NEWS FROM ALL QUARTERS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 181, 1 August 1936, Page 4 (Supplement)

NEWS FROM ALL QUARTERS.

TO ONE PHONE CALL—£2BO. How much would you pay to propose? Sir Walter Womersley, assistant-Post-master-General in Britain, speaking to members of the Stationers' Association at Scarborough, told of one man who proposed over the Atlantic telephone. Cost of the call — £280. Commented Sir Walter: "In a couple of years the proposer might consider the call worth the money —or he might not. That is, I believe, the most one person 'has paid for a Transatlantic call." TYPISTS MUST SHOOT. Twenty-three girl typists are learning to shoot at Kansas City ; Missouri, by order of the police commissioner. They work in Kansas City's Police Department and are now practising regularly with the heavy police revolvers. They have been told they must learn to shoot fast and accurately in any emergency. Technically, the department has no policewomen, but the girls from headquarters frequently are used by the detective bureau as "decoys," investigators and collectors of evidence.

NAPOLEON'S EMERALDS. Countess Haugwitz-Reventlow (formerly Miss Barbara Hutton) is reported in Paris to have bought emeralds once owned by Napoleon 111. They are said to have been sold—for £240,000 —by Mme. Ganna Walksa, the Polish prima donna and former wife of Mr. Harold. F. McCormick, Chicago millionaire. The emeralds were given by Napoleon 111. to the Countess dc Castiglione. When Mme. Ganna Walksa was asked about tlie report, she said, "I don't wish to discuss the majter." The sale, it is stated, was made 'when the countess was in Paris recently on a shopping tour. ROBOT PILOT. After six years of experiment, scientists and engineers employed by the United Air Lines of America have perfected a robot pilot. It not only stabilises the aeroplane in flight and holds it on its course, but also makes a perfect landing without hitman aid. The new gyro-type has been tested hundreds of times in all sorts of weather during the last three months and has never failed or made a bad landing. All the human pilot has to do is throttle back the engines to landing speed. The robot device then lands the aeroplane and applies the brakes. The robot guides the aeroplane to earth down a curved radio beam. In the event of a failure of the beam or of the device a warning buzzer tells the human pilot to take over the controls.

ITEMS OF INTEREST IN PASSING

NOW HE KNOWS BETTER. A man who used the Stars and Stripes to wipe grease off his hands was sentenced to salute the flag at police headquarters at Battle Creek, Michigan, every morning for a month. Dan Keeler, who did not deny the offence, was caught redhanded by two policemen and immediately arrested. In the police court he testified that he had found the flag in the back of a secondhand car be bought and did not realise that he was doing anything wrong. His sentence was suggested to the court by the prosecutor. PACE CREAM OBJECTION. Because her fiance, a widower, did not like the smell of her face cream and boat her, Mashinka Aksentievitcli, of Jupanjatz, Yugoslavia, weilt to Court —but she has lost her case. She sued her fiance, Givan Kretovitcli, for damages and for maltreating her, explaining to the v Court that, as was the custom in the district, sho went to her fiance "on trial." But he beat her and turned her adrift. Givan excused his action on the ground that he could not stand the smell of her face cream. The Court upheld his attitude. i PALACE FOR CLERKS. Whitehall's £3,250,000 ' new Government offices will accommodate only 5350 clerks. So announced Mr. J. Salmon, office of works director, when the bill authorising their erection was approved by a Select Committee. The lucky 5350 will be collected from temporary huts and basements in Whitehall and from other buildings all over Westminster. Net cost per office stool: just under £607 10/. But the taxpayer will save. Rent of £125,000 a year is now paid to house this staff. On the basis of a sixty-years' sinking fund the new offices will cost £100,000 a year. HUGE FLOWER GARDEN. An enormous preserve for flowers and trees is being planned over an area of 1800 square miles round Moscow. The organisers of the scheme, the Commissariat of the timber industry, also intend to provide a preserve for the breeding of elk, reindeer, beavers, raccoons, pheasant and wild duck. The flower preserve will include a rich variety of trees. Manchurian palms, lianas, mulberry trees and silver and blue birches. Huge rosarias and gardens will be planted in places now covered by virgin forest, while avenues of trees and orchards will also take their place in the new preserve. UGLY CINEMA POSTERS BAN. Complaining ' that the beauties of Simla, seat of the Indian and Punjab Governments during the summer months, are being disfigured by the indiscriminate posting of film advertisements, the municipality lias threatened to prosecute managers of all local cinemas. If steps are not taken to control the bill-sticking, the municipality will charge managers as "aiders and abetters."

In the opinion of the authorities, there is only one way to control the posting—by giving the bill-stickers definite instructions and a limited number of bills. To control this posting, very stringent by-laws covering billposting are being drafted.