NEWS FROM ALL QUARTERS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 261, 4 November 1933, Page 4 (Supplement)

NEWS FROM ALL QUARTERS.

INSTALLATION OF BRIGHT MOONLIGHT. Night will soon be day in various London suburbs as well as Margate. The local authorities at Lewisham, Palmers Green, New Southgate, and Finsbury (where 10 miles of roads are affected) will shortly in'stal th§ remarkable lighting system that has been on trial at Wembley. An official of the General Electric Company, who are responsible for the lilamentless mercury vapour lamps, said: —"The power of the lights lies in the amazing degree of additional safety they provide for motorists and pedestrians. They are the nearest approach to moonlight ever attained, and although the system gives two and a half times more light than any other, it consumes no more current."

NOVEL USE FOR STOLEN SAFE. A safe stolen in the West End was stated at the Old Bailey to have been ripped to pieces and used in the construction of an ornamental fountain in the garden of a bungalow at Morden. Leonard Edward Williams, building contractor, who lived at the bungalow, admitted receiving property stolen from houses and warehouses, and was sentenced to five years' penal servitude. In addition to a quantity of stolen property found at the bungalow the police found the case of an automatic pistol, 48 rounds of ammunition, several false motor car number plates and numbers which could be pasted on number plates. "Williams," added the inspector, "is the ringleader of a gang of dangerous housebreakers." Lily Maxwell (25), dressmaker, charged with Williams, was found not guilty and was discharged.

SHORTER VOYAGES. A compass has been invented that will shorten sea voyages. The instrument is claimed to ensure much greater accuracy in keeping to a set course. The inventor, Commander George Paxton, the yachtsman, who has improved several . optical instruments, said that the compass can be used by the ocean liner and the smallest yacht. Travelling to America, for instance, ships will save at least 20 miles. An item worth considering. "Helmsmen using it can keep a more accurate course than by the ordinary compass," he added, "because the Paxton Sight instantly reflects any change, and it can be read at a distance of • 10ft. The apparatus contains a magnified vertical image which covers 30deg of an illuminated compass card. It is possible to see the slightest deviation the ship is making from her true course and instantly to correct the error."

TYPIST ON "RIGHT TO END LIFE." "If my body is of any use to the local hospital they can have it. It may be of interest to discover what was really the cause of my internal trouble." This note was written by Miss Lucy Mabel Smellie, ayed 44, a shorthand-typist, of Cambridge Road, Southend, who was found gassed. At the inquest a book, entitled "From the Other Side," belonging to Miss Smellie, was produced. The coroner said there was a passage marked with pencil which read: "He claimed the right to end a life no longer worth living." A verdict of suicide while of unsound mind was recorded. FATE PLAYS PRANKS. Normally, a man hit by a crashing 'plane would be killed. So also would a man on whom a ton a clay fell. But there are two men alive to-day who have survived such experiences. Here are their stories: — A man watching an air circus at Aberdeen was struck by an aeroplane which crashed on the esplanade, and after wrecking the windscreen of a car toppled over on the sands. The man got up and walked away, but was later taken to hospital. The pilot of the 'plane escaped injury, while the passengers in the car received only cuts from the broken glass. Edward McGrath, of North Street, Marylebone, was working at the bottom of a trench at New Barnet, Hertfordshire, when a ton of clay fell on him. . His mates were amazed to hear him calling for help. Guided by his voice, they dug him out. And McGrath, spurning the attentions of a doctor and of an ambulance, insisted on going home by train as usual. Afterwards he went to the pictures. LIONS LEAP AT FASTING GIRL. A lion on exhibition at Blackpool broke out of its cage and defied capture for nearly an hour. For part of the time attendants were chasing the lion, but at times the lion was chasing the attendants. Its first leap from the cage was into a cabinet where a girl, Joyce Wotton, was fasting. She screamed and collapsed and later was taken home suffering from shock. A boy of 17, Norman Turner, who dashed through a window on to the balcony with the animal at his heels, turned and clubbed it on the head with the butt end of a rifle, knocking it back into the room. With another bound the lion entered a stall containing prizes and tore many articles to pieces. A bait of meat was ignored. The lion had just been fed. But at last the attendants closed on it with barricades and di'ove it back into its cage. The escape and chase occurred on the first floor of an amusement arcade on the promenade. No members of the public were present and people on the ground floor were unaware of their danger until urged to get out quickly. The doors of the i building were then closed until the lion was caged. !

BOY AND GIRL AS MINERS. In a courageous fight against unemployment, a mining family of five living near Crook (.County Durham) have completed the remarkable feat of sinking and working their own pit. Striking a rich seam of coal, they are now supplying neighbouring consumers direct from the pit-head. This example of family grit is due to the initiative of Mr. Thomas Suggett, the father, who, together with his two sons, Jonathan, aged 20, and John, aged 17, were thrown out of work owyig to the closing of local collieries. Mr. Suggett has long entertained a theory that there were large quantities of coal in a field near his home at Hargill Hill, and he immediately opened negotiations with the Ecclesiastical Commissioners for a lease of the royalties. This obtained, the family began the sinking of a shaft 40 yards deep. A boiler and steam winch, which had previously formed part of a ship's machinery, were erected and small coal tubs made. Mrs. Suggett is the surface mechanic, oiling the steam winch and other mechanism and hauling the little tubs to the surface. Jonathan does most of the arduous work at the coalface. John, together with his sister Edith, who is only 16 years of age, attends to the coal when it reaches the surface. "Sometimes we work as many as 18 hours a day, but it has been worth it," said Mr. Suggett. "Up to now it has been nearly all outlay, and we have sunk nearly all the family savings in the venture besides putting in months of hard work. Now we expect to get our money back and something over."

UNIQUE CHARITABLE MISSION. Probably the only organisation of its kind in the world, a society composed entirely of coloured people born in all the i ports of the Seven Seas, is performing a j great charitable work in Tiger Bay, the famous Cardiff Docks area. Coloured men and women of various nationalities are generally regarded as hostile to one another, but the members of this organisation make real sacrifices to assist the weedy. It was started by Mr. William Bowyer, a Cardiff business man, who lias been engaged in social work among coloured people for over 2S years. Mr. Bowyer, in conjunction with the London Christian Community, opened it as a religious, mission in Angelina Street. It runs a Sunday school attended by hundreds of coloured children. The members contribute, according to their means, to a pool. All the money is used for charitable purposes, there being no salaries for the coloured secretary and his staff. ANCHORED TO VOLCANO. How a Japanese warship was accidentally anchored to a '"live" volcano and lifted 30 feet high by a tidal wave in the Pacific was reported to the Admiralty at Tokyc. The officer on watch in a shallowwater sloop stated that his vessel, while anchored at night in a lagoon off an uninhabited island south-east of the Carolines, was suddenly torn from her moorings and raised 30 feet. A moment before the sea had been as calm as a pond. The tidal wave was accompanied by a sound of hissing. As the ship came down with the wave she almost heeled over. She was righted and taken under full steam to the open sea. There it was found that part of her bow had been carried away with the anchor chain. When she returned to the scene of her strange experience the following morning the island had disappeared and the sea was strewn for miles around with dead fish and tangled palms. The ship was one of a number engaged in a survey of uninhabited Pacific islets.

MAN OF NO COUNTRY. The man without a country, Pasquala Graziadio, sailed from Liverpool recently on a further stage of his 15,000-mile quest for a home. Carrying an Italian passport, he left for the United States in a British ship, the Laconia, to rejoin his wife and three children in Roxbury, Massachusetts. Three countries have been unable to agree on Pasquale's nationality, and for two years he has searched in vain for a country

where he is not an alien. This international tangle began in the closing years of the last century, when Pasquale came from Italy to South Shields with his Italian parents. He served throughout the war with the British Army. Then he went to Canada, and in 1923 crossed the border into the United States without a passport. In 1930 Pasquale was deported from the.United States. When he landed in Italy the authorities insisted that he was a British subject. Pasquale returned to South Shields —only to find that officially he was not a British subject, though he had lived there for 25 years. However, he has now been able to get a non-quota Italian passport, with which he will be able to stay in the United States.

WHERE HOT KETTLE FREEZES. Men with one of the worst jobs in the world prepared at St. Andrew's Dock, Hull, for the most hazardous fishing trip known. It is the 1800-mile race to the Bear Island fishing grounds, 600 miles inside the Arctic Circle, and less than 1000 miles from the North Pole. The Bear Island fishing grounds have been closed for two months by order of the Government, but opened again on October 1. The seas round Bear Island are the roughest in the world, and last year swallowed eight Hull trawlers and their crews. It is a realm of almost perpetual darkness, for it is daylight for less than two hours a day. The fishermen "work the clock round in a temperature that is often 30 degrees below zero. It is so cold that a kettle of hot- water will freeze if carried from one end .of the open deck to the other, and the fish freeze as hard as stone as soon as they are lifted out of the water. The trawlers spend about a week fishing, and then race back to Hull with their catch.

"DROWNED" WOMAN ALIVE. A woman who disappeared months ago, and the wherebouts of whose body were thought to have been located by a water diviner and spiritualists in the canal at Thurmaston, near Leicester, was found in London suffering from loss of memory. She is Mrs. E. Jordan, of Leicester, and she disappeared on June 20. Following a fruitless search, Mr. Clarke, the AbKettleby water diviner, who has successfully discovered bodies by means of his twigs, was called in. After, it is stated, a compass which he placed on the floor of a room had pointed towards Thurmaston he went to that place, and stated that the presence of the body—in the canal—was indicated. Spiritualists, who were consulted, agreed with him.

Part of a dress which was thought to have belonged to Mrs. Jordan was found in the water during dragging operations. On hearing that Mrs. Jordan was in a shelter for the destitute in South London, her daughter went there and identified her. She said: "We thought she was drowned, and were waiting for her body to rise to the surface of the canal." It is not known how Mrs. Jordan reached London.