WORLD MISCELLANY

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 218, 10 June 1933, Page 11

WORLD MISCELLANY

Happenings Overseas NEWS IN BRIEF English Instead of French English is henceforth to lie the chief foreign language taught at all German schools by order of the Prussian Minister of Education. Hitherto, French has been taught more than English. Teaching Irish in Ulster Schools No more grants are to be made by the Ulster Government for the teachiug of the Irish language in the primary schools. An announcement to this effect was made in the Ulster Parliament recently by Mr. J, H. Robb, Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Education. International Dancing Three thousand dancers are to take part in the international dancing championship which is to be held in Warsaw this month. While most of them will be Polish, France, England, Sweden. Hungaria, Rumania, Russia, and about fifteen other countries are expected to send representatives. The dancers from each country will depict the development of their various national dances. Alps Give Up Dead The mystery of the disappearance of thirteen Italian smugglers in the Swiss Alps last January has been solved by the annual melting of the snow in the higher altitudes. Last month the bodies of six of the men were discovered beneath thirty feet of rock and ice. The smugglers were attempting to carry sugar and coffee, across the frontier in the depths of winter, and were crossing a pass 7500 feet high above Locarno, when they were swept away in the path of an avalanche. The spot at which the bodies were discovered was over 3000 feet below that at which the accident took place. Tuition in Use of Telephone The British Postmaster-General. Sir Kingsley Wood, explained to a meeting of the Publicity Club of London an experiment which is shortly to be made to instruct school children in the proper use of the telephone. Loans of model telephone sets for demonstration purposes are to be made to certain schools, he stated, “in order that young people might Learn the correct methods of using a telephone and might educate their parents in the advantages of one of the most wonderful inventions of our time.” Films depicting the telephone service would also be made shortly, Sir Kingsley added, while so satisfactory were the results of the telephone publicity campaign that it would be extended to other post office services. King’s Indian Orderlies Four native officers—the pick of the Indian Army of 1933—have arrived in London to act this year as the King’s Indian orderly officers. They are: RL-saldar-Major Anno Khan, of the Poona Horse; Subadar Wall Muhammad Khan, of the 9th Jat Regiment; Subadar Abdul Subhan, of the Madras Pioneers; and Risaldar Muhammad Qadir Khan, of the Sth King George’s Own Light Cavalry. King Edward originated the custom in 1903, and every year since then four officers have come to England from India to be in close personal attendance on the King from April to August. They are chosen for long service and distinguished records, and this year the four represent a total service of just on 100 years. Search for Lost Continent British scientists are to explore the bottom of the Indian Ocean, four miles below the surface, in a search for traces of the lost continent of “Lemuria.” An expedition under Captain J. M. Mackenzie, who captained the Discovery on Sir Douglas Mawson’s last voyage in the Antarctic, will leave London in August to begin the search. They will be nine months at sea (between Africa and India) in a tiny research craft of only 105 tons, the Mabahlss, which is now being fitted at Alexandria with the latest inventions for under-sea exploration. The expedition hopes to discover traces of the continent of “Lemuria,” which is supposed to have stretched from Madagascar to Sumatra and India in prehistoric times. Another object is to discover whether there are mountain ranges and ridges under the sea. such as the Meteor expedition found in the Atlantic. “Mounties’ ” Long Vigil A silence of more than two years engulfing the personnel of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police post at Bache Peninsula, Ellesmere Island, which is within 11 degrees < f the North Pole, was broken recently by a message from Corporal H. W. Stallworthy, in charge of the post, reporting that h< and his two companions. Constable R. W. Hamilton and Constable A. Munro, were alive and well. The message from this police post at the top of the world was apparently conveyed first to the Danish Government radio station at Godhaven, Greenland,. by Nookapeenungwah, a noted Eskimo traveller of the Far North, and transmitted from there via Louisburg, N.S., to Major-General J. H. Macßrien, Commissioner of the R.C.M.P. The three men at Bache post were left there in the summer of 1930 by the steamship Beothic. The object of the Bache patrol is to prevent depredations being made on the musk-ox and other game in the area. Death at 132—Woman Who Fought in War A long career of adventure has come to an end with the death in Chile of Carmela Pastenes Opazo, at the age of 132. She was born at Arauco, in the Indian country, on July 16, ISOO, and saw the last battles between the savage Mapuche braves and the advancing Chilean colonists. Carmela’s son. Ignacio, went to the war between Chile on the one side and Peru and Bolivia on the other, as a bugle boy, and was killed at the battle of Dolores. Although nearly 80 years of age, Carmela, beside herself with grief, donned a private’s uniform, enlisted and fought through a number of battles unharmed. Eventually she was wounded in a skirmish near Iluara and her sex was discovered. She pleaded so hard that she was allowed to finish the three years’ campaign as canteen attendant, by pernrssion of the Commander-in-Chief. After the war. Carmela turned up .regularly whenever trouble was brewing. She was nt the battle of La Noria, in the Civil War of 1891. and at the massacre of Iquique in 190”. For some years she was in the employ of Mr. Ilenrv Slomnn. the nitrate magnate, who took her for a trip to Europe in charge of his children. Finally she eked out a living in Chaquicamata as a herbalist and bonesetter.