News From All Quarters

Auckland Star, Volume XLVIII, Issue 155, 30 June 1917, Page 15

News From All Quarters

A Russian who appeared in a London police court recently was described as "a mocker"—a professional pawner. At West London County Court Judge Selfe had to decide a dispute between two ■brothers over the possession of their dead father's 5/ metal watch. At a gardening lecture at Woking it was stated that eighteen pennyworth of seed had produced sufficient parsnips to realise £100 at present prices. A sum of £12.000 in gold has been found in an earthen pot hidden in the house of a man who has just died at Porto Alegre, Portugal, and has been removed to the Bank of Portugal. According to the "Times":—Colonel Sir Joseph Ward, ex-rremier of New Zealaud, inspected the Glasgow battalion of the' Boys' Brigade. Nearly 7000 lads paraded, including a massed bagpipe band of 250 performers. UNCONSCIOUS HUMOUR. "I don't row with anyone, never—only with my wife," announced a defendant at the Thames police court. GRAPES SIXPENCE EACH. The Rev. C. Douglas Crouch, pastor of Worthing Tabernacle, and a successful fruitgrower, has just obtained the remarkable price of £3 for a fine bunch of Muscat grapes, weighing 21b (says the "Pall Mall Gazette" of May 7). Calculating sixty grapes to the pound, tots price works out at about 6d a berry. ANIMALS DECLINE TO EAT. There is a crocodile In the Edinburgh Zoo Which is content with a rat or a piece of horseflesh every fortnight, says the "Scotsman." There is au anaconda which arrived last August, and has since steadily refused to take food of any kind, an example of abstention surpassed. h<*wcver, by an Indian python which during Its thirteen, months' stay at the Park has not voluntarily taken food. JURIES OF BOYS. ■ Zehlendorf, a town midway between I'.crllu and Potsdam, is experimenting with juries of boys in criminal cases, in which youths of their ..wn age are the accused. The newspapers report that the verdicts which tbe boy jurors, who are school lads, deliver against their comrades are "extraordinarily severe." Ou this account the court authorities have abolished the practice of appointing boys to act as defending counsel. GERMAN FAMILY OF THIEVES. When two women. Daisy Smith and Emily Day. were charged at Middlesex Sessions with stealing articles of clothing, it was stated that they were daughters of a German, and were expert thieves. Nearly the whole family, a police officer added, were undergoing sentences for theft, and Day had been concerned in a remarkable robbery at Portsmouth, when £500 worth of jewellery was stolen. She had become acquainted with a penniless barman, and soon afterwards the man had a large banking account and benight a luxurious motor car. Day was sentenced to 12 months' and Smith to IS months' imprisonment. WIFE'S GRIM AWAKENING. A wife's terrible ordeal—to wake and And a prussic add stopper against her lip —was related in a London police court when Harry Smith (36), an ex-soldier, of Stroud Green, was remanded on a charge of having attempted to poison his wife. Mrs Smith stated that her husband was very excited and several times* threatened to give her "something from a bottle." They went to bed, and after midnight she awoke and found that he had put the glass stopper from a bottle on her lips, lie said that it was prussic acid, and that one drop would kill her. After a struggle she managed to push him away, without sw_llowing any of the contents or tne bottle. The children came to her rescue. Smith then went into the kitchen, and she heard "a thud nnd afterwards a gurgling sound." Smith, when arrested, said that the bottle contained water only. JUSTIFIABLE HOMICIDE. A verdict of "justifiable homicide" was returned at an inquest at Paddlngton on Walter William Marshall (61), carpenter, who was alleged to have been killed by a fellow-workman named Harry Hunter. Tho evidence showed that the two men were engaged at the same bench, and that Marshall was found dying in a pool of blood with a severe wound in the head. Hunter was standing at the bench with blood streaming down his face and a wound in the forehead. He alleged that Marshall was the aggressor and had struck him with a hammer, and that he returned the blow with a chisel. At the police station Hunter said the deceased was jealous <S him because he had been given the best work and had brought his own tools. After a prolonged inquiry the jury returned a verdict as stated. BAND OF THE RED MASK. Five boys, aged from sixteen to eighteen, members of the "Band of the Red Mask," appeared the other day before a courtmartial at Boulogne, charged with various misdemeanours. After leaving work on the Saturday they had spent their wages on liquors. When all the drink was gone they put on scarlet masks and finished the night as bandits, smashing shop windows and attacking pedestrians. The advocate for 'he defence said that, although alcohol was forbidden in the Department of the Pas de Calais, people managed to evade the law. A cup of black coffee was served and an empty cup. surrounded by various bottles of spirits. placed beside it. Customers drank their favourite liqueur from the cup instead of from a glass, and the letter of the law. which forbids the serving of "petite verres," was fulfilled. AN IRISH ROMANCE. A romantic story of how two elderly women and their brother, each about eighty years of age, and unmarried, formed an affection for a girl, to whom they ultimately left a considerable sum of money, was told in the Probate Court. Dublin, when the will of Adam I.nwry. a County Down farmer, was contested by relatives, who alleged undue influence. From counsel's statement It appeared that a girl named Ellen White passed Adam I.owry's farmhouse every morning ou her way to school. Dowry and his two aged sisters formed a strong affection for the little schoolgirl, who was the danghter of a poor rivetter. Finally they proposed that the girl should go and live with them, but she refused. They had been appealing to her for years, and ultimately she consented to the old people's proposal to adopt her. One of the sisters left her £500. The old man left her £1000. all his furniture, plate, laud, ponies and traps, aud In addition appointed her legatee. 'Ilia, Uatting g& _j_, e "<*ws wtis adjo urnefi.

