News From All Quarters

Auckland Star, Volume XLIX, Issue 148, 22 June 1918, Page 15

News From All Quarters

Princess Mary was 21 on April 25. One ton of string, 1040 pairs of boots, and 112,200 bottles and jars -were reclaimed from Croydon dost 'bins in a year. John Fisher, a collier, was fined 12/, at Leigh, Lancashire, for a breach of the Lighting Order, by striking a match in the street at midnight. ■ Sarah Ann Hopkins, of Cwm, Monmouthshire, was sent to prison for two months for drawing £34, her husband's separation allowance, after his return to civil employment. She said his beer cost her 15/ a week. ' A wayfarer in Ireland while in County Kerry saw in a field where a flock of sheep were grazing the following notice:— Take Notice. 'Poison is laid down in this field for the preservation of sheep. "Criminal," is a very difficult term. There is not a single person in this room entirely without criminal tendencies. —Sir Robert Armstrong .Tones. So the Prayer Book has a scientific as well as a theological justification for calling us all miserable sinners, adds the "Observer." Dermot Lynch, the Sinn Fein "Food Controller," has been deported from Ireland. He has just completed a sentence ol two months' imprisonment in Dundalk Gaol for his part in the seizure and killing of a number of pigs in Dublin which were about to be shipped to England. SMOKING NOT DISCREDITABLE. At the Old 'Bailey a detective stated that a prisoner was a heavy drinker and smoker. His Lordship: mind the smoking; that is nothing to his discredit. (Laughter.) PAPER CLOTHES FOR THE DEAD. According to the "Gazette de Lausanne," says the Central News Geneva correspondent, the people in Alsace-Lorraine haTe been instructed to bury their dead in paper clothes, "the dead having no right to wear clothes." CZERNIN AND A TENOR. The leading tenor of the Budapest Grand Opera, a* Bohemian named Burian (but not. it appears, a relative of the new AustroHungarian B'oreign Minister), caused a scene during a performance of "Lohengrin" by appearing on the stage intoxicated. When taken to task he said he bad got drunk deliberately to celebrate the fall of Czernin, "the enemy of all Czechs." NEW AERIAL MAIL. SERVICE. An aerial service between Aberdeen and Stavanger is expected to open soon for carrying mall. It is pointed out that economic interests Ijetween. Great Britain and Norway are now co great that Improved postal and passenger service Is a necessity. A new Norwegian air traffic company intends, also, to establish routes •between, the most important Norwegian cities and Copenhagen, Gothenburg, and Stockholm. NICE, JUICY CAMEL MEAT. Hard times in Germany occasionally bring unexpected good luck, as the inhabitants of Zwicbau in Saxony recently found. Hagenbeck, the well known animal trainer of Hamburg, recently went there to show his menagerie, but he did not "strike the hay" because there was a dearth of that article. In short, there was nothing to feed the camels, and for that reason four of them were sold at auction. A thrifty "horse butcher" secured the prizes, anil sold the meat across his counters. "The camel meat," says the report, "found ready sale. It is said to taste like beef, but is much more juicy." PRINCE HENRY OF PRUSSIA. Admiral Prince Henry of Prussia, the Kaiser's brother, who has been in eclipse throughout the war, emerged from oblivion recently as a special emissary to the "Baltic Germans" in Russia. From Reval he proceeded to the ancient Dorpat, where ho held forth at a ceremony in his honour at the ancient university. The Prince assured his andienef that "culture" would be as free and untrammelled in the Germanised Baltic Provinces as it was in Germany itself —a somewhat non-committal promise. The man whom the Kaiser sent to China to punish the Boxers, with instructions to emulate Attila and bis Huns, also said: "I have the honour to belong to a royal bouse which has always upheld justice."

CASTOR OIL FOR AEROPLANES

America, to stimulate the production of castor oil beans. is offering a guaranteed price to farmers in the Southern States. The oil is wanted for aeroplanes. Under the rapid changes in temperature and air pressnre which these machines must encounter in constant transitions from low high elevations, they must have a lubricant which will flow under all conditions of temperature and atmospheric pressure, forming a thin film over every bearing! and which will not carbonise. Castor oil has been found the most satisfactory lubricant in the cirenmstances. The United States is probably, the second world producer of castor oil, of which the world's demands have so constantly and unexpectedly developed.

THE RAT'S SAGACITY. A story told in the "Abolitionist*-- of three rats observed at WaUsend Colliery Northumberland, shows not only the sagacity, but also the altruistic solidarity "of tlu.se despised animals. "Every evening at dusk three rats could be seen crawling shoulder to shoulder to a grain shed in the colliery yard. On reaching the corn, two of the animals hastened away to their hiding place, whilst the third—a very old one —remained and fed. The meal finished, the two young rats scampered back to the grain store, and placing the aged one in her accustomed position in the centre, made! the return journey, with the same measured tread as before. Careful investigation led to the discovery that the old rat was blind and deaf."

THE GENTLE BOLSHEVIST. Two thousand refugees from Russia arrived at a Northern British port recently. Most of them were Scotsmen who had been engaged in various commercial enterprises !in Petrograd and Moscow. Their journey from Archangel had lasted exactly one month (says the London "Evening News"). [ One of the few women passengers corroborated the truth of the stories of theft ,of clothing in the street. In full daylight she was walking in Petrograd when she was stopped by one of the Bolshevist Guards. "I have a fur coat 1 would like to sell to : j you." he said to her. She declined. "I have an excellent coat of my own," she said; "you can see for yourself that it has cost quite a lot of money." "That," he replied, "is the coat I am going to sell you." i [ And It was. >. !

