STRANGE NEWSVENDOR

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 56, Issue 156, 15 April 1936, Page 5

STRANGE NEWSVENDOR

MURDERED BY RIVALS. LONELY SPINSTER'S COMPANION LONDON, March 27. An unusual murder, the victim of which was the most learned and popular sparrow in Budapest, occurred there, says the correspondent of “The Times,” as. a result of the cut-throat competition of vested interests. The sparrow had been adopted by a lonely old spinster who had charge of a newspaper stall a.t the main railway station.

The bird was clever, jovial and busi-ness-like. It learned to accost passersby, minded the stall when the mistress was delivering papers, and scornfully rejected buttons tendered by customers instead of coins.

The lord’s fame grew. It attracted hundreds of admirers and increased the business. Thus it aroused the jealousy of rival newsvendois.

One day, when the mistress was absent, her small companion was trapped and wilfully murdered by “persons unknown.”

“The Times” honours the bird with a sub-leader, deploring the fact that the world’s vast reserves of sparrowpower have gone unharnessed. It points out that the bird followed a profession of which the late Edgar Wallace was an ornament in his youth, hut was the victim of a murder surely more dastardly than any contained in the lurid pages of that greqt author’s work.