NEWS OF THE WORLD

Evening Star, Issue 20980, 19 December 1931, Page 7

NEWS OF THE WORLD

WOMAN LAY-RECTOR OBLIGATIONS ATTACHED Miss Garner has become the owner of Rectory Farm, near Melton Mowbray, England. With it she gets an unusual title as lay rector of Melton, with a special seat in the chancel of the church. There are obligations attached, for the lav rector must maintain and keep in repair the chancel of the parish church. This old law has caused much surprise and even concern in its time, for many an old house with this condition attached to it has been bought by someone who knew nothing of it. Quite recently it led to a new tenant being imprisoned for not complying with the law. LION STEAKS POPULAR OFFERED AS DELICACY Lion flesh was offered as a delicacy to visitors at the Colonial Exhibition in Paris. • The Prince of Wales is among those who are enthusiastic about lion steaks. On his big-game expeditions in Africa, he often enjoyed the flesh roasted over the campfire in true hunter fashion. The native? of Africa, of course, love lion steaks. They still believe that something of the strength and the bravery of the lion is given to them with the meat. That is why many of the natives in Abyssinia prefer lion meat raw. ’ Cooking, they assert, kills the spirit in the. meat. ■ - - - - t POLICEMAN DEFIES DEATH SHOT THROUGH THE BRAIN During the last revolution in Brazil a policeman was shot through the brain. He is still alive and carrying out his duties. The bullet, doctors have discovered, is lodged over the occipital region. This should" have meant certain death for the victim —but it didn’t, A broken neck usually signifies death. Yet a few people with broken necks are still enjoying perfect health. A few years ago a jockey fell heavily on his head in a steeplechase. He was carried back to the stand unconscious. A doctor, on examining him, found that his neck was broken, and announced that death would be a matter of minutes. Instead of which, the jockey came to —and after a week’s rest felt fit enough to ride again. DOCTOR KILLED IN DUEL STRANGE CASE IN NEW YORK When a haggard young man wearing a blood-stained shirt entered the police headquarters in New York recently he handed over a pistol with which, he said, a Dr Loughlin, whose dead body was found in the sand dunes on the outskirts of Brooklyn two days before, was He gave his name as H. V. Bridgett and his age as 29. Through his lawyer he explained that he killed .the doctor, who was a cousin of his, in selfdefence. He rolled up his sleeve and displayed a bullet wound in, his left forearm. , , According to the police a duel resulted from a domestic dispute involving Bridgett and Mrs Loughlin. _Dr Loughlin accused his cousin of having stolen his wife’s affections by making her believe that he had paid attentions to other women. TRAPPED BY FLAMES FRENCH VILLAGERS’ PERIL The 500 inhabitants of Roue, a village perched on a rock 3600 feet above sea-level, 40 miles from Nice, narrowly escaped being burnt to death in a forest fire which surrounded the village. A frantic clanging of the church bells warned the villagers of the encroaching flames. They rushed from their houses with whatever belongings they could carry to the market square to stack them in safety. Meanwhile, the encircling blaze closed on the village rapidly, flames from the brushwood and trees leaping sometimes to a height of 70 feet. Firemen from neighbouring towns finally succeeded in conquering the fire before it reached the village, though orchards and vines were completely destroyed. SWALLOWED 23,000 TABLETS DOCTOR’S FAITH IN OWN MEDICINE Dr A. Hawkyard, the Lord Mayor of Leeds, England, has taken 23,000 tablets in the past seven years—nearly 10 a day. He made this statement when opening a chemists’ exhibition at the Town Hall. The 23,000 tablets contained, he said, half a hundredweight of hydrochloric acid and milk and fourfifths of a hundredweight of liver extract, He felt that his persistence in taking the tablets had resulted in his being as physically fit as he was. “I am not one of those doctors,” concluded the Lord Mayor, “who deprecates the use of drugs for the purpose ef treating ailments.” GASSED IN EXPERIMENT DOCTOR POUND DEAD Lying on his bed with the mask of an oxygen and gas administering apparatus over his nose, Dr Gilbert Blurton, a 39-year-old Nottingham practitioner, was found asphyxiated in his home recently. The apparatus was of a new type, consisting of two cylinders, and with it he had apparently been experimenting on himself. Another doctor who was called in found that while the supply from the gas cylinder was correct, the flow from the oxygen cylinder was not adequate. Earlier in the evening a servant, who bad entered the bedroom to draw the blinds, saw the doctor lying on the bed. She apologised for her intrusion and withdrew. When, later, she received no reply to her knocking, she called in Dr Blurton’s brother-in-law. WRONG BODY BURIED FUNERAL REPEATED How a hearse, returning from the cemetery,_ was sent back to recover a coffin buried in error and then returned with the right body, was revealed at Winchester, England, recently, A report from the master of Winchester Institution stated that an old inmate had died, and his body placed on the right-hand slab in the mortuary. While the undertaker was on his way another inmate died and the first body was moved to the centre slab, being replaced by the second body. On the afternoon of the funeral of the first inmate, a porter, going into the mortuary, found that the wrong body had been taken to the cemetery. He dashed to the cemetery on his cycle and met the undertaker coming back. He sent the hearse back to the cemetery to recover the coffin, which was then taken to the mortuary and the right body placed in it. The clergyman also returned and the cortege went once more to the cemetery, this time to bury the right man. ■