Ram Chandra, the editor of a Radical newspaper, and several other Hindus have been Indicted at San Francisco on a charge of conspiracy to form a military enterprise against India. It ls alleged that they sent the steamer Maverick from San Tedro loaded with arms and with rev<dntionn'-l«= on board. Bail was fixed at Xiooo i n each case. THE CASUAL ACQUAINTANCE. When Norab Humphreys, aged I*l, was charged at Westminster with stealing a pocket-book containing £8 from a Canadian soldier whom she had casually met, it was stated that her husband was lying wounded In hospital, and she was under notice to attend an inquest on her baby. " STONE SHXPS." The "Xational Tidende" learns from i Christiana that Norway's first vessel built of steel and ccmeut. popularly called the "stone ship." will be completed in September. The vessel is being built on n special system at a shipbuilding yard which, it is declared, will be capable of delivering 30,000 tons of similar vessels per annum. TORONTO'S WHIRLWIND CAMPAIGN. A four-days' high pressure campaign held in Toronto with the object of raising ,£500,000 for the Patriotic Society and the Red Cross Society, was so successful that £152.000 more than the desired sum -was raised. The total collected amocnted to £652,000. £140 IN DOUBLE ALLOWANCE. Theresa Clark was remanded at Old Street Police Court on a charge of fraud last week. Mr Knight said she married her husband after he joined the Army in December, 1914, ami got an allowance of 42/ * week. The man deserted arid lived at bon>» nine months. Then he joined the Navy and was allowed 28/ a week, and the wife drew the double allowance until last December. She had improperly received £148. She offered to repay the money at 3/ a week. The Magistrate: That will take 20 years. A GANG OF THIEVES AND SLAUGHTERERS. William Dasher, 42. dealer, was sentenced, at the Old Bailey to Aye years' penal servitude, and William Wakefield a.nd Henry William Fbillips each to rhree years, for being concerned in the thefts of valuable horses belonging to the London and Southwestern railway and other persons. According to th«t police, the men were associated with a gang of horse thieves, who slaughtered the animals and sold the flesh to Belgian butchers for human food. -'G/TFE URGES ENLISTMENT. A woman opposed the granting of further exemption to her husband at Reigats Tribunal (says "the "Dally Mail" of April 30). She wrote: "I do not consider It fair to other men that my husband should bo allowed to remain at home. I am quite able to look after the children, ajid my. mind would be easier if he goes. I have a brother and a brother-in-law righting, and my husband, who is a strong man, should do his bit. Others have been called up, and why should not my husband now take hi 3 turn?" The conditional exemption certificate was withdrawn, and on the man's suggestion tho military representative said htj would not be called up until June 12. BULLET-PROOF ARMOUB. Clad in bullet-proof jacket and headgear, the result of eight years of experiment. Dr. Guy Otis Brewster, of Dover, New Jersey, on April 2G stood before a group of ordnance officers representing tbe United States Government and experts of the steel and rubber companies, while a sergeant of the National Guard, standing 60ft away, fired a bullet at him from the regulation army Springfield rifle. According to a cable published in England, the bullet, which sped with the Telocity of 2,740 ft per second, was deflected from the jacket without injuring the wearer, and did not even leave a dent. lO TEARS TO PAY OFF 4GNS, A tenant against whom an ejectment order was sought at Whitecbapel County Court said that he had paid the rent of 14/. a week regularly since 1913. but he novis objected to its being raised to 16/. The judge remarked that If the rent had been 13/6} he could have prevented tha ejectment. But as that was Impossible ha gave the tenant a month in which to leave. "As to the four guineas arrears," said Judge Cluer, "you may pay them at tha rate of 1/ a month. With the costs it will take 10 years to pay. and 1 hope that tha landlord will not get another tenant at 16/» It is exceedingly harsh to raise rents la these times." ROMANCE OF MILLIONS. According to the New Tork correspond dent of the "Daily Express," the discovery, of rich oilfields in Oklahoma is making millionaires overnight of persons who a few, years ago were as poor as the proverbial church mouse. Danny Tucker, a ten-year-old negro boy, was allotted some time ago 160 acres of rocky, hilly land, quite unfit for farming. In 1915 one of the great oil companies obtained a lease ou the allotment, and the apparently worthless laud has consequently become one of the richest spots in Oklahoma. At first Danny, Tucker received £40 a month in In March, 1910, it bad jumped to £1200 a month, and now it is nearly £1400 a month, and still going up. The wells give promise of long life. Although the coloured boy ls a prospective millionaire, he Is paying llttla attention to anything bnt tho feeding of Ua» chickens on his father's farm. POISONED MAN'S DIARY. A diary •written after taking poison b> George Rvcritt Taylor, 39, a physics master at Middlesbrough High. tSchool, who was found dying in a Held at Linthorpe, a, suburb of the town, was read at the adjourned inquest. lie wrote: — "Have just taken tlie (morphine and lit a pipe, and am awaiting events. It is a queer sensation, though my baud is steady. Cannot quite reafise I am going lo die in fl short time; most peaceful -way of dying, lying hero smoking and waiting for oblivion. I tried a little chloro —. Don't •feel sleepy enough yet, more morphiue. beginning to suspect it iv:i-- not morphine. 6.25 —Still wide awake; seem, to thrive on morphia. Shall be seriously anuoyed it tliis does not take any effect or if there has been a mistake In the labels. Must light another pipe. My one consolation is that the Government won't use mc for lubrication, pig food, or fertiliser. 6.3o—Fulsn rather feeble, going for a bit of a stroll, t just look as usual. I hope 1 don't 'throm it* and have to tramp all the way Irack to I school and get some prussic nchl."

Dr. Wyun Williams said no sane raaa could have written such a document; it wan faiia courage. The verdict wai • 'Suicldo curin— Temporary tePatrrty.*'