SYDNEY SCENE.

Auckland Star, Issue 18, 22 January 1940, Page 5

SYDNEY SCENE.

"MY LAST FLOWERS. ,,

OLD MAN'S TRAGIC END.

FIERCE FIGHT IN HOTEL.

(From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, January 18

"These are the last flowers I bring you. I I will maet you in heaven." This pathetic note was found in a bunch of shasta daisies on a grave in Wavorley cemetery 'beside the 'body of a man who had a bullet wound in his head. A revolve/ was found nearby. A woman saw the man, who was later identified as Louie. Albert Curtis, aged 84, laying beside the grave in which his wife had been buried exactly two years before. He was hurried to hospital, but died 20 minutes after hie admission. Police left undisturbed on the grave the daisies which were the old man's last tribute to his wife. Sixth Trip Successful. A former taxi driver, Mr. Georg» O'Brien, who built himself a 35ft ketch, the Hiepaniola, surprised his relatives on Monday with a cable announcing that he had reached Lord Howe Island on Sunday evening. They thought he had been cruising for 16 days around the ' Hawkesbury. Mr. O'Brien made five un- ' successful attempts to reach Lord Howe ' last year, and this time told nobody ' where he was going when he left Palm 'i Beach on December 23. His crew con;j sfeted of his wife and one son, Noel, aged inine. His other p-on, Lyall, doesn't like I being at sea in a small boat. "The bis--1 cuits are too like dog biscuits." he says. j- Brutal Hotel Assault. A brutal assault by three young men - on a 60-year-old licensee and two bar ) men occurred in the lounge bar of the ; Northern Star Hotel &t the corner of i Liverpool and Pittt Streets, on Tuesday , afternoon. According to the head bari maid, two of the mem eat down at a ; taible end the third walked behind the I bar. When ehe asked him to leave he . feiaed a chair and called to Uβ eom-

panions, "Let's give it to her." When the two barmen came to the rescue the three men attacked them with chairs and tables, and the 30 guests in the lounge made a hurried exit. The barmen were beaten to the floor, and when the licensee appeared he also was struck down and beaten with a chair. Then the police appeared and the three men bolted. v Missing 16 Months. Suggestions that Ernest Albert Aver}', 36, who hae been missing for 16 months, may have been murdered are being probed by detectives, who have instituted inquiries for him in all States. Avery, a dairyman, at Merewether, last eeen on September 7, 1938, when he ran down the steps of a bank at Newcastle, mounted hie bicycle, and rode away. He had presented a withdrawal elip for £100, and was awaiting his call to he paid the money. His mother, who was approaching the 'bank, saw him suddenly run. and he quickly disappeared in the traffic. Avery, the police have been told, had become a familiar figure on greyhound racing courses in the Newcastle district. Some weeks before he disappeared he sold his business. j Keeping Fit at 60. At the age of 60, Mr. Edgar Julius Price, of Woollahra, runs 10 miles in Centennial Park every morning, and every two or three weeks does what he calls a long run—3o miles or more. Five years ago he was a sick man. He declares that he obtained the secret of health from a Japanese engineer who was lecturing in New York, that ha lives mainly on fresh meat, and feels I younger at 60 than he did at 30. Mr. j Price has offered to bet anyone £1000| that he can run farther than any horse j without a rest, and another £1000 that he can ride a bicycle farther than any' man of 50. After the hot weather he will attempt to run 160 miles in 24 hours to prove that youthful fitness and endurance can be retained into old age. Australia's Smallest Baby. Because of the peculiar circumstances, the births of three 'babies aroused a lot of interest this week. One ba.by, born at Newtown, weighed only lib Boz. She was the lightest befby ever born- in Australia and weighed 2oz leee than the lightest of the famous Dionne ijuintpplete. Another baby -was born in a-j

train while it was crossing the Hawkeeibury Bridge and another in an ambulance wagon just before it reached the hospital. All the 'babies and their mothers are doing well, but the doctors at the Women's Hospital in Crown Street had to use an oxygen tent to keep' the Newtown baby alive. 'Gallipoli Invention. A new story of Gallipoli was told 'by an announcer during one of the recentlv inaugurated short-wave world broadcasts from Australia. He eaid that the Australian eoldier was the most inventive and resourceful in the world, and that the greatest evacuation in history at Gallipoli had been made possible b"v the inventiveness of an Australian, Lance-Corporal Scurry. The announcer's story was. as follows:— "It was essential that the Turk should not suspect that the troops were being withdrawn. Lance-Corporal Scurry thought of fixing a rifle to a trench parapet. He punched a hole in a bullv>beef tin, filled the tin with water, and fixed it to the breech of the rifle. Beneath this was another bully-beef tin, attached to the trigger by a piece of string. It caught the water dripping from the tin above. The rifle was cocked. When the weight of the water in the lower tin was sufficient to pull the trigger the rifle wae fired. This was done all along the line." j