LOUD-SPEAKER WEDDINGS CHEERING UP CEREMONIES Civil weddings to music are to be the order of the day in France if the example of the Mayor of St. Maurice, a suburb of Paris, is followed. He feels that the ordinary town hall ceremony is devoid of romance, despite the tricolour sash he wears about his waist. So he lias decided that, in future, civil marriages will be celebrated to the accompaniment of a loud-speaking gramophone. One tune will he played when the happy couple arrive, another while the signing of the register is in progress, and another as they leave the building. TOMBS RAIDED FOR LOOT ' i Belief that many years ago a burglar hid his loot in a tomb and died without revealing his secret led to amazing desecration at Sneinton churchyard, Nottingham, England, recently. Vandals destroyed six massive tombstones in search of the supposed treasure, and the sacrilege has aroused deep indignation. The stone monuments smashed were the largest in the churchyard, and the extent of the destruction shows that a gang of men worked at dead of night with heavy tools. All the tombs were of persons long-buried, some nearly 100 years ago. HIS PET CAFE TABLE TRAVELLER TAKES IT HOME There is little to which the Parisian is more attached than his favourite cafe table, and even foreigners who have become “Parisianised” catch the affection for their particular seat on the boulevards. Mr Burton Holmes,, a prominent American traveller and lecturer, has been roaming the world ever since he first came to France in 1885, and on “every visit to Paris he has watched the cosmopolitan world change from the vantage point of a certain cafe table. Now on his latest visit he has bought his pet table and is taking it back to the United States with him. CAUGHT BENDING BY ’PLANE PILOT LANDS ON MAN As Mr Wiliam Blackwell, aged 70, was , stooping over the chrysanthemums in his garden in Heston, Middlesex, an airplane came down on top of him. The machine, a Gipsy Moth, was piloted by Mr Ralph Milbank, of White’s Club, London, a pupil at Heston Airdrome. “I wasn’t hurt, but I had the surprise of my life,” Mr Blackwell said afterwards. “!■ was i tending my chrysanthemums, and taking no notice of airplanes. Suddenly I felt something on top of me. It was the wing of Mr Milbank’s machine. I guess I had a narrow shave that time.” LETHAL CHAMBER EXECUTION EIGHTY PEOPLE WATCH Eighty people peering through glass windows into a hermetically sealed lethal chamber recently saw a murderer executed by poison gas, at Carson City, Nevada, They watched him smiling and grimacing in an effort to hold his breath and live as long as possible, and it was not until 14min ssec after the poison gas had been released that the doctors pronounced him dead. The man was Louis Cejas, a Mexican, aged 27, who had been found guilty of killing a Chinese in a quarrel over a girl. Hydrocyanic gas was used. A single inhalation will cause instant unconsciousness if not death. Cejas was taken into the airtight chamber and 15 cyanide “eggs” were dropped into a bucket containing a solution of water and sulphuric acid, which was placed beside him. Life lasted as long as he held his breath. ENVELOPE CARRIED BY KIDSTON SOLD FOR £3l IN AFRICA One of the envelopes carried by Commander Glen Kidston from England to the Cape on his record-breaking flight was sold for £3l recently. The envelope was one of 20 covers carried. They were put through the Post Office in London and were stamped again at Heliopolis, Cairo, Kisumu and Cape Town. The one sold was autographed by Captain Cathcart Jones, who accompanied Commander Kidston. The auctioneer said that of the 20 covers, four had been sent to the Lockhead Vega Company, in America, four to Commander Kidston’s family, and eight to a London dealer, only four being left in South Africa. Of these one had been sold and sent to New Zealand. A MONKEY STOWS AWAY FIGHT WITH OFFICER A small brown-faced old monkey, christened Jenny, for 10 days evaded capture on board the White Star liner Majestic, Where Jenny came from is a mystery. hut it is assumed that she stowed away from an oiler when the liner was being fuelled in New York. During the cruise and voyage home every effort was made to capture her. One morning she was caught stealing grapes from the captain’s cabin. Hastily closing all doors and windows, an officer, protected in fencing mask and gauntlets, entered the cabin and pinioned the monkey after a lively struggle. In the course of the tussle Jenny bit through the gauntlet and the officer’s finger. MEMORIAL TO CADDIE V.C. SUNDIAL ON MORAY LINKS “In their boyhood they carried on the Moray Links” is the inscription on the base of a sundial which was unveiled recently beside the home green on the Moray Golf Course at Lossiemouth to the memory of two former caddies— Captain G. E. Edwards, D. 5.0., and his cousin. Sergeant A. Edwards, V.C., who both fell while serving with the 6th Seaforths in France. Hound the dial are inscribed the words “Sunshine after Shadow.” Colonel C. J. Johnston, honorary colonel and formerly commanding officer, the 6th Seaforths, who is one of the oldest officers in the Army List, performed the ceremony in the presence of the local company and officers of the .battalion and a large crowd of golfers and visitors. The aged colonel was assisted to the Memorial by Captain R. K. McKenzie, the present adjutant, and when he released the Union Jack screening the sundial buglers sounded Last Post and a piper played “The Flowers of the Forest.” Mr Watson Mclsaac, the captain of the club, said they already possessed a memorial in the clubhouse to fallen members, and it was fitting that they should also erect a tribute to these two brave men near their homes on a spot beside the links where they “carried” as happy hoys.