NEWS FROM ALL QUARTERS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 83, 8 April 1933, Page 4 (Supplement)

NEWS FROM ALL QUARTERS.

SMOKERS EXCEL AS STUDENTS. Creighton University (Omaha) students who smoke had their innings when a test showed that, as a class, they were better scholastically than the non-smokers. Furthermore, Dr. Thomas L. Houlton, of the university niedical school, upheld the findings. "Moderate smoking tends to make a student more composed and aids him in application to his work and concentration on difficult problems," he said. VITAL LULLABIES. Lack of music, due to hospital bans on singing and to the inability of modern mothers to croon cradle songs, are held responsible by Professor Franz Hamburger, head of the Viennese University Children's Clinic, for many of the ills of babies. He was backed by Professor Moll, who regards it as a lack in modern child hygiene that hospitals, with all their equipment, have failed to meet one of the child's most natural demands —that for mother songs. FASHION SPIES. A vast spy system organised to steal the fashion secrets of great Paris dressmakers has been uncovered. In an hotel room ' have been found 300 copies of the latest spring fashions produced by the bestknown designers of Paris. The man who occupied the room has disappeared. These sketches,' which are the work of clever artists, are believed to have been made secretly at recent exhibitions of new modes. They have been reproduced in large quantities and offered at. a few shillings each to visitors to Paris. Quantities of these sketches have also been sent abroad, and a long list of agents all over the world was also found. PILLS FOR ?ULUS. Unusual experiments with a new medicine in tabloid form as a preventive of malaria are at present being made in Znlularid under the direction of the Assistant Medical Officer of Health for Natal. Recently he addressed a. tribe of natives in the Tugela Valley and suggested that the whole tribe submit to tile experiment. A good deal of explanation was necessary as the natives wanted to knowwhy they bad been selected for the experiment instead of other tribes. In the end, however, they were reassiired by their chief and agreed to the test. This particular . tribe suffered very badly during the recent malaria epidemic. For the experiment to be effective it is necessary for every individual to be treated simultaneously, and a native niedical assistant has been stationed with the tribe to see that the pills are taken regularly.

POOR SAMPLES. "Steak and kidney pie" that contained no kidney, "cheese" in sandwiches that showed no trace of milky origin, and "whisky" that had come mainly from water taps, were among the finds of public analyst in 1931, according to the Ministry of Health's newly published report. Other familiar grievances were "egg powder" made of coloured baking powder "with little or no egg," strawberry jam of which only one-quarter had anything to do with strawberries, and raspberry jam aided and abetted by 21 per cent of apple and 1 per cent of "gingelli seeds. Most interesting of all was the sample that contained '"fibrous material, string and packing." But in spite of i creams" and "ice creams'' and other anposters, the percentage of poor samples analysed was lower than in 1930—4.6 against 4.8. CARD-SHARPERS AT MONTE CARLO. One year's imprisonment and fines of 500 francs each were meted out by the Monaco tribunal to the three ringleaders of a gang of ten men accused of having defrauded thousands of gamblers at Monte Carlo. They were arrested last October. The gang were alleged to have treated the cards with a chemical preparation which rendered them transparent to anyone equipped with a special kind of glasses. Thus, a man standing behind the croupier could see what cards were dealt out and, by a sign, inform an accomplice who was playing against the bank. Two employees ol the International Sporting Club, who were accused of assisting the gang to obtain and tamper with the playing cards, were also sentenced, one to eight months' imprisonment with a fine of 200 francs, and the other to eight months' imprisonment with a fine of 100 francs. CATARACT CURE CLAIMED. Professor Philatoff, of Odessa University, states that he has cured 24 cases of cataract out of 96 in which a cure was attempted, by grafting a piece of healthy cornea from a fresh corpse on to the affected eye. The nine months' struggle that follow-s between the "window" of healthy tissue and the old diseased cornea decides the success or failure of the opera- ' tion. The operation only takes five I; minutes. Animal cornea cannot be grafted I • on to human eyes. A campaign to stamp , out trachoma, a scourge from which aI. million and a half Russians are suffering, was launched recently. Cataract, technically described as an opaque condition of the lens of the eye, is an increasingly common compliant which can be cured only by a surgical operation. It occasions partial blindness simply by obstructing the passage of light, and after the age of 45 it I becomes increasingly common. Its precise causes are uncertain. KING AS FLAX GROWER. The "Daily Mail" understands that by the King's express wish 100 acres of his Sandringham estate will be sown with flax this month. Many farmers in the vicinity are following the Royal example, and great interest is being taken in Norfolk in this attempt to create a new agricultural industry. This development is the direct result of the interest which the King has shown in the experiment of 1931. when he consented to the planting of three acres of Sandringham with flax under supervision of the Linen Research Association, and the . Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. The experiment proved most successful. The resulting crop was shipped to linen factories in Northern Ireland, and was found to yield 201b per ton more fibre than the Russian product, on which hitherto the hnen industry lias been largelv dependent. The crop of Norfolk flax this year will again be sent to Ulster factories, but it is hoped in the near future to establish a linen factory or factories in Norfolk! itself. Land at Babingley Cross, near Sandringham, has aready been selected as a provisional site. j

