WIDE WORLD NEWS.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3128, 31 July 1922, Page 7

WIDE WORLD NEWS.

A lie told 20 years ago in a policecourt was 1 stated to have led to- the suicide of a grocer, of Ashingdon, near London. He was found hanging from a stable beam. A doctor told the coroner at the inquest that Powell told the lie to get ai man off; and ever since it bad preyed on hie mind. “Frequently, when he told me about it he would burst into tears,” added the doctor. While walking along si valley to the north of Nairobi a European farmer noticed a- number of silvery objects moving in the grass. Investigation showed that the- whole valley was swarming with small fish, all alive, and about two inches in length. The valley is surrounded on three sides by hills, and on the fourth by a- road. There ate no watercourses or springs anywhere in tho vicinity, and there had been no cloudburst, only normal rain. Samples of the fish were brought into Nairobi, but could only bo kept alive for a short time in fresh water. How they became scattered all over the valley is still: a mystery. The first recorded case of a wild animal suffering from rabies is reported from Godina-. A panther suddenly emerged from a wood and made a ferocious attack on the- inhabitants of the lonely, up-country station of Kba-ndia. A child was savegely bitten, and two men who went to the rescue were badly mauled. The villagers, thoiigh terrorstricken, combined to drive off the beast. A hunt was then organised and the panther was tracked and shot by a local collector. The body of the animal was afterwards sent to Bombay, where examination confirmed local opinion that the panther was suffering from rabies. The wounded natives have been placed under treatment. Judge Roche at the Manchester Assize Court lately laid down the doctrine that driving to the public danger was as great an offence morally as killing a man and until magistrates imprisoned such people the public would be in danger. Most motorists drove safely, and motorists themselves had most to gain from the suppression of the minority who drove recklessly. The case was one in which a mill engineer, aged 05 yeans, was cycling along the main road, when he was knocked! down by amotor car driven by a commission agent, and was crippled. The injured man brought an action for damages, and was awarded £IOOO, People at Home are, perliaps, naturally, getting tired of war relics and anxious to get rid of them. An incident at Nottingham lately, however, carries with it a- warning to dispose of them otherwise than by throwing them in the dustbin. A load of refuse was shot into the furnace of the dust destructor there recently when what was afterwardsi found to be a. 4in shell exploded with great violence. Fortunately the top of the furnace was open, and the force of the explosion was expended in shooting out the rubbish to a great height, the display resembling a volcanic eruption. No one was hurt. A live shell was also discovered in- tho nick of time, at the same place, and recently hundreds of live cartridges, several small shells and a, hand grenade have been found in the rubbish. It is known where one swallow, at least, goes in the winter-time, says a London paper. An inhabitant of the village of Ostheim-Beblenheiin, near Colmar, in Alsace, caught a swallow last autumn. It had made a. nest under the eaves of his house. He attached a card beneath the bird’s wings bearing the inscription: “During the summer of 1021 I Ibdged at the house of M. Greiner at Ostheim-Bebleiiheim, Upper Rhine. I must let him know where I stayed during the winter.” Then he let the swallow go. M. Greiner found the swallow once again beneath his roof recently. He caught it, and discovered the following message on a card beneath the bird’s wings: “I stayed at the house- of the cobbler, Joseph Body, in the island of Martinique, and he requested me to greet cordially my host in Alsace.” Martinique is in the West Indies, about 4000 miles from France. Hungary has asked the Salvation Army to help her in her fight against drunkenness and the white slave trade, and a Hungarian Salvation Army is now being formed on the English model under the direction of General George F. Panick, who has just arrived from Englang. Large numbers of girls are lured away on the’pretext that they will become nurses, housemaids, teachers, or musicians in Russia, the Balkan States, Flume, or South America. The authorities in the lonall Hungarian towns are every day asked by mothers for help to find their lost daughters. Eight women who have committed 1 suicide recently wore mothers despairing of ever finding their daughters again. The 2000 odd junior officers with “permanent” commissions in the Indian Army who arc to retire for reasons ol redundancy are nut to do so without an outlook for the future. The Indian authorities are elaborating in conjunction with tho Colonial Office, the Overseas Settlement Department, South Africa, Australia, and British Columbia, a scheme of Dominion settlement for officers who wish to take advantage of it. The South African Government lias already promised credits for the purchase of stock and lor deferred payments for land, and arrangements may lie made with farmers to take pupils free of charge; I ictqria is willing to arrange for the provision of blocks ot land for wheat and sultana, growing and mixed farming, and British Columbia has suggested a settlement in South Okanagan. A part of the scheme will he free travel passes from India to any part of the Empire for officers and their families. Sir Squire Bancroft, the veteran actor, celebrated his 81st birthday on May 14, and was still young. To a newspaper correspondent ho said: “In years 1 am old, but my constant endeavor is to keep something ol voutlifulne-ss in my mind and in my heart. I try not to let the world leave me too far behind, and when things aro beyond my coni prehension I have enough of the philosopher in mo to »,carry on quite clieertully. I cannot Have many more years to live, but 1 do hope to he cheerful to the end. 1 was born in Surrey in 1841. and sonic other men of the same year were King Edward, Lord Fisher, Lord Cromer, M. Cleniencoa.il, Mounct-Sully,. CoqueIj ii the elder, and Sir Edward Clarke. King Edward and I were personal friends, and it pleased him when I remarked that the year of our birth was ‘one of good vintage.’ ” Among Sir Squire's vivid recollections, apart Irom the stage, was being taken to the great Exhibition of 1851, watching the funeral procession of the Duke of Wellington, journeying to Greenwich by the Rope Railway, the diarist riots of 1848, and tho Manning murder m 1849. A fortune loot by a woman in gambling formed the subject of some disclosures lately in the London Bankruptcy Court. In the case of Miss (cellill Georgina Susan Lennox, described as of Pallant House, Chichester, who applied for her discharge, the Assistant Official Receiver (Mr Vyvyan) said 1 the total unsecured' indebtedness was estimated at £12,247. An amount of £B7 bad been realised, and a small sum further might be received. Fn 1911 Miss Lennox’s mother made a. deed of prevision in her favor, under which

she was to -receive £IO,OOO, but afterwards that interest proved to bo worth only £4700, which Miss Lennox deposed of by borrowing on it. She- attributed' her insolvency to;—£7000 lost on Stock Exchange; £2OOO lost at racing and cards at private houses; interest and costs on borrowed money. Until 1910 (continued Mr Vyvyan) die lived within her income, but then began to bet and gamble at cards, and -since that date had incurred liabilities and spent sums nightly amounting to £18,550. The Registrar suspended the discharge for two years.