CALL TO A THRONE

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 69, 22 March 1934, Page 7

CALL TO A THRONE

SUBURBAN HOUSEWIFE. LONDON", March 16. A London suburban housewife is awaiting a call to share with lier husband the throne of the State of Sinkiang. Bordered by Russia, Afghanistan and India, the State, formerly part of China, is now in the throes of civil war. Undeterred by any fears of falling into the hands of wild tribesmen or fanatical religious devotees, she will shortly leave London to take pail in the coronation. Like a story from the "Arabian Nights" is the odyssey of Bertram Sheldrake, a middle-class Londoner, who a few years ago embraced the Moslem faith and iater became Sheik of the British Moslems. He set out for Asia as a Mohammedan missionary, and travelled extensively as a nomad preacher. When he came to Sinkiang, now torn by civil war, the chiefs welcomed him as a saviour and invited him to rule the State. He accepted and renamed the country Islamistan. He is now tackling the task of controlling the roaming brigands and making the country efficient on modern lines.

WALKING "CORPSE." REFUSED TO DIE HEALTHILY. LONDON, March 15. How a Moscow workman refused to die with decorum, but lived to face charges of swindling and with having been drunk and disorderly, is related by the Moscow correspondent of the "Daily Telegraph." The workman assured the Court that the doctor attending him told him, "Prepare to get your little box and bake yourself in the crematorium. You'll die to-morrow. Don't excite yourself. Try to die healthily, as a good Marxian should. I'll leave" the death certificate now in order to save my goloshes by making another visit."

The worker felt better in the morning, so took the certificate and obtained the funeral insurance money. With this ho bought a bottle of vodka. When he returned home to his tenement, the secretary said: "But you're only a corpse. I can't allow corpses to live here. You're not really alive, but only pretending." "Don't you bully a proletarian corpse." yelled the infuriated worker.

The police intervened and arrested the vodka drinker.

LONGEVITY STAKES. OLDEST MEN DEAD-HEAT. CALCUTTA, March 15. Claiming to be aged 160 years, a Khattack landowner, Bazgul Khan, challenges tho statement that the world's oldest man is Zaro Agha, of Constantinople. Bazgul Khan lives in the village of Tappi, near Kohat. He has sons aged 100 and 99 years, and is in excellent health. His eyesight and teeth are good. This claim from the Punjab seems to mean a dead-lieat. A recent cablegram from Constantinople announced that Zaro Aglia, who also claims IGO years, was making preparations for his thirteenth marriage.