WORLD MISCELLANY

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 290, 2 September 1933, Page 7

WORLD MISCELLANY

Happenings Overseas

NEWS IN BRIEF Honeymoon Air Crash Poignant revelations were made at \ the inquest at Mbeya, Tanganyika, on the bodies of Captain Ussher, a Kenya settler, formerly of the Life Guards, and his wife, who were flying to South Africa for their honeymoon in Captain Ussher’s aeroplane, which crashed some 30 miles from Mbeya. The following extracts from the log of the aeroplane, written by Captain Ussher after *the accident, " were read:— “Crashed eight hours,, approximately 15 to 20 miles from Mbeya. Got, into bad cloud and spun.l did best'to right same, but' failed. We crashed; My darling wife killed. L can just touch her head. May God forgive me apd give us his blessing. She deserves it; I don’t. Accident my fault. "She'was an angel on earth. It was not the fault of the machine."' - ‘ ‘

Captain Ussher; who was apparently uninjured in the crash, wrote a letter » to his mother indicating his intention of taking his life. He was foiind sitting wth a revolver in his hand/and a gullet in his temple. The discovery of "the wrecked machine was solely due to the accidental decision of a native to fix a beehive in a tree,® from which ho saw the wreckage. Oldest Soldier Dies Mr John McGee, believed to be, the oldest soldier to fight in the British armies during the Great War, has died at Monze, Northern Rhodesia. He was nearly 100 years old. When volunteering for service.in East Africa in 1914, he gave his age as 37. 'He was. then 80. Mr. McGee was allowed to accompany the Rhodesian troops,' and took part in several “warm’ ‘skirmishes;, but after a year he was invalided out of the army and returned to Northern Rhodesia. Durifig the first Boer War, 53 years ago, Mr. McGee came to South Africa with the Connaught Rangers- He was late? with the Warren Expedition in Bechuanaland. His unquenchable military ardour brought him to Rhodesia, where he served as a trooper in the Matabele War of 1896. He was with • Lord Baden-Powell when Matching was relieved.: - : Cardinal Mercier- ■ Mgr. Mieara, the Papal,Nuncio in Brussels,;onJuly 17 laid the foundation Atone of’a memorial to the late ■ Cardinal Mercier in the Cardinal’s native town, Braine I’Alleud. The ceremony was held in the grounds, of the- college bearing the Cardinal’s name. The monument,-which is the work of the Polish. monk-sculptor, Ephrem Marie, will be completed in 1934. The funds are being-raised by public subscription and by the sale of a Cardinal Mercier stamp. ■ War oii Needless Noise , Complaints of excessive or unnecessary noise have caused M. Chiappe, the Prefect of Police, in, Paris,, to issue an urgent appeal,’.recommending motorcar drivefs~-t<Ys6und, their horns in moderntion,. aifeg(o®ersr of wireless sets and gramophones to regulate their instruments so as not to disturb their neighbours. He begs all Parisians to pe as careful as possible to let others work or rest' in peace. Tragic.,, Melodrama Frau Elizabeth Gombos, the wife of the Hungarian Premier, died in Buda- ■ pest recently as the result of the shock to her heart and nervous system- received when, she witnessed ! a melodrami in a Budapest theatre five years' ago. The sudden darkening of the stage with. the firing of shots so affected Frau Gombos, that she suffered a severe heart attack and . lost - the power of speech. After a few months she was able to speak again, but her ■ heart has always'been weak. Glass that Will Bend Unbreakable glass that will bend and stretch was described by Professor G. T. Morgan in a lecture at the Plastics Industry Exhihtion at the Science Museum, South Kensington, London, recently. “There is no reason why this synthetic glass should not replace ordinary glass for everyday use,” he said. “The glass , resembles in appearance colourless rubber and is, moulded from acetone and formaldehyde by .means of ordinary washing soda,- and after distillation is'treated .with tincture of iodine. Elastic glass is at the moment only in the experimental stages.” Millionaire Turns English Mr. Alfred Chester Beatty, who was born in New, York in 1875 and is ,now a millionaire, has decided to become an Englishman. “I love England,” he said in London, “and all my. friends are here. I have lived here 25 years, and had my son educated at Eton and Cambridge. Now he is married to an English girl. Being of Anglo-Saxpn stock, it is fitting that I should become an Englishman, but I shall maintain a keen interest in my American activities.” Mr. Beatty is. a director of the American Metal Company, Limited,-a member of the American Chamber of Commerce,. London, and a member of the board Of 14 African mining concerns. : . i , '

Bank Bandits Trapped Two men, who were later identified ~ as members of the gang-of ’ll convicts who escaped from a penitentiary , in Kansas on May 30, held up a bank at Altamont, Kansas, U.S.A.but when they were leaving the bank one of them was shot in the face by the cashier,‘Mr. Isaac McCarthy, who, concealed behind a curtain, discharged a shotgun at him. The other robber, believing x that the shots had come from across the street; seized Mr. McCarthy’s wife, and, holding her’as a shield, took cover beneath the counter. Exchanging his shotgun for a rifle, Mr. McCarthy shot him dead. Unknowingly the robbers had walked into an ambush. Mr. McCarthy, seeing men approach the bank before the time for opening, suspected their purpose. He directed his wife to open the doors and took up. his station behind a curtain set up for just such an emergency. , .... Swam Niagara Falls An eighteen-year-old, youth was recently placed under ~ arrest • for “vagrancy and unlawfully swimming the Niagara River.” It is alleged that he plunged unclothed into the roarinc torrents below and swam the rapids He was swept twice around the whirlpool, and finally emerged into the calmer waters on the Canadian side after two and a half hours in the water. It is asserted that he is the first person to swim the rapids of the Niagara gorge and reach the shore alive.