NEWS TIT-BIIS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIII, Issue 215, 7 September 1912, Page 15

NEWS TIT-BIIS.

A youth of 16, in filling up a National Insurance form, described his occupation as that of a " widower." At Kolmar, Germany, a schoolmaster who gave a pupil a box on the ear, impairing his hearing, has been fined £250. Hampstead has decided to set up a municipal tuberculosis dispensary. Jt •.vili be the first municipal scheme in London. Mr W. G. C. Gladstone. M.P., bas given a recreation ground to the inhabitants of Hawarden, in memory of his grandfather.

A sleepwalker in California swam two miles down a river without waking up, and continued his sleep on the bank after leaving the water. For branding her nine-year-old stepdaughter with a red-hot poker, ;t Liverpool woman was sentenced to six months' imprisonment. The pastor of a, fashionable church at Johnstown, U.S.A., bos resigned in order to assume the management of a large brewery which Wβ family owns. A carman charged at a London Police Court with overloading his horse was asked how heavy a load he had on his van. "About a ton," he replied; "but it was all light staff!" Among the Alps there are several postoffices at a height of 6,000 ft or 7,000 ft. One letter-box, from which the postman makes four collections daily, is nearly 10,000 ft above the sea-level. A lady has been appointed assistant judge of the Juvenile Court of Cook County, Illinois, and she will preside over a separate division for the trial of girls and young women for minor offences.

'•Have you seen the defendant since?" asked the Tottenham magistrate the other day. "Xo," was the witness' reply; "at least, only once, and that was when he ibroke into my houce, and then I didn't see him!"

The Commissioner of Police has under consideration a scheme to enable homeless persons in the Strand district of London to secure a night's shelter. Constables on nifjht dnty will carry tickets to be handed to persons in need. A company is Tjeing formed in Sydney to erect 5,000 villa residences in various suburbs, and to manufacture electricity for the company's houses. Haberfield and some other suburbs around Sydney have been entirely created by big companies like this. In sentencing to four months hard labour a man who sold unsound corned beef, Judge Rentoul said that "the man who for the sake of profit indulged in business of this sort, and especially amongst the poor, was carrying on as wicked a business as could' be carried on in this country." During the absence of the tenant, a cotton operative, a swarm of several thousand hee§ took possession 'of thi bedroom of a house in Blackburn. Attempts to dislodge them failed, and several people were severely stung. An attempt, made after many hour?, to hive the bees, was successful. * "If you have a good housewife and a srood mother, she is sure to have a sharp tongue." said Mt. Syimnons, the magistrate ait Ma.ryle.bone Police Court recently. "1 know the typo. They arc the best women in the world, but' they are most difficult to get on with. You cannot have it both ways." When a man had been sentenced to two years for rioting outside Shorcditch Theatre, the Court of Criminal Appeal quashed the conviction on the ground that there was not sufficient evidence, although "they (the judges) all strongly suspected that the verdict was right, and that the jury had made a correct guess."

A carpet, which took three year« in the mating, is one of the treasures of the ■nruc.h-tal'ked-af Gapk-war of Baroda. The carpet is only lOtft 'by 6ft in size, but it is woven from strings of pure pearls, with a centre and corner circles of diamonds. Th* magnificent fabric cost £200.000, and is guarded in the Maharajah's treasure, room. The Kelandin. the largest motorslrp afloat, her tonnage being 11.000. has returned to lx>ndon after her maiden voyage to Bangkok. The average consumption of -oil per 24 hours was !U tons for a speed of 11 knot*;. Tt would have required 45 tone of coal, at a far greater cost, to cover the same distance with the ordinary engines. A Lahore paper describes a curious i case 0/ primitive justice in one of the Simla hill States. The plaintiff and defendant were eauh called upon to produce a goat in court. To the goats was administered by t-tre court sweeper, under the orders of the presid&ng oflicer, a dose of poison, each dose having been J carefully weighed and made exactly equal. The suit was adjudged in favourof the owner of the animal which succumbed last to the poison, the unsuccessI fill party losing both goat and ease. j The American cruiser Chester, which

was patrolling the 'banks of Newfoundland in the ice zone reports having fired 3in shells at huge ieebe-rgrs. estimated at haft* a million tons in weight. The 'bergs were 480 yards off. The effect of the firing was mirc*h the same as if the shells had been fired at a 6in nrmour-ipißAe cruiser. One shell glanced upwards and rebounded in the direction cif the cruiser. One berg which was fired at was apparently undamaged, but fire h<ron> later it turned turtle and there was a land explosion. A Johannesburg paper says that a weM-known Conumssouer Street tailor was relieved of a valuable diamond •ring, worth £150. in .peculiar eireunv stanoes. The owner of the ring was exhibiting it in a bar-room, and was. boasting of its value, afterwards passing , it round for exhibition. Finally it was handed iback to him neai.lv rolled up in its wrapping of tissue ' paper.. The unsuepeot.in!ft owner left vnf\\ the camiforta'ble feeling that he had created a ■mild sensation. Arriving at home he coirld not resist the temptation to exaflrine bis valuable treasure. Carefully I unfolding the tissue paper covering, he 'found, not the rhijr. but. h biscuit crumb. The Ounard Company lias set an example -worthy of its reputation and ! worthy of the British Mercantile Marinr. . Kot only did the directors waive all . claims for salvage on account of the services rendered by the Carpathia to the survivors of the Titanic, and refuse to i accept compensation for the loss of time J incurred in putting back to Xew York. las announced by cabie. Imt. furthermore, they have taken the novel step of ap- ! pointing a &ta(T-ea.ptain to each of their monster liners, the Lusitania and Maure- . ta.nia, who. under the direction of the i master, shall be responsible for the ■boatage carried, and for the drill and discipline oft the crew. The position of this I officer twill be roughly equivalent to that of (the commander — otherwise "the ( 'Woke"—in the Rojal Ka?y. .