NEWS CURIOSITIES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 85, 11 April 1931, Page 3 (Supplement)

NEWS CURIOSITIES.

JOTTINGS FROM U.S.A. PRESS. (By Ira Wolfert.) Although she is 103 years old, Mrs. Mary Ann Smith, of Lincolnshire, England, still rises at 8 a.m. daily and performs her household duties. Virtually a new face had to be grafted on 10-year-old Edna Roberts, of Swansea, Wales, as a result of lacerations when hit by an automobile. The operation was a complete success. Mrs. Amelia Bay ley, of Hnll, England, was sent to goal for four months for beating her husband and breaking his arm when he criticised tier cooking. Now he can criticise his own.

A young woman arrested in London toxin toxication gave her name as Constance Marie Angelina Sylvia Muriel Gladys Jones. "Spell it right," she said to the scowling desk sergeant. When Patrolman William J. Smith was an hour and a half late for roll call, and explained that he had fallen asleep on his beat, police commissioners sentenced him to lose immediately 601b. If the patrolman succeeds he will weigh a meagre 2201b. Mrs. Harriet Craycroft, of Trenton, New Jersey, came from a section of England where a black cat crossing one's path is regarded as a sign of good luck. When one passed before her in the street recently she stopped to stroke it, heedless of the traffic about her. As she straightened up after petting the animal, a large motor truck struck her and crushed her to death. Seven years after his wife died, .Tohann Friedlander, of Detroit, was able to accumulate enough money to erect a suitable tombstone in her memory. On the evening of the day when the workmen placed the stone in position on supports, Friedlander took his eight-year-old daughter to the cemetery. As the girl walked to the grave she accidentally displaced one of the supports, and the heavy stone fell upon her. She died in a few minutes. August Siano, 43, of New York, on trial on an assault charge made by Vincent Scarfo, a neighbour, was asked whether he had been drunk at the time. " No," he replied stoutly. " How many drinks did you have?" persisted District Attorney Joseph Loscalzo. "About twelve glasses of wine," Siano answered. " And you weren't drunk?" "Why, of course not," Siano retorted, more in pity than scorn, " J. have to drink a barrel of wine before I- get drunk." Siano was acquitted by the jury, after three minutes' deliberation. A villager from the hamlet of Falva, near Budapest, Hungary, found more than 100 crows asleep in a field. First, the man thought they were dead, and, surprised at their number, poked about them, investigating. Some of theni woke up, flapping groggily. _ Soon all were aroused. They flew upside down, topsy-turvy, or just stumbled along on the ground in the manner of an American returning from a visit to Canada. The villager then found along the road a broken jug of sweet Hungarian wine. It had fallen, presumably, . off a truck, and the crows had been attracted.

A familiar figure approached the desk sergeant in a Kansas City police station and proffered 1000 dollars in bills. " I want to post a bond/' he said. " What, Tony." asked the desk sergeant, " pinched again:' " " Nope, but 1 want to save time. Patrolmen come into my saloon almost every day and put me in gaol. I'm sure they'll be m to-day, and as I was buying some vegetables at the city market, I thought J. stop in here and leave my bond, liiat l J I wouldn't have to make twotnpstoths part of town." was very but he couia y S? about " lack of CO -Com : ight N.A.N.A. and "Auckland Star."