NEWS TIT-BITS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLV, Issue 15, 17 January 1914, Page 15

NEWS TIT-BITS.

The York City Council decided not to persevere with the eleO.ox as mayor of Alderman J. H. Hartley, a shunter. In short, he was "shunted. A Manila octogenerian. still at work, attributes his good health and vigour to his habit of drinking two bottles of gin daily for the past 60 years. At Methwold, in Norfolk, a rich crop of tobacco has been grown on the site of some rabbit warrens. Doubtless the rabbit brand of tobacco will be warren— ted pure. The judge of the Clerkenwell County Court has held that a skirt must be so made that the wearer can sit down. That should make the makers of the hobble sit up. Standing on the balcony of the Ritz Hotel, in London, an American lady is said to have counted "485 toots from motor-horns in fifteen minutes." She must have fancied herself in, not the West End, but Tooting. A police divisional surgeon who examined a prisoner as to his condition said, at the South-Western court, he had no doubt he was drunk. Witness asked him if he denied being drunk, and he replied: "Yes, absh-lutely." Sulgrave Manor, near Banbury, the ancestral home of the Washington family, has been purchased by the committee which has been formed to celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of peace among the English-speaking peoples. A solicitor asked a butcher at Greenwich Police Court what yoe mutton was, and the reply was: "Old female sheep dressed up as young lamb."—Mr. Symmons, the magistrate, added: "If it's covered with flour it's a penny a pound more." An Isle of Wight man charged with beating a pig to death has got off for lack of evidence. The evidence consisted of portions cut from the deceased animal's carcase, and it was sorrowfully stated that the police office cat bad . eaten them. It is alleged that Wilhelm Volkamps, a German baker, arrested in Paris for larceny, has subsisted for eight months on the proceeds of the thefts committed by his dog, which he had trained to purloin joints of meat, poultry, fish, and sausages from shops. 'Speaking 'from a 'window in iFord Road, Bow, E.. Miss Sylvia Pankhurst announced that a "no-rent" strike by the working women of London would shortly be started to gain the vote, and that rent strikers who might be interfered with by the authorities would receive the protection of the new "People's Army." j A black and white Persian cat, the ownership of which was in dispute at Rochester County Court, was quite unresponsive when the plaintiff's wife called I "Jim." When the defendant's wife called "Smart," the cat went to her and rubbed its nose affectionately against her. The judge concurred with the cat's decision. Finding its mistress, Lucy McPrice, an aged Hevwood widow, with her clothes ablaze (the fire having been caused by the woman smoking), an Irish terrier tried to tear the burning clothes off her. At the inquest on the woman on November 12 the coroner said the dog ought to have a medal for trying to save life. "We keep a staff of 500 cats," said Mr. J. G. Broodbank, the Board of Trade representative on the Port of London Authority, recently, in a lecture at Mansfield House, Canning Town, on "The Thames and its Docks?" Cats, he said, were found far more effective than poison in their constant warfare with rats.

A wile at Tower Bridge Police Court made the following complaint as to her husband: On Friday he gets drunk; on Saturday he is generally drunk twice; on Sunday he will be drunk by half-past three, then sleep it off. and get drunk again. During the week he will get drunk if he has any money. He does not use violence, but his language is cnougli to knock you down. A spinster of seventy-five, Mile. Lecaux, living at Nouvion,' France, has been in bed for the last fifty-five years. Although in perfect health, she went to bed when she was twenty, with the avowed intention of never leaving it again, and has faithfully kept her word. She is naturally suffering from chronic cramp, but her general health is good. For diving 30ft from the bridge deck of a steamer going at full speed and saving a man who had fallen overboard, William Philips, of Cardigan, an apprentice on the steamship Paddington, was presented at Cardiff with the Royal Humane Society's medal. Mr. John Cory said Philips' was the bravest deed he had heard of in fifteen years. Speaking at Bristol, Mr. Birrell said: Farmers as a class did not think much of education. An East Anglian farmer said to him on one occasion, "If all the money spent on education in the last -twenty years had been 6pent on artificial manure, this would, indeed, be a happy country.'' He said to the farmer, "You prefer muck to mind," and the farmer replied, "I do." (Load laughter.) An umbrella society has been established in Brussels. You pay five francs a year to belong to it, and you receive a metal ticket of membership. When you go out without your umbrella and it begins to rain you step into the nearest restaurant, and in return for your ticket you receive an umbrella. When you return the umbrella you get your ticket back again. It is announced that the St. Louis •Municipal Council has unanimously decided to mike tipping an illegal offence in the city. This measure is the sequel to a recent 'waiters' strike, which lasted some weeks, and in the course of which many of the strikers demanded the suppression of the tipping system as being undignified. The local law will punish both the giver and the receiver of a tip by a minimum fine of ten dollars. Representatives of the city of Glasgow, the county of Dumbartonshire and the burgh of Clydebank have agreed provisionally on a scheme for constructing a new road or boulevard from the west end of the city to Bowling. The road will be at least 100 ft. in width, about 0} miles in length, and will pass through a district- not yet opened up by .roadways. lit will be a continuation of Great Western road, the great west end highway of Glasgow.

It was stated at a Southwark inquest that an operation which in ordinary circumstances would have given a boy a five thousand to one on chance of life •had really caused his death. Tbe boy had been knocked down by a motor car, and at Guy's Hospital it was found necessary to remove his right kidney. After death it was discovered that he had no left kidney, and therefore, life was impossible. A medical witness said that only one person in 250,000 was born with one kidney, and that this case was one of the worst bits of luck he had encountered.