NEWS OF THE WORLD

Evening Star, Issue 21642, 10 February 1934, Page 7

NEWS OF THE WORLD

VISCOUNT GREY’S BEQUESTS CHANCELLOR’S 'ROBE TO OXFORD Viscount Grey, of Fallodon, probate of whose will was published in December, has left estate of £123,/91 with net personalty £93,904. Among his bequests was his Chancellor’s robe and cape to the Univcisity ot O.xfoid lor the use of future Chancellors. He bequeathed £SOO to his fi.lend Ilenrv Herbert, and £SOO to his sistei ■. Constance Herbert, “in gralet'ol recognition of her friendship w th ni> wif? Dorothy,” £SOO to his housekeepe Alice Snell, £IOO to his woodman, John Sun, £IOO to his gardener, Harry Velsh, and £SO to John Dixon, employed m his bequests were: £SOOO to Cord ■ Grev’s sister. Jane de Coetlogon, £IOOO to his sister, Constance Mary Curtis, an annuity of I*4oo to his sister, Alice Emma Graves, ancKthc residue of his . properly to his nephew, Cecil George Graves. GAS TUBE BELOW PILLOW ■HUSBAND’S CHARGE AGAINST WIFE A charge of attempting to murder her husband and her three-year-old son bv gas poisoning was heard at : Glasgow recently against Jessie Orr, wife of William Orr, 36, a postman, of Fairbairn Street, Bridgeton. Orr said that on October 16 he went ■to bed and later discovered the door locked and the room full of gas. Gas officials found that two holes had been I pierced in a gas pipe. 1 Four days later, he said, while he •land his son were in bed, he again woke in the middle of the night. His .head was throbbing and there was a drumming in his ears. He found a gas tube leading from a gas jet to below his pillow. . ~ ~ On the following morning nis wile . disappeared. After she left he found 1 a number of insurance policies payable on his death. Cross-examined, he agreed that tic was badly wounded in the head during the war. The case was adjourned. OVER 200,000 HOVEL HOMES IN GREAT BRITAIN TOTALLY UNFIT FOR REPAIR Marked down for demotion without compensation, there are 210.000 British homes that cannot be made lit tor human habitation. This astonishing disclosure was made by Sir Hilton Young at West Bromwich in December in a review of the slum clearance programmes which have reached the Ministry of Health. Referring to the until homes, Sir Hilton said: These arc the houses which, under our present law, must be cleared away without compensation for the building, and can rightly be so cleared without injustice to the owners.” There were. Sir Hilton pointed out, a few authorities who had not yet de..dared their programmes, and the adequacy of some schemes was still under discussion. “We cannot allow any lagging behind the times,” he declared, SMOKE NUISANCE IN GREAT BRITAIN ..HUGE SUM, SPENT ANNUALLY 7 More than £2,000,000 is spent every i year by property-owners in Great Britain to repair the damage done to buildings by smoke. This is revealed in a ■ special memorandum issued recently to all housing authorities by the National . Smoke Abatement Society. . ■The society emphasises the impor- ■ tanee of reducing smoke emission to a - minimum in slum-clearance replanning ’ schemes, and quotes the estimate of Sir Frank Baines, late Director of the Office of Works, that “the cost of repairs, etc., to building property directly due to coal smoke during the last 2o years is in the region of £60,000,000. _ 1 “The erection of houses in the near c future in which no provision is made ; for a complete use of smokclesyiicthods must be regarded as a short-sighted and impeding policy, says the memoran : dura. • SAVED BY ALSATIAN - HORSE THAT TURNED ON MEN To the bravery and sagacity of an Alsatian dog two brothers attribute their lives following an alarming adventure at Penarth. The dog, named “Wolf of White Blossom,’ is owned hy ' Mr G. A. Miles, greengrocer. Mr Miles stated that he and his brother, a lad of 14 were passing a field when they noticed a horse stiajing the road. They opened the gate and drove it through, but no sooner were they inside the field than the horse turned on them. . "My brother,” added Mr Miles, took hold of the animal by the head, and 1 grasped its neck. It seemed to go mad. ■ “Throwing ns off, it started trampling oh ns as we lay on the ground. 1 lie sight of those hoofs flashing terrified me. I bent over my brother to protect. him, and screamed. _ , , “‘Wolf.’ the dog who was in the road, cleared the gate in a bound and flew at the maddened horses throat. He hung on, despite the lashing of its hoofs, and we managed to scramble *™Ve found afterward that my dog had a hoof-mark just above the eye, hut he did not let go his hold on the horse until we called- him off. There is n 0 doubt that ‘Wolf’ saved our lives. One blow on the head and we would havebeen at the animal’s mercy. WORLD’S SMALLEST THEATRE ;/ MEMORIAL TO MRS SIDDONS Two charming, middle-aged women, great-great-granddaughters of Mrs biddons, are fighting a long battle m Great Britain to honour the memory of their famous actress ancestress. They are the Misses Mabel and Beatrice SiddqnsDowne, who own the world’s tiniest theatre. The Bankside Little "theatre, theatre, dedicated to Mrs Siddons, is in a converted garage, once only big enough for a baby car. Ihe proscenium opening of the stage is about 6ft. It can seat only JO people. More than four players on the stage at one time looks like a “crowd scene in a film. , , , Many of Shakespeare’s piuys have been presented in this theatre, and several voung and unknown playwrights have been given their chance there. . „ , f . “We have only two aims, Miss Beatrice Siddons-Downe said lately. “One is to keen the memory of our groat-great-grandmother green, the other is to find unknown dramatists and producers, and give them a chance to win fame. “It is a difficult task we have set ourselves,” said Miss Mabel. “Althougn we have 200 members, less than halt of them attend the theatre regularly. The majority arc working < people, who cannot afford even a shilling tor a theatre scat more than once a month.

