NEWS FROM ALL QUARTERS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 164, 13 July 1935, Page 4 (Supplement)

NEWS FROM ALL QUARTERS.

WELSH GOLD. A hundred British miners are now working eight-hour day and night shifts digging for gold where the Romans dug 2000 years ago. An Andover company has reopened the old Ogofari gold mine in the caves at l'umpsaint, Carmarthen. The shaft is 200 feet deep. Gold-bearing quartz has yielded from four to seven pennyweights per ton. Present prices realise seven shillings per pennyweight. RAILWAYS MAGiNET CRANE. An anti-waste movement on British railways is calculated to effect a saving of more than £25,000 a year. Hundreds of tons of scrap metal —odd nuts, bolts, and screws —lie along the tracks. Until now they have been left there as useless scrap. But an electric magnet crane on a wagon is to make periodical tours of the permanent way. It will pick up every piece of scrap metal. 10 MILLION BIRDS GO BY TRAIN. A man sent the first pair of racing pigeons by rail in Britain 30 years ago. During the present pigeon racing season, until the end of September, more than 10,000,000 passenger pigeons will be conveyed by train. The growth of the racing pigeon traffic has made it necessary to run special pigeon trains and time-tables. Specially constructed vans are capable of carrying 2000 birds at .a time. Every van is accompanied by a convoyer, who looks after the birds' comfort. The time of their release, light, and weather conditions are noted on a label on each basket before it is returned. THREE-FEET "KILLER" CAT SHOT. The "Killer of Helvellyn," which has killed scores of lambs and sheep in the mountains of the Lake District of England, has been shot dead by a farmer. It was not, as suspected, a dog, but a cat three feet long. Mr. John Dargue, a Westmorland sheepbreeder, who had lost a great number of sheep, organised a search by armed farmers. After hours of waiting Mr. Dargue saw a dark object in the shadows of a wall of his farm. The animal leaped to the top of the wall, and from 20 yards Mr. Dargue fired and the animal bounded out of sight. Next morning the ahimal was found dead in a field from gunshot wounds. Shepherds in the district have recognised the cat as one of a number which have been living wild in the woods all the winter.

£20 A HEAD FOR ADULT EDUCATION. Sir Godfrey Collins, Secretary of State for Scotland, said recently that the Government was prepare! to contribute £20 a head to a scheme for adult education. He was discussing the proposal to use Newbattle Abbey as a residential adult educational college for Scotland at a British Institute of Adult Education meeting at Newbattle. What Wales has done for eight years at Harlech might now be attempted in Scotland. "W r e are prepared to make an annual grant to the college provided that financial, administrative and educational arrangements of a satisfactory and really practical nature are proposed by some thoroughly representative body of managers. Such grant would be on a capitation basis of about £20 a year for each full session pupil." "MORAL DANGERS" OF HIKING. What he called the "moral dangers" of adolescents taking part in week-end hiking were referred to by Mr. W. Cash, of the Oxford and Bermondsey Club, at the Southwark Diocesan conference. The miral and physical dangers of the habit whereby organised parties in a somewhat unorthodox manner spent week-ends in the country, he said, were serious. The adolescent council of the diocese was trying to find a house within easy reach of London, at which week-ends could be organised under proper control. Mr. Stanley Baron, "News Chronicle" open road correspondent comments:- —"Reasonable supervision already exists. The growth among young people of week-end hiking liaa been largely consequent on the growth of the Youth Hostels Movement. The hostels are controlled by wardens, usually man and wife. There are no married quarters. My own observations suggest that healthy minds and healthy bodies still go sufficiently well together to satisfy most people and that further control would in any case be harmful rather than beneficial." SPIRITUALIST SPLIT. An editorial defence of a report by Dr. Harold Cummins, published in London, on ectoplasmic fingerprints, has caused the American Society of Psychical Research to dismiss Mr. Frederick B. Bond, editor of its journal. Mr. Bond, in the May issue of the journal, approved of Dr. Cummins' report, which ascribed the fingerprints to a Boston dentist rather than to "Walter," who was described as the dead brother of the medium "Margery." He said that the society should have declared in the most emphatic manner the vindication of Mr. E. E. Dudley, who had long contended that the so-called "Walter" prints were actually those of a dentist using the fictional name of Dr. Kerwin. In condemning Mr. Bond's action, the trustees of the society "apologised" for the article, which, it was contended, showed that the society, its members, and the public had been "victimised by a conspiracy to procure fraudulent publication of the views of the conspirators as being the views of the society." Following his dismissal, Mr. Bond made the charge that the policy of the trustees was fixed by a group "more or less pledged to support a particular interest, namely, the mediumship of Mrs. Jrandon ("Margery") and the advocacy if its supernormal character." This is the second time that American psychical ■ireleg have split over "Margery."

FREE WHEELING TO SCHOOL The pupils of the new sen i or 1 Handby, Hants., are the envy s N schoolchildren. Hampshire Countvn all ' eh Education Committee find it • IS vcnient to arrange an omnibus serri? C ? tt " it the school, so they have decided t 1 i vide free bicycles, on condition tW PI L°" H children's parents undertake to non n - are looked after. The bicycle ■ 1 become the children's property after ♦i.* 1 ' 1 # years. r &J GRETNA GREEN "MARRIAGEDECLARED NULL. ,ii Another Gretna Green romance ,„j , in the Court of Sessions, Edinbureh ST 1 Lord Carmont declared null the W fl of Miss Florence Hunter, an ac& 6 1 Sidney George Smith, an actor of TT„7j N.W. Miss Hunter, whose really I Florence Margaret Hall-Brown sueXV ,i decree of nullity on the groundTa. ' the marriage was never properly P formed and was not legal. She s&d th'' she and Mr. Smith were members It travelling company called "Kissine Tim ? 1 and in February, 1922, they eloped a L p were married ovec the anvil at G r » p Green. Lord Carmont declared tl ; marriage null, on the grounds that neith ■ of the parties had been resident in fW f§ laud for the required 21 days. j£ WHEN TEA IS A POISON. The Central Narcotics Bureau in 0.;, P has beaten the drug traffickers and almost put an end to the smuggling of hashS and heroin—but a new menace ha 8 crew into Egypt unobserved. It is tea. B] a i. tea has become a habit with Egyptian and constitutes a graver danger th' drugs. Before the war tea drinking unknown to the Egyptians, except in tie western oases, where the habit picked up from the Arabs. Black teat prepared by the natives in such a manner that it becomes an exceedingly dangerous narcotic. It is boiled over and over again with fresh leaves continuously added, so that it becomes a heavy brown mixture, exceedingly harmful to the constitution and producing all the nervous effects of toxic infections. Doctors report that native workers will go without food and deny their families to buy the tea. The standard of work has decreased and the natives receive less pay. As it is not illegal to drink black tea the Central Narcotic Intelligence Bureau is striving to teach the natives the right way to prepare the tea.

PETROL FOR WAR. Vast petrol dumps to supply the Air ■ Force and other essential services in time > of war are to be prepared in well-guardw | parts of Britain without delay. Present , supplies of petrol would be exhausted in j a few days under war conditions. «itn j the large-scale expansion of the Royal Air Force announced in the House of Commons recently the need for adequate petrol and oil supplies becomes more urgent. Germany and other Continental i Towers have already created great pet™ ; dumps, which are constantly being added | to. Supplies thus available amount to millions of gallons.