NEWS CURIOSITIES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 209, 3 September 1932, Page 3 (Supplement)

NEWS CURIOSITIES.

JOTTINGS FROM WORLD'S PRESS. If a report from Sumatra is correct there has been seen there a "little animal somewhat resembling a human being." The Rajah of Rokar came across it while hunting, and shot it. It was 18 inches tall, and walked upright. Light grey in colour, it had hair on its head "just like a man." The telephone bell buzzed in the police station at Cairo, Illinois. The sergeant lifted the receiver. "This is John Thornton speaking," came a voice. "I am going to kill a man." And he gave an address. The sergeant and other officers dashed off by car to the house. But they were too late. John Thornton had carried out his threat to kill a man. He had killed himself! William Marsters was an English sailor who had three wives. But, unlike the stage sailor whose wives are always in separate porte, William bundled the lot of them into Palmerston Island, off Australia. And lived with them. This was in 1862, and to-day there are over a hundred Marsters. William founded a race! And they are Marsters of all they survey. This is the story of the tell-tale vegetable. An Englishman at Cannes was cutting a cauliflower, and came upon a note concealed in the heart, on which was written: "I sold this for a halfpenny. What did you pay for it?" The Englishman had paid 1/6! Who got the 1/5%? Some middleman has cause for blushing. A fortune hae been found beneath the pillow of an old woman who died of starvation' at Mansura, Egypt. Though the daughter of a deceased Army officer, she had lived the life of a hermit for 30 years, under most miserable conditions. When the police searched her house after her death they found packets of banknotes and bags full of gold and silver coins. In a little village in the Madras Presidency the local inhabitants tswear they have a "miracle"' tree. It had recently fallen down, and was auctioned, the buyer cutting off the branches and leaving the trunk to dry in the sun. A few mornings later gome shepherds saw the trunk rise until it stood upright and as straight as when its roots were firm in the soil. One "explanation." of the "miracle is that a cobra had made its home in the tree, and had made it stand up again just to be comfortable.