Under the Anti-Loanng Law recently passed, by, the New Jersey Legislature,' everyone is required to put Iα at least 36 hours each week at work of some eort, under pain of a fine of 100 dollars (£2O), three months in gaol, or both. "I cannot and will not consider it any palliation of a crime to say that a man has done his duty to his conutry," said the Common Sergeant (Mr IT. F. Dickens, K.C.) In sentencing an ex-soldier at the Old Bailey to six mouths for forgerr Three justices of the peace, an official shorthand writer, five court clerks two counsel, and two solicitors with their clerk, were required at Middlesex Sessiom recently in a case in which the only point at issue was whether a ceiling in the kitchen of a house should be whitewashed. The argument occupied two houm. «33 FOR A SUIT OF CLOTHES. A person who bas'just arrived at Geneva from Budapest declares, says a Central News correspondent, that he recently sold a suit of clothes which he had worn for two years for SOO kronen (rather more thag £33). The suit originally cost him £4. THE MISSING IKK, The "Church Times ,, has a warning to cc carefully to the arrangement of church, lotices, since the following was lately een outside a provincial church:— Subject Next Week. The Missing Link. ■ The Vicar. HOLLAND AND GERMAN , CHILDREN. In all previous war years Germany has 'armed out a large number of children in Holland for purposes of better nourishnent. The organisation which lias charge >t the annual migration announces that It Till be impossible to send the children thii rear owing to Holland's own food shortage. WAR AND HUNGER TRAGEDY , . One of the war tragedies of incessant Jccurrence in Germany took place in Berin last month. A workman's wife, hatting received official notice of her husband's leath on the western front, asphyxiated herself and her three children, leaving a. note which said that her bereavement, added to the woes of existence in Beri'm to-day, was unbearable. COLOURED SCAVENGERS. Paris streets have recently gained Ml ?icturesq.ueness by the employment of coloured scavengers (says a writer in the "Daily Chronicle") Ebony-hued Senegalese md copper-coloured Arabs from Algiers md Morocco, whose terra-cotta fezes contrast so ilelicioasly with the pale blue solliers' uniform, clean, or affect to clean, metropolitan thoroughfares. In the boulevard there is a giant negrt>, with the lordly gait of On African prince, who trails his besom behind him as majestically as if it were a peacock's feather fan. LITTLE BLIND HEROINE. Rosa Cohen, a blind girl only nine years old, saved the lives of 30 others when fire destroyed part of the Blind Children's Home, at Brooklyn (U.S.A.). Rosa, being roused from sleep by smoke, ran from cot -to cot in the dormitory, awakening eight other blind girls. Then she ran across the hall to the boys' dormitory, and called seven blind boys. ■ A blind leader of the blind, she marched these children to '.'ball." • Knowing they would be safe there till other help came, she next awoke superintendents, nurses, and others. In a few minutes all the children and all the others in danger were in the street, most of them In nightgowns. GIANT'S TEN FEET GRAVE The funeral at Blackburn of a giant named Frederick Kempster, who died while on exhibition in the town, attracted unusual attention, Twenty-nine years of age, Kcrapster was eight feet four inches in height. The coffin was nine feet in length, and had to be removed from the hotel where lie had been staying through the window. It was conveyed to the cemetery in a hearse, the back of which had been taken off. Ten tons of earth had been excavated from the grave, which was ten feet in length, and lour men were required, to lower the coffin. Kempster was in Germany when war broke out, and was interned for some time, this affecting his health considerably. GIRL PEDLARS IN FRANCE. There Is In France at the present time (says the "Manchester Guardian") a nnm- ■ ber of girls from an American college who I are performing relief work of a unique kind. They have taken upon themselves the functions of pedlars, ragpickers, and hucksters In the villages over which the battle ware has ebbed. Every girl is trained in social service, and they travel about with stocks of tinware, pots, pans, clothing, and farm implements. The "pedlars" also sell milk, chickens, rabbits, and gcats. Another service they are trying to render, to reduce costs and foster trade, is the opening up of a chain of grocery stores. The "pedlars" have done a good service towards re-creating the conditions of village life in the devastated land. , TTNCOTTFOII'ED PLEHTTTTDS. There is one corner of the earth big corner too where the cost of living is decreasing. Knibbs, the Commonwealth statistician, reports that in West Australia the cost of 46 main commodities was 1 per cent less in December, 1917, than in the corresponding month of the previous year. Of all the Australian States, West Australia shows the smallest increase in the general cost of living since the outbreak of war— amounts only to 10 per cent. And they have meat, butter, sugar, white bread, jam. fruit, milk, cream, confectionery, sunlight, surf-bathing, sport, and most of the other good things of life- with uncouponed plenitude, says the "Weekly Scotsman." But shipping passage to this earthly paradise is almost as hard to find as the milfc __ of human kindness in a Hun. CIGAR-SMOKING AND THE BLIND. " There is a popular fallacy that blind men do not care to smoke. Visitors to St. Dunstan's, however, very ciuicbly see for themselves that this idea Is quite a mistake. In the jolly little magazine brought out each month by the blinded soldiers there is found an article on this subject appreciatively quoted from "The Teacher of the Blind." Speaking of cigar-smoking, the writer tells an amusing yarn. "Witu care," be writes, "they can be smoked neatly and cleanly, and a subsidiary use to which a blind man can put his cigar is given by 31. Javal. a Paris doctor, who became blind .in middle life. "My cigar,•• he says, "often helps mc to learn the time, when the presence of a visitor precludes my feeling for it on my watch." Truly an ingenious plan; one can readily imagine the good doctor murmuring to himself '.Moa Dieu, if this fellow remains another halfcigar I shall certainly die of enauii' "