NEWS OF THE WORLD

Evening Star, Issue 21992, 30 March 1935, Page 7

NEWS OF THE WORLD

SHEEP WITH WOODEN LEG Arriving with a flock from Scotland to be slaughtered at an abattoir at Liverpool, England, a 40-pound sheep was found to be wearing a wooden leg. The artificial limb was about five inches long and apparently had been in use for some time. It was attached to the animal by a leather coat, and a woollen pad at the top kept it from chafing. The sheep was sent to Liverpool University for inspection. MEAT AFFECTS STAMMERING An insufficiency of meat in the diet may be an important predisposing factor in a great many cases of stammering, according to Dr Knight Psychology at Johns Hopkins University. Dr Dunlap makes this surprising announcement after a study of many cases of child stammerers. Pediatricians and nutritional experts long have held the widely-accepted belief that children should be given very little meat before they are' six years old. In Dr Dunlap’s opinion, however, “there is no reason why from two years on, children should not have'meat at least twice a day. MOTOR-BOATS JAR VENICE Fears that the appearance of motorboats in the canals of Venice, Italy, would injure the buildings, have been realised. Venice is built on piles, and a committee of architects has found that the pounding of the waves made by the motor-boats has weakened the piling. At least £1,000,000 will be required to repair the damage already done, and immediate action is necessary to save many beautiful buildings from collapse. “HUMAN-FACED” SPIDER A spider with a human face has been discovered in Chumatien, Honan. Its body is small, but its head is abnormally large. The face is dead white, with black eyebrows and a black nose. White lips add to the horror of its appearance; its feet are dark brown. A well-to-do Chinese found the creature in his house. He has sent it to the people’s educational institution, COSTLY CARICATURES Ahmed Hassan, chief editor of the, Egyptian magazine, “Rosa El Youssef,” has discovered that caricatures can be very expensive. The Egyptian courts have sentenced him to three months’ imprisonment, with stay of execution, and a fine of £SOO for publishing an article and caricature defamatory to the Sultana of Zanzibar, and a fine of £5 for publishing a libellous caricature 1 of Herr Hitler. TO FIT THE CRIME NOVEL CANTONESE PUNISHMENT

A novel method of making the punishment fit the crime has been put into operation by the authorities of Canton. For some time ’buses and trams of the city have been “jumped” by young men who pleaded when called upon to pay that they did not possess the requisite fare. Free rides secured in this way are said to have numbered over 2000 a day. Plain clothes conductors quietly made their plans. Delinquents were caught and when the usual excuse was offered they were hand-cuffed, placed in cars and driven 20 miles outside the city. They were then set down and were obliged to return on foot. STRANGE MEDICAL CASE PEASANT SLEEPS FOR THREE YEARS The case of .Velimir Yokitch, a peasant in the village of Ratari, Yugoslavia, has aroused great interest m the local Press. Although normally of a cheerful disposition, three years ago last Christmas he was overcome by sudden depression, and went to bed. He slept almost continuously, being awakened only at intervals to take food, until October last year, when his family wakened him to tell him the news of the assassination of King Alexander. A sudden change then took place In Yokitch. After long weeping he made a pilgrimage to Oplenats, the King’s burial place and wept at his grave. Since then he has become perfectly normal, and goes about his work as usual, and has taken the oath of allegiance to King Peter. WARM WORK MINING IN THE BOWELS OF THE EARTH

There are coal pits In Lancashire which have been driven so tar toward the heated centre of our planet that . the temperature in the lower roads is 103 degrees Fahrenheit. One hundred and three degrees is pretty bad, but in the famous St. John de Rey gold mine in Brazil the shaft is down to nearly 7000 feet and the heat no less than 117 degrees. A special system of cooling is used, but even so the man can work only in short shifts. An oil well at Vera Cruz has been drilled to 10.585 feet, and the heat at the bottom is so great that tons of ice had to be used to keep the drill cool. There are ■ workers above ground who toil in heat at least equal to that in the' depths. In the melting room of the United States Mint the temperature averages 106 degrees; in many gas works it varies between 112 and 118 degrees, while stokers in coal-flred steamships, passing the Red Sea, may have 1 to endure the appalling heat of 140 degrees. MORE WOMEN LIVE TO 100 THAN MEN GERMAN DOCTOR’S RESEARCH There are more women centenarians than men, and nearly all centenarians have been married and have children. These are among the conclusions arrived at by Dr Greef, a Stuttgart physician, in a study of longevity. He has published the results of his work, which are being examined with interest by Paris doctors. Dr Greef says that there are 124 centenarians in Germany and that he has visited 117. Of the total number 81 are women and 43 are men. Similar researches in Bulgaria—a country where the peasants live very long—gives the same proportion of, roughly, two to one in favour of women. Of the 81 women centenarians only one is unmarried. The others have borne between them 465 children. Dr Greef also asserts that longevity apparently runs in families and that many centenarians he visited have , younger brothers and sisters, hale and hearty, aged between 80 and 90. Many of them had parents who had also lived to an advanced age. The 43 male centenarians had all smoked and drunk beer and other alcoholic drinks through out their lives. None had practised athletics in any particular form, but nearly all had been active walkers, and most of the men had been good swimmers. ,

GROWS DISLOCATE A CITY A few crows completely dislocated the city of Heijo, Korea, for several hours. The lights went out, tramcars stopped running, cinemas closed down, and factories ceased working. The crows had perched on some power cables just outside the city, causing a breakdown of the electric supply. EXPERT FOR POLICE COLLEGE Chief-Inspector Hugh Young, one of the foremost crime investigators at Scotland Yard, has been appointed a lecturer at the Police College at Hendon, London. His last big inquiry was that which led to the arrest and conviction of Mrs Ethel Major, who was executed on December 19 for the murder of her husband at Kirkby-on-Bain, Lincolnshire. One of the leading cases on which Mr Young was previously engaged was the murder of Mr Messiter in a Southampton garage in 1928. On that occasion he was principal assistant to Superintendent Prothero in the long and patient work that led to the conviction and execution of the murderer Podmore. “POOR MAKE BEST PARENTS” “I think the poor look after their children a little better than the rich,” declared Dr John Gibbens, of the Chelsea Babies Club, at a nursery, maternity and child welfare conference at London recently. “Well-to-do mothers are just as much in need of education on the upbringing of their children as poor mothers, and there is little difference between the absence of knowledge of mothers in the two classes,” he added. WEDDING OF OLD COUPLE A wedding between a bride of 75 and a bridegroom of 77, which was made possible by the Public Assistance Committee, took place in Manchester recently. One city councillor acted as best man and another gave the bride away. The couple were Mr George Edward Roberts and Mrs Annie Foster Newbourne. Some time ago they appeared together before the Public Assistance Committee, seeking relief, and said that while they wished to marry, they could not afford it. The committee proposed that it should provide the means, and the couple agreed. City councillors and officials and hundreds of women and girls gathered at the registry office for the wedding. The Lord Mayor sent a message of congratulation, and the Hulme Town Hal] was used for the wedding reception. “CRIMINAL PRODIGY” A nine-year-old burglar, described as a “criminal prodigy,” has been arrested in New York. He was caught red-handed with an equally youthful accomplice while rifling a flat. A complete set of burglar’s tools was in his possession. The boy, whose name was withheld by the police, was caught by the owner of the flat, who returned unexpectedly in the evening to find the children preparing to depart with his valuables. The other lad darted through a window on to the fire escape of the building, made an expert and acrobatic escape to the ground below, and disappeared into the crowded street. DISEASE AND DEATH DEAN QUESTIONS LEGISLATION Should society allow people who are suffering from an incurable disease to be put painlessly to death? This question was again raised by Dr Selwyn, Dean of Winchester, in a recent lecture in Winchester Cathedral, England. Quoting the case of a Leeds mother, whose answer to the charge of murder was that she did it in mercy, he said no one could question the sincerity of the defence. This reference was to the case of Mrs Brownhill, sentenced to death at Leeds on December 