWICE-BEREAVED WIFE

Miss Heywood, of Bury, a woman confectioner, has just experienced a tragio bereavement, the second of the kind she has suffered. A few weeks ago she was to have been married to a Widnes resident, Mr IXuinia Miller, and all preparations had been made. A few days before the date fixed.for the wedding, the prospective bridegrodm died from an attack of pneumonia after a short illness, and his friehda were called to his funeral instead of his wedding. Miss Heywood had a similar bereavement seven years ago, when the man she was to nave married died on the eve of the wedding.

AT A KISSING BEE

Despatches from. Salem, Ohio, report that all records for kissing have been broken by six young women who recently held "a kissing bee" for the purpose of raising £2OOO for a local hospital (says a correspondent of the Daily Mail). They offered kisses at four shillings each. Soon a line of men, joung and old, formed 20 feet deep. Many of the elder citizens of Salem "invested" a sovereign a-pieoe when they reached the head of the line, and then hurried back, to the end of the line to increase their ''investments." When each had sold nearly 2000 kisses the girls announced that the "bee" was closed. The performance, embracing 10,000 public kisses, lasted nearly two hours.

THE ALL-IMPORTANT HAT

An express train leaving Madrid recently,. in which Count llomanones, the Spanish Premier, had taken a reserved saloon, was three-quarters of an hour late in starting (says the Daily Mail). Indignant passengers made fruitless demands to the stationmaster that the train should leave at once. The official replied that he was unable to order the departure of the train, for a reason that he would not state. Eventually,, a breathless messenger arrived from the Premier's' house carrying a cardboard box which, to the obvious relief of Count Romanones, was installed in the reserved saloon. The stationmaster then explained to the passengers that the Premier had forgotten his top hat, and had refused to allow the train to start without it.

AN UNCONVENTIONAL INTERLUDE.

Mr H. Or. Hawker's recent waterplane flight round Britain in his attempt to win the Daily Mail £SOOO prize led to an amusing scene in Fraserburgh (Aberdeenshire) Police Court where three bailies were hearing an important case. The Fraserburgh Herald says:—"The shrill blasts of the steam drifter sirens,heralded Mr Hawker's approach, and completely upset the dignity of the Bench, the members of which unceremoniousjy forsook the post of duty and hastened to witness the flight over Fraserburgh. Bailie Anderson and. Bailie Mackie raised a window in the courthouse and balanced their bodies on the sill in a perilous position, craning their necks seawards in the hope of beholding Hawker. The fiscal Clerk of Court and police boldly followed suit, and even the accused was not remonstrated with as he bounded from the dock and thrust- his head through a casement. But Bailie Gordon! Where was he? Descending the stairway in hop, step and leap fashion, the missing magistrate had sought the open air in order to secure an uninterrupted view. In due course the bailie, beaming with pleasure, returned to Court, and business was resumed as before."