NEWS TIT-BITS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 168, 15 July 1916, Page 13

NEWS TIT-BITS.

The Government of South Africa nas erected a large sugar mill to encourage the cultivation pf cane in Zululand. A gardener at the Hermitage, Swindon, Wiltshire, dug up a watch he lost two years ago. He promptly wound ii up, and it now goes ac well as ever. If the Bishop of Birmingham ha-.l his •way he would sweep away every re«erved seat in every church, except tsome for the infirm. Perhaps there would be a large increase in " inflrms." " Hugo," a circus giant, said to be the 'tallest man in the world, died in New York recently from pneumonia, lie was :Sft 4in high, and normally weighed 53Glb. -He was 47 years of age, and was born in Italy. "Who fights for England fights for God. Who dies for England dies for God." A saying worthy of acceptance, uttered by Captain J. H. Macdonald, of the Canadian Chaplains' Service, at the Baptist Union. Refusing an application for bail, Mr. Hcdderwick, at North London, said: " 1 would recommend anybody who wishes to have a healthy holiday to go to prison for six weeks if he could get admission to a British gaol. It is much better than going to a foreign spa." In the three years—l9l3, 1914, 1915 — Victoria lias had 111 strikes, at a loss of £113,194 in wages alone, but in the 6ame time New South Wales has indulged 'herself in 641 strikes, and the loss in wages stands at only a little under a. million pounds. While a Sheffield funeral party was following the cortege of an elderly man for burial recently one of the hearse wheels gave way, upsetting the coffin and throwing the corpse into the road. The spectacle caused a panic among the mourners. Bearers carried the deceased to the churchyard. An animal shot by a farmer at Cwm, .Benmachno, in the Snowdon district, after it had caused a panic among his flock, proved to bo a wolf. Subsequently a, number of farmers eearched the adjoining mountains for wolves but failed to find any. It is surmised that the animal escaped from a menagerie. Four members of a Birmingham gang of alleged coiners, one of whom was shot by a detective with a revolver and slightly wounded previous to arrest, were committed for trial by the Nottingham magistrates recently on the charge of being in possession of base coins and apparatus for making spurious money. When Henry James Tishaw applied to the Court of Criminal Appeal to quash his London Sessions sentences, he {asked to be placed under chloroform, I "so that the truth would come out that 'he was not guilty. , ' But the court was not taking any chloroform. It confirmed his sentences instead. Jackdaws are making periodic visits to the British Museum to purloin the eggs of the pigeons who nest over the south portico. The porter, who is a ! zealous ornithi»k>gist, thinks the raiders come from Regent's Park; but possibly ; their home is Kensington Gardens, where - a small colony of them breed among the old elm trees. 1 While two men were oiling an engine i from underneath at Clydebridge Steel works, near Glassow. several wagona broke away, and Mr. Thomas Mcßoberte, I a traffic'manager, seeing that both men j would he killed, rushed forward and diverted the wagons, but was himself run over and terribly mutilated. Hβ ; leaves a widow and eight children. In New York city it is stated that - nearly 4.000 persons make their living i out of the distribution of philanthropic aid. The salaries of these are esti--3 mated to aggregate 4,000,000 dollars a year. One person draws 10,000 dollars; t nine others draw 5,000 or more a year. and fifty-eight draw a minimum of 2,400 - dollars. Comfort for smokers. Although i tobacco imports into Britain are to be 1 reduced to one-third of last year's total. - as from June 1, there will be no shortage of tobacco. "The stocks in bond," say«i , Mr. Isidore Gluckstein, of Messrs. Sal- ' mon and Gluckstein, "will last at full 3 consumption, for at least two years." • And prices need not go up, he says. 2 William George Hall (47), of Stoke 1 Newington, was, said his widow at a Hackney inquest, the owner of a number ' of automatic machines used in licensed. ' houses, but they had been condemned under a recent decision under the Gaming" Act, and this caused him to be in pecuniary difficulties. It affected his mind, and while she was took some cyanide of potassium, and she found him dead. Noticing unshaded lights at a Wokingham residence the police called, and finding the occupant out, they entered and extinguished the lights. When the police discovered the occupant—a councillor— at a neighbour's house, ihe informed them that he had left the place in darki ness. It was found that burglars had ' entered and' stolen 400 sovereigns, two i gold rings, an;} other valuables. During the first quarter of this year • 243 accidents caused by vehicles occurred i in the City of London, of which two were L fatal and 241 resulted in personal in- ■ jury. Of these 126 were caused by ' horse-drawn vehicles, 11 by tramway- • cars, 47 by motor-cars, 37 by motor- > omnibuses, six by motor-cycles, and 16 • by ordinary bicycles. [ A recommendation of the Public [ Health Committee to come before the ' London County Council sets forth that ', it is urgently necessary that adequate ' steps should be taken by all the local ' health authorities in the administrative ' county more effectually to diminish infantile morality and suffering by putting ■ into operation the Local Government ' Loard's scheme for maternity and child welfare. ' In the first excitement of the round-up . of participants in the Dublin uprisings, a [ I number of Sinn Feiners escaped in eofI fins. The escapes are said to liave been facilitated by the temporary relaxation ' of the rules concerning death and burial certificates. The supposed corpse would \ be placed in a heanse and followed by a , iqw friends to the burial ground. By ;'. > ruec, the grave-diggers were given nn ■ opportunity to surround the coffin, and ; release the " corpse." ! Sir J. Mackenzie Davidson, lecturing i at the Royal Institution, on "Electrical • Methods iii Surgical iScience," said that ■ difficulties caused by the misleading rei suits from single X-ray photographs had ■ been largely overcome by the use of the i spectroscope, which, after being out of i fashion for many years, was now coming i into its own in more useful ways. A youn" officer who had been told at the [ Reid hospital that a bullet had penei trated the bone, and was fixed there, rather resented being told afterwards i that it had passed through the bone and lodged in the armpit. On benig shown, ; however, by means of the spectroscope that it was actually so, he sabnutted to the easy operation that weaneeded.