GENERAL NEWS

Wairarapa Age, 24 March 1920, Page 3

GENERAL NEWS

£l6 TO £2ll.

The judicial authorities in Marseilles are inquiring into a case of house profiteering, in which the rent of a fiat had been raised from £l6 to £2ll per annum, an increase of over 1000 per cent. GETTING ONI On November 11, 1918, we had 206 lieutenant-generals and major-generala —all but doublo the number we had in August, 1914 —and now we have only (?) 195 on the list, says the Glasgow Herald. If we continue to demobilise them at the same rate — 11 a year—we should be rid of the last of our war-time surplus of corps commanders early in—l92B! AS IN DAYS OP OLD. At a real old-time "smoker" held at Walton-on-Thames beer was drawn direct from the barrel and served in the old style; strong shag was smoked through "church-wardens"; an old punch-bowl occupied a place of honour; and waiters dressed in smockfrocks handed round the grog. Nearly thirty artists took part, and sang favourite old English songs. RECLUSE AND HER DOG. An extraordinary story of an elderly woman who starved herself and fed her dog was related at Belgate at an inquest on Louisa Margaret Giles (66), of independent means, who lived the life "of a recluse in her cottage in Cornfield road. Her only companion was a well-fed dog. ' Dr. Thornton said the body was extraordinarily emaciated, qnd death was due to pleurisy, accelerated by starvation. Dficseased, who received £lO monthly from her solicitor, spent a good part of her income on food for the dog. The Coroner returned a verdict in accordance with the medical evidence. UNWANTED LOVER. "I am a war widow, and a man between 60 and 60 has been paying court to me," said an attractive-look-ing young wqman at Willesden (England). "I have heard he has a wife and children, and naturally I don't want him. But he Wants me, and when I go hotae in the dark he Bprings out from doorways like a roaring lion and says that if he does not have me, no one else shall. I can never go home but what he protests his love. The other morning when I got up I found my bedroom window broken and a stone on the floor." "Did he do that?" asked the magistrate. "I suspect him," was the reply. She was granted a summons for threats. WOMAN TARRED BY TWO MEN IN DISGUISE. Stories of a 19-year-old girl being tarred by two young men dressed as women were ...told at the Ulster Assizes. when James Brennan and John Cronogue wore sentenced to three months' hard labour each. fipss Moran, it was said, was walking with a maif at Druminatover, co. Leitrim, when the accused, who wore not only women's dresses, but hats and veils, chased them. She was caught by the men, who, after removing her clothes and gagging her, poured a quantity of tar over her. In that state she was left on the roadside. A police sergeant attributed the affair to jealousy. * Another man, named John Mulvey, who had been charged in conjunction with Brenna® and Cronogue, was found not guilty and discharged. GIRLS' LOVE OF PINERY. Two Fulham sisters, Florence Leslie (twenty.one) and Louisa Leslie (fifteen), appeared at West London on a charge of embezzling 14s 6d belonging to their employer, Mr Henry Harrison, an electrical goods merchant. They pleaded guilty. Mr Harrison said that for some time he had missed money and stock, amounting to from £SO to £IOO. The elder girl had £2 a week wages, and the younger 255. One evening, said Mr Harison, Florence came to the shop attired in an expensive ball dress with furs, silk stockings and fancy shoes. After saying to the girls, "I don't intend, in view of your youth, and of the fact that your father is dying and your mother heartbroken, to add to ! their trouble by sending you to prison," the Magistrate bound them over in £lO to come up for judgment if called upon within two years. HIDDEN DIVORCE PAPERS. A curious bigamy story was told at the Old Bailey, when Edward Rowlands, a middle-aged labourer, pleaded guilty to marrying Mary Jane Bur ley while his wife was alive. Prosecuting counsel said that Rowlands left his wife in 1910, and went to New Zealand, returning here with the Australian Forces in 1917, He found that his wife had married again, and gave her in custody for bigamy. She was sentenced to one day's imprisonment. Afterwards Roylands courted Mrs Burley, a widow with eight children. He told her he had obtained a divorce from his wife, and showed her papers, after which, in August last, they went through the marriage ceremohy. In November they quarrelled, and Rowlands told Mrs Burley he was not divorced, whereupon she gave him into custody. Mrs Burley was a war widow, and had lost 17s a week pension by her re-marriage, but it was hoped this would be rectified. Rowlands denied having told Mrs Burley that he was divorced, but said he told her he had started proceedings, and she was keeping the papers from him, having bidden them down her stockings. . Sentence was postponed till nest sessions. '