NEWS FROM ALL QUARTERS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 65, 17 March 1934, Page 4 (Supplement)

NEWS FROM ALL QUARTERS.

MOTHER'S SHOCK. "I woke up about 3.50 in the morning and missed my daughter. I went and called her. On going on to the balcony saw her lying on the ground below." That was the story told to the liarft London coroner by Mrs. Alice Chandler, whose daughter, Mrs. Emily Hutchins, aged 2S, fell from a balcony clutching her baby. Both were killed. It was stated that Mrs. Hutchins had worried about feeding the baby. The coroner said there was no other verdict than that the mother murdered the child and committed suicide while of unsound mind. CUPID IN CORNED BEEF TIN. Who'd ever dream that there was romance in a tin of corned beef? Yet Mr. Samuel Keeley, of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, who has arrived in London, swears that corned beef will always spell romance for him! Working, three years ago, 111 a large tinned meat factory in the United States, he thought lie would have a little joke, lie wrote a note to ".Miss Unknown, London," bewailing the fact that he was "terrible lonely," and asking the recipient, if she happened to be a girl, and also lonely, to write to him at his Pittsburg lodgings ... A year later—when he had left the meat factory and was earning a big salary 011 the executive board of a great oil company —he received a letter from a young' woman living at Hounslow, London. She had bought a tin, of corned beef at her local grocer's, she '.«aid, and had read the note nho found in it. She gave her name, and enclosed her photograph. And that photograph was so attractive that Mr. Keeley fell in love. Witljin a few months a score or so of letters passed between them. Mr. Keeley then went to London and met his "dream girl." But lie would not disclose her name. "I don't want anybody to go pestering her about her 'romance.' It ?s enough that we are engaged, for I found that my corned beef girl is a thousand times nicer in the flesh than at the other end of a 3000 miles' postal circuit.Mr. Keeley is a son of a man who emigrated from Birmingham to Pittsburg.

NURSE CAVELL "JUSTLY EXECUTED." The execution of Nurse Cavell was referred to by Mr. A. Duff-Cooper, M.P., Financial Secretary to the War Office, in an address to Army officers of the London District at the K.A.M.C. headquarters, at Millbank. He said the time lor sentiment over the matter was now gone, and if ever a woman was justly executed according to the rules of warfare Nurse Cavell was. She was a noble and courageous woman, but she used her position as a nurse to get soldiers back to England. The German soldiers were perfectly entitled to do what they did; but any politician could have told them at once that the execution of that one woman was going to arm 100,000 men against Germany. Soldiers should study politics. BIRDS AT £1000 AN OUNCE. Birds at £1000 an ounce (.£IO,OOO per lbj were on show at the Crystal i'alace, London, recently, the birds were humming birds. Jn Brazil you can go out into your back garden and net tueni. But London is not Brazil, and the climate on Sydenham Hill was Arctic. One humming bird collapsed with the cold. He was only a £10 bird, but his mistress took him in her hand and warmed his circulation into activity. This was the lirst time that these tiny, quivering little creatures have b<?en shown at the Palace. Heating arrangements for each cage had to be devised. Electric wire's conveyed warmth, and every bird had his own thermometer. This should have shown 70deg. Fahr., but somebody turned off the current, and down the temperature went with a bump ! to 00 and lower. Thousands of pounds' worth of humming bird, honey-sucker, and so forth seemed on the way to become I chilled meat. But fortunately the electric current came on again. Apart from three top priccrs at £1000, there were sunbirds, spider birds and flower-peckers marked at £500, £300 and £250. Birds like these do not show themselves in ordinary fashion. One or two had their cages turned into bowers of orchids. Some fluttered amid carnations and maiden-hair fern; others were shimmering atoms of ruby and sapphire and gold among mauve tulips and tropical blooms. CHILD WITH A TAIL. A girl with a tail two inches long was born in London. She was taken by her parents to the Metropolitan Hospital, North London. Her tail is curly, tapers to a point, has "sensitivity,"' and is apparently formed of normal tissue. The surgeons have now decided that it will be removable without affecting the child's health in any way. In all other respects the child is stated to be a perfectly healthy baby. Mr. G i\ Wells, the biologist and son of Mr. Jl. G. Wells, stated that such a survival apparently depended on the manner in which the embryo developed. "All human embryos," lie said, "have tails, but most embryos lost them at a pre-natal period." "I should describe the case as uncommon, but not rare," a leading medical authority stated to a representative of the "Morning Post." j "There must be one of two cases every year." Tails, however, arc not only j found on babies. During the war it was discovered that there were more men with rudimentary tails than had been realised, and some years afterwards the results of a medical investigation on the subject were published. The fact is that a man with even the smallest of tails is i usually secretive about it. Nor does the j tail of the Metropolitan Hospital baby j hold any record in respect of length. In , the museum of the Royal College of Sur- : peons is a six-inch tail which was j removed from another baby, also a girl, 1 ! at the age of three months. I

PET COW IN KITCHEN. "Once upon a time. . ." A family adopted a calf as a pet, and took it to live, just like one of themselves, in their cottage. The calf grew. One day the faruilv realised to their amazement that it had become a sizeable cow, and was too big to get out through the cottage door. They accepted the situation calmly until an inspector of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children inquired why a cow was living in the room in which children played. The mother explained, and finally the "pet" had to be slaughtered on the epot to get it out ol the cottage. This remarkable family lived in the Hampshire countryside, and Lady Beddoe-Rees told story at the N.S.P.C.C. meeting in Southampton. FORD'S BROTHER "FILES." Mr. William Ford, younger brother of Mr. Henry Ford, the multi-millionaire motor car manufacturer, has filed a petition in bankruptcy on behalf of the William Ford Tractor Sales Corporation, in which he holds the controlling interest. The liabilities are declared at £80,000 and the assets nil. William Ford, like his brother Henry, resides in Dearborn, Detroit. In appearance the brothers are strikingly similar—tall, angular, greyhaired. Henry Ford, shy and reserved, has one" son. William, "a good mixer," member of many lojal clubs, and one time head of the Dearborn fire brigade and police committee, is the father of three children. When Henry Ford began to manufacture tractors William started the William Ford Tractor Sales Corporation to sell them. At one time it employed a staff of forty salesmen. William does not even own a motor car. Ho says liis only personal asset is the red-brick house in which lie lives and a small holding of industrial shares. He attributes the bankruptcy of his company to economic depression and the slump in the sale of tractors. William Ford is on the best of terms with his brother Henry, but lie has not asked him for financial assistance. Detroiters say that William would probably not accept it if Henry offered.

JOB LOST FOR KINDNESS. Because lie gave a sandwich to a dog, John Daniel Watt, of Townshend Cottages, St. John's AVood, London, lost his job, and has had to appear at the police court. It happened this way. Watt was delivering goods in Woking when he saw the dog that caused the trouble. It seemed a friendly little creature, and Watt gave it the sandwich. whereupon the dog jumped up into the driver's cabin with him. Later AA att was charged with stealing the animal. He told the magistrate that he intended to take the dog back, but a thick fog prevented his returning to Woking. He would have brought it back when he came to the town later in the week, he added. When he went on to say that he had lost the job he had held for 17 years because the police went to sec him at his work, the magistrates dismissed the case. They added that they would communicate their decision to Watt's employers, in the hope that he might get back his job. STRANGE CANINE GRIEF. The cortege was assembling in Gloucester Road. Coleford, for the funeral of Mr. Alfred Williams, when a large black dog was noticed outside the house. When the coffin was placed in the bier the dog took up its position behind and walked with the mourners through the town to the parish church, which it entered for the memorial service. While Psalm 23 was being chanted the dog stood by the coffin, which rested at the chancel steps. During the hymn it went to the relatives of Mr. Williams, but when prayers were offered by the vicar, the Rev. C. H. M. Fasson, the dog returned to the coffin, where it buried its head between its outstretched paws and remained there until the close of the service. After the service the dog again joined the mourners and accompahied them to the cemetery. During the committal service the dog stood gazing into the grave, and at the conclusion, with a last look at the coffin, turned and accompanied the mourners home, and then disappeared. An extraordinary thing is that the dog belongs to Mr. Spiller, of Coalway, whose son, who recently died, was a patient at the same hospital as the late Air. Williams. It is stated that the dog behaved in the same way at the funeral of Mr. Spiller's son.