NEWS TIT-BITS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 240, 7 October 1916, Page 13

NEWS TIT-BITS.

! Machine hands of seventeen are earn* ing as much ac £3 5/8 a week in Sheffield munitions factories. South Wales miners advocate the nonpayment <of income ' tax until the Government increase old age pensions. Classes to instruct women in dental mechanics are to be opened in London at the Borough Polytechnic. A eixteen-year-old girl is acting as Government blacksmith at the village of Pollington, near Snaith, in Yorkshire.

About 450 boys of school age have ■been excused attendance from elementary schools in Surrey for employment lin agricultural work. Enemy property in England vested in the Public Trustee is estimated at £4,500,000, and that vested in the Board of Trade at £2,000,000. The Dover medical officer reports that a case of diphtheria which caused the death of a doctor has been proved to have been contracted'from a"pet parrot. France hopes to have a vintage this 1 year of 990,000,000 gallons. Notwithstanding war, this is an increase on the yield of last year—double; in fact. Turlough MacSweeney, Ireland's oldest piper, has died at tJie age- of ninety-five. He won the first prize at the World's Fair, Chicago, in an open competition for pipers. . . At Cork Justice. Roes awarded £600 compensation to Mrs. Howe lor the shooting of her husband, head constable in the Royal Irish Constabulary,.. during the recent rebellion. Petrograd municipality lhas (received permission to employ Chinese labour in -municipal undertakings such as the" gas works. Permission to employ prisoners of war in public services (has been, refused. ....••/ - The factories erected by the late-Sip William.-'Perkin, the- discoverer of-ani-line "dyes; at" Wembley, "which "<>wdng'tb German competition have been closed" for over 20 years, have been reopened- by * manufacturing company, "Age is no bar now,"' isaid Mr. Mead at West London, to a woman who complained that she could not pay her rent because her husband was tod old to •work.- "Men of all ages can. get; β-ome job," added ihis Worship.Mr. Frederick Andrew, senior - partner in the firm of Andrew and Thompson, solicitors, Lincoln, who died on May Iβ last, aged the bulk of his fortune "of £211,731 to" a home for "poor gentlewomen."

The chief feature of the first autumn tour "of Lord Chelinsford, the GovernorGeneral of India, will be ihis ; visit to Burma, which will extend from November 30 to December 20. The LieutenantGovernbr, Sir 'HaTcourt Butler, visit* Simla'in "September. '■'■'" ":.-'. •:.

' In a -humorous speech on the war the Rev. T. C. Collings, a Church" of England Army chaplain, advocated, smoking at religious services. He was not a,High Churchman, he said, but he believed in incenee, even if it only arose from shag at 4Jd an ounce.. ■■■•'-■'■ 't ■ ■

Four firemen were imprisoned in a cellar during a destructive fire which broke -out at Old Market Streets-Bristol. Three of the men were eubsequently rescued . alive, but Inspector Harrisonj who had been 25 years in the brigade; was dead when found. '■_ ■"■■'■ '' ■ " 4 ' '■ ■- Arthur of" Leea>TUni-" yersity, suggested" to *a conference :: of \vorking : class leaders at Oxford that •\: should iwork for the setting up of a ; National Council of Industry and a I Ministry of Labour to -succeed - the ! Ministry of Munitions at the end'of the war. . .'. ... " "•;•" - :'"'', JAn exceptionally violent thunder- , storm raged in Glasgow on-a Teceiit Sunhouses were An ;open?air. peace demonstration-held by. a women's organisation, "at", which] had; organised opposition meetings, was prematurely ended, by ~the storm. ....;■• ,;,..,i, I The Duke of Rutland, in a epeech-ai I Leicester, eulogising the work of women in nearly every path of life, said: 'The other night one woman ticket collector' nearly clipped my thumb off-through ! mistaking .it for a ticket while talking Ito somebody" else." His" unfortunate experience did not:' alter hLf "opinion'of women's work: ; ;". '/"' i;"" " A Temarkable" double tragedy "occurredin the Kiver. Avon at ■Xewtori Bridge, near Bath, last month. A thirteen-year-: old girl, Gladys Black, .was bathing a. little boy, George Toop, aged four, from a raft % means of a rope which sire had tied round hun, "when-the child in •his struggles pulled the giri -into the water, and both were drowned. "" ' TT : , "I am not surprised that it put the man out of temper," said Mr. Fordbam at Weet London to a woman who applied for process against a man who smashed her window because a gramophone'was playing in her house at ton o'erbiik at night. "It is a 'most- vexsome,troubte--' some noise," added his Worship;- Kind-it - is a ;wonder het did not smash twentywindows." " „! .1. Ti."■;.""*_■.. . A-Chiswick -female munition'worker, ,, named Brace, obtained dainases --."to theamount of £7"10/, rat the Bloomsbufy County Court, against the NorfchTLoridonT Railway Company, for injury done to one of her fingers : by the" careless closing of a carriage door at-Kew Bridge Station' when she was'returning from"d'iiiher't'o" her work at Acton. •■ -.•■•■-'v-* . -In -1912 Lieut.. Brussiloff arid 'M. Rousanoff sailed aprayoti two Polar' ex-' peditions. From that time~to this their' fate has been a sealed book v Now the' Archangel Society "for the" Study of the." Russian Far North is raising a discovery fund. Various eums will be paid as rewards to "those" whd'succee'd iii "throwing light upon the' pages' of 'the .closed 'book. , The Hend on Tribunal have refused .exemption to Mr. Bernard Dillon, the.well known jockey;- Hesaid he"was _ 28 years -, of age, and wae supporting his parents and four brothers. - At -one time ; °he earned a good deal of money as a joefceyf but he had not taken "part in flat-racing for about four years; as he had become too heavy, and wae now'chiefly-engaged-as a dealer in horses. ....... .„ - .;..../ _. Too old at ninety-one? Not a"bit of' it, says John Kaye, of Town Head, Dun- '. ford Bridge; who has been doing his little bit on .the farm. During the Bheepshearing_ season he; lent a band at: a task with, which he has been acquainted eince he was eight-years of age. Now he is iislping in the harvest, and forking-in the. fields.in a manner which, bears evidence, that his many years of usefulness Uβ lightly on iris shoulders. . At Liverpool a coroner's jury returned a verdict- of wilful murder in the case of Mary ;Mafcin ; (56), who: is alleged to have been murdered in a" callar by.'her eon,; Patrick Makin, ship's fireman," with. ar »zpr.-- It .was stated that accused, 1 when arrested, said: "I am tho man.- r am ready for you. If my mother died I--63d it, and we will both die together. I have murdered my mother. It does not matter whetber it was with a knife" or a bullet." —- ;