Miscellaneous.

Waipukurau Press, Issue 292, 6 August 1908, Page 3

Miscellaneous.

Having just inherited a large fortune, a girl named Alary Largey, of Butts, Montana, has married a poor clerk, and sailed with him from New York for England, with the intention of touring Europe in a motor car. After fifteen years of labour, Professor Brown, of Yale University, has completed a series of many thousands of minute observations by means of which he hopes to determine the exact position of the moon. He is about to retire to his house in Maine to begin the work of calculation, which he estimates will occupy ,at least ten years.

Commenting on the coming trials in the High Court, the London “ Daily Telegraph ” points out that while actions of many other kinds tend to decrease, divorce and other suits relating to matrimony increase. Since 3903 the figure has been very high.This term it reaches 198, not including cases which, for some reason or other, are in abeyance," some being part-heard, and others standing over by consent or otherwise, or stayed by order. Of the 198 matters 90 are suits for divorce brought by husbands, and 72 are divorce suits brought by wives. Out of these 162 suits no fewer than 96 are undefended.

Brixton’s oldest and moit interesting building — “Elizabeth’s House,” on Brixton Hill —is doomed, a notice board being exhibited intimating that flats are to be built on the si'e. The old garden is famous, and it is claimed, probably not without ground,-that the first potato in England was grown there. Sir Walter Raleigh, who introduced the potato to England, lived at Brixton, near to Elizabeth’s House, which the Queen used as a country seat.

The future relations of Denmark and Iceland have been agreed upon. Iceland becomes “a free, autonomous, and independent country, united to Denmark by a common king and com men interests, and forming with Denmark a state federation—the United Danish Empire.”

The death is reported of AhChow, the man that was known in Hawaii as “ the wild Chinaman of Papaikoumauka.” For thirty years this strange being had lived far up the mountain on the windward side of Hawaii, fifteen or twenty miles from Hilo. The little spot where his hut stood was almost inaccessible, and as.hefiercely resented all intrusion he was not disturbed by visitors for years. He was originally brought to the islands as a contract labourer in the days wlien labour contracts were really enforceable. He seems to have been embittered by this service, and, escaping’, he fled to this spot. There- he built a shack and began to clear a little ground, and there he lived ever after.

The Rev. Arthur Miles Moss, who recently resigned his position as Precentor of Norwich Cathedral in order to take up the work of chaplain in Lima, has sent home a thrilling account of his capture bv brigands in a lonely mountainous district of Peru. While travellingfrom Oroya to Lima, the train in which he - was a passenger was stopped at Galera at an altitude of 15,000 ft., by an armed band of brigands.’ The fullest precautions had previously been taken by the bandits to put the passengers completely in theii power, and the railway officials were evidently in their pay or too frightened to resist. The telegraph wires had been cut, and the bridges communicating with the nearest town were blown up. There were 15 soldiers in the train, but these gave up their arms when ordered to do so, except one, who was shot dead. Mr Moss, with Mr Newman, the seamen’s missioner at Callao, and six friends were all taken prisoners, and marched to the mountain retreat, Their absence, however, caused the Peruvian Government to send troops to Lima, and they were at length released.