FAMOUS MOSQUE IN DANGER COLLAPSE FEARED Fears that part of the famous Mosque of St. Sophia, which was a Christian church until the Turks took Constautinoplc in 1453, may be in danger of collapse, are expressed by Greek and French archaeologists. It is stated that both Hie cast dome and the eastern columns are in a bad state of disrepair. Professor Whiltcmorc, of the Boston Byzantine Institute, who has been engaged in cleaning the mosaics of St. Sophia, states that a number of packing cases stored in the mosque also constitute a danger to the building. These packing cases, which contain old documents, are shortly to be transferred to another place. At the same time an investigation will probably be carried out regarding the reported leakage of rain water through the dome into certain parts of the mosque. DEATH DREAM COMES TRUE GIRL KILLED BY LIGHTNING Crowds of peasants came from the surrounding countryside to attend the funeral in the village ot Kloka, Jugoslavia, of a girl whose dreain of death came true. One morning Darinka Rakitch, 20 years of age, told her mother that she dreamed that she had been killed hy lightning. She said she saw a huge black cloud, from which lightning came like great spikes. As she sheltered beneath a tree she was struck by lightning and killed. This was dreamed not once, but several times tnat night. Next dav, while she and her mother were hoeing, a storm broke. The two took shelter under au oak, but as the lightning began to play the girl ran to another tree. So implicitly did she believe in her dream that she feared her mother would be struck if they remained together. A few minutes later a great fork of lightning killed the girl. AN UNSINKABLE LIFEBOAT ENGINES RUN WHEN VESSEL IS FULL OF WATER The task of providing Great Britain’s coasts with an adequate number of motor lifeboats is now nearly completed, states the “News Chronicle.” The latest type of boat is practically unsinkable. It can free itself of water by means of valves at the side or bottom; can keep afloat with the help of air-cases even when its water-tight comparaments are damaged; can right itself in 25 seconds if capsized; and its engines keep ,running in watertight shells even though the rest of the vessel is filled with water. The R.N.L.I. has now 120 motor lifeboats and 56 pulling and sailing vessels. The largest type is the 51ft Barnett” boat. It weighs 26} tons, has a speed of just under nine knots under service conditions, carries petrol for 120 miles, and holds 100 people, including a crew of eight. It costs about £BSOO. , u t This type of lifeboat also boasts a cabin, a line-throwing gun, an electric searchlight, and an apparatus which can “pour oil on the troubled waters. TOO MANY BARBERS IN ABERDEEN WOMEN HAIRDRESSERS CANVASSING FOR JOBS Too many people are learning to be barbers in Aberdeen. At least, that is the view of the local Hairdressers Guild, and they are at variance with the Education Committee over the evening classes in the tonsorial art being held in the city. . The guild asked the committee to debar from the classes all those not connected with the hairdressing trade, but the committee refused, on the grounds that the classes are run on behalf of the ratepayers. . , „ “Unemployment is rife in our trade, said a member, “and by _ admitting people wholesale to the evening classes the Education Committee has added threefold to our difficulties. The competition for work is so fierce that women hairdressers go from door _to door with their instruments canvassing for a job.” BOLTED IN GOODS VAN FOR SIXTY HOURS YOUNG MAN’S HUNGRY JOURNEY For 60 hours 19-ycar-old James Thomson, of Bristol, Canada, was bolted in a goods van in December, without food and in intense cold. Mr Thomson went to Canada in 1929 under an Ontario colonisation scheme, hut recently became homesick, and gathering his small savings, reached Montreal. There he boarded a goods train which he thought was going to Quebec, but the train took him to Chicoutimi in the Lake bt. John district. Arriving there late at night he climbed into an empty goods van labelled “Quebec,” in a desperate attempt to reach a port for England. A few moments later a railway employee bolted the door on the outside. After 60 hours. Mr Thomson succeeded in attracting the attention of yard workers, who took' him from the car frozen and nearly starved. On his discharge from hospital he was to be assisted home. UNIVERSITY EDUCATION FOR HAMLET CHILDREN RESULTS OF AN ORIGINAL LEGACY OP £6O A YEAR Three hamlets in the Hitchin district of Hertfordshire have one qt the ricliest private educational chanties Great Britain. It enables childien lo ■enter a university, go to any school for which they can pass the examination, and learn any trade they like. And it is all due to a legacy of under £6O a yC Morc than 150 years ago, one John Rand left the hamlet of Hulwell. near Hitchin, to start in Imshiess at Grcenwich. When he died he left his property to help the young people of HuJwell gain a start in life. . . Years passed. Greenwich, from being a town near London, became part of the metropolis. The value of Mr John Rand’s property increased until some vears ago the income became too great for the hamlet of Hulwell alone. It was extended to the neighbouring villages of Icklcford and Slondon The income is now more than tJUUU a year. “So far,” Mr Lindscll, the secretary of the fund, said recently, four village halls, almshouses, endowments, scholarships and grants to 20 children a vear are made out of it. “Hitchin Grammar School, village schools at Icklcford. Pirton. Hulwell and Stondon benefit from the fund. Twelve almhmiscs in Hulwell are maintained from the charity, and the occupants given an allowance each week. “Children ace sent from the demontary schools to secondary schools, from there to technical schools or universities. Grants from £lO a year or £2OO a year are made to the youths of the villages who enter universities. 7™? T llll . be one of the best-educated districts in the country.”