NEWS TIT-BITS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 61, 11 March 1916, Page 14

NEWS TIT-BITS.

A cod of lljlb has been caught by ft boy while angling from Deal Pier.

Three bodies, apparently of British seamen, and three ship's boats have been washed ashore in Orkney.

No relaxation*of the licpior restrictions was allowed to the big London hotels and restaurants for New Year's Eve.

Mr. Samuel Steart, who has died at Radstock at the age of ninety-one, lived in the same cottage for ninety years, and was a member of the Methodist chapel choir for sixty years.

A screwlese corkscrew has been invented, a painted shaft carrying a piece of metal on a pivot so that it falls at right angles beneath a cork that it has been thrust through. According to a German wireless message, over 100 ships, mostly AmericaD, English, and French, have been frozen in in the White Sea, ao that they will be compelled to winter there

In a New Year's Day football match at Milan on behalf of the Italian Red Cross an eleven composed of French, Belgians, and English beat an Italian eleven by lour goals to three.

While on his way to work at Waltham Abbey, Samuel Berry; a munition worker, caught by a sudden of wind, was blown into the River Lee and drowned.

There was talk among the master bakers of bread being a halfpenny dearer in London in January last, making Oil a quartern loaf —9Jd in some districts.

At a Holborn inquest on David Ernest Robbie, aged sixty-six, who died suddenly, it was stated that the heart weighed twenty-one ounces and tho liver no less than ninety ounces, nearly double the normal weight.

A dental surgery at Strrbitqn was broken into the other night. The thieves took away property to the value of £300, including 2,500 false teeth, £50 worth of platinum cuttings, and £45 in money.

A man who sent anonymous communications reflecting on the courage and patriotism of a Largs gentleman, who has twice been rejected as medically unfit for His Majesty's Forces, has had to make a full apology to his victim and hand over £500 to war charities.

The miners at the Bryn Navigation Colliery, South Wales, have agreed to pay the management 100 guineas and expenses as a solatium for an unauthorised stoppage, and to abstain from further trouble.

The Maharajah of Indore, following the example of the Gaekwar of Baroda and the Maharajah of Mysore, has (says a Reuters Bombay telegram) made elementary education compulsory throughout his State.

A man who stopped a messenger to a Chatham bank and obtained from him a bag of money, on the plea that a mistake had been made, decamped with the bag, and, in spite of cries of "Stop thief!" escaped.

Whilst reading the Psalms at St. Paul' 3 Church, Swindon, the vicar, the Rev. H. Hart Rackham, suddenly collapsed and died. He had suffered from heart " failurej jttjj*. went to Swindon from Kidderminster in 1900.

A man charged at Thames Police Court drunkenness said he "made merry" because. his wife presented him with twins and- because his eon was coming home from the front. Magistrate: That sort of , double event won't happen again. Go away.

At the Northampton Sessions, a man rued a firm for wages in lieu of notice. It was stated that he was the only un enrolled man in his shop, and that a.the otheTs threatened to strike, the firm had no alternative but to dismiss him. The case was amicably settled.

A committee of the Camberwel! Borough Council recommends that should the war continue after Novembe next, the annual allowance for the Mayor's purse be reduced to £200, buf that in the event of peace being declared the allowance revert to the original sum of £300.

Isaac Covell, railway signalman, at Sleaford West bos, went on to the lino to warn the driver of a train of a prob able obstruction, when another trair caught him. The engine knocked him into the four-footway, and the 'whole train passed- over him without inflicting any injury. He was able to proceed on foot to his home.

The R.M.S.P. Merionethshire has ar rived in London, having among its cargo a new flagstaff for Kew Gardens, measuring 215 ft and weighing 18tons, which has been presented by the Government of British Columbia. It W one of the largest flagstaff's in the world, and is mnde from the trunk of a Douglas fir tree.

Rendered deaf, dumb,' and blind at Festubert, Corporal Joseph Freckle-ton, 7th King's Liverpool Regiment, gradually recovered his sight and hearing, but remained dumb until December 31st, jvben, after dancing at a wedding at wljich he was best man, he yawned, and recovered his full speech. He then sang a song, to the pleasure of the wedding party.

A flock of sheep were being driven along the High Street, Wealdstone, Middlesex, when the foremost sheep ran across the road and jumped clean through Dr. Bluett's 10ft square eurgery window. The rest followed suit, crowding into the consulting room, the dispensary, and other rooms. They were eventually got out, the leader suffering from a cut head.

So great is the demand for rabbits in England that rabbit trains are being run over some of the branch lines in Devon and Somerset.' Dealers have established services of motor-lorriee to bring the rabbits on the farms on which they have been caught to the nearest distributing centres. In normal times Devon farmers are content to receive 6d a rabbit. Now some dealers are giving 1/ for freehlyirapped rabbits.

When the young "wife of a eolJier, whose total income amounted to 42/ a week, was found guilty, at Westminster, of neglecting her three children, and sentenced to six months' hard labour, it was said that the Society for the Prevention of 1 Cruelty to Children h-ad received from the husband of the accused, who was at the front, a heartbroken letter begging them, to look after his children.

. A. firm in the neighbourhood of Newcastle is building up a considerable glove industry. The gloves are cut out:at the works, and women stitch them at home on machines provided'by the firm, after which the gloves are returned, to.:the works to be finished off and the buttons put on. There is also a boom in the glove trade in Somerset. Before the war Germany and Austria were exporters in large quantities of «.ll kinds of gloves, and they also supplied five-sixths of the fa-brie material used in some of the •"imerset factories. ,