LEGENDARY ISLAND SEARCH. There is much talk in Ostend about , cargo vessel named Surprise, whion l built in 1903 by English shipbuilders ?£ is now undergoing repairs and altera'tir.*. in dry dock at Ostend. The Surnris X* been purchased by a Belgian, Baron Z Caters, a well-known traveller, who \Z mostly m London and in Spain « ■ now believed that he is engaged in an J? ploration venture—the attempted rerf?' covery in.the Indian Ocean of a WendarJ island. z U< "J

CANARIES SAVED IN A FIRE. When Mrs. Mary Lambert (731 ' widow, of Fore Street, Edmonton, L,J her house on lire, she ran into the street m her night attire shouting: "My bhvki Oh, save .my birds!" A young oanSi was passing climbed on the shoulders n f a friend, opened her bedroom window an] hauled one canary in its cage to safel The Edmonton brigade soon had the oiif break under control. A second canarv was found lying senseless in its ca»e It was taken into the open air and revived GIRL AND THE LEGION. Miss Dorothy Harkus, of Charlevill. Road, West Kensington, visited Casa blanca, Morocco, to see her fiance Mr Alexander, a corporal in the French Foreign Legion. Miss Harkus went into the interior and for weeks lived in a small Arab hut with one barred window Bar only companion was an Arab, woman Shi saw Mr. Alexander occasionally ' and spent her time exploring the land and seeing the legionnaires at .work Mr Harkus, her brother, told a reporter that they, are Australians, and. for years haVa spent,the winter abroad. His sister ka. travelled about the world. '•" '' MISLED BY THE MOON. A very rare occurrence; rr/ Morocco marked the end -of the month's fast of Ramadan. The Moors, were .waitins to see the new moon which would indicate the conclusion of the fast, bat .the weather being cloudy the moon was invisible over the greater part of the country »t Larache, to the south of Tangier;however the sky was clearer. Sonie of' the faith' fill there endeavoured to telepUone the glad tidings.to the clouded districts but for some reason the telephone did not function normally. . The result "was that in the trench zone the fast lasted twenty-four hours longer than it should have done, and the customary lamb sacrf. nee did not take place.

\ THE YEAR'S BRAVEST DEED. The most gallant deed of the year to come under the -notice of the Royal Humane Society is that of a British engineer, Mr. Benjamin K. Spencer (38). of JUipspruit Sewage Farm, Johannesburir who rescued three natives. He was granted the Stanhope gold medal of the society at the annual court. A native worker, it was stated, went down a manhole at the farm to remove a blockage and was overcome by sewer gas/ Two other natives followed, and they also were overcome. Mr. Spencer then went down with a rope round his waist and his face covered with a cloth soaked in. chemicals He fastened a second rope to the men," and they were hauled up one by one. He himself was drawn up unconscious. BETRAYED BY A PARROT. One hnudred and thirty-five Communist* were arrested at Warsaw owing to the information given by a parrot. A man recently applied to the head teacher of certain Jewish religious dresses asking whether he could use the classrooms for evening classes. The teacher consented, and every evening large crowds of'students sat in the rooms for, hours. All would have been well had it not been for a parrot kept by the teacher's wife. It <<?f an »° re P ea * such words as "Lenin," Marx, "committee," and "revolution" to the great surprise of,its' owner. It was found after a' time -that :the"bird, which was in a cage hanging in a passage near the evening classes,- learned'the words from the students. .The-news reached tne police, who rounded- up the students. DIVORCE FROM DEAD WIFE. According to a report.: in the "Neae Freie Presse'" a divorce suit has been brought at Szegedin, in Hungary-, against a dead woman. The plaintiff, a Landowner who is aged 72. lived happily with Ins wife for 42 years. She died four months ago J n addition to asking for divorce the landowner demands that two ot tne children who! have .hitherto-passed as his be forbidden V use his-name any onger. The plaintiff states that after ifi Tx! S death he ' found a .frox containing 184 letters written by various men who were, he alleges, her.lovers. Two of these men, he says, were the fathers of a son and a daughter of his wife. Heassertsth.it the letters clearly prove that Ms late wife • deceived him for years after their marrit„ «j lnd "f .therefore requests the Court tL f I,m fra, » her in spite of the fact that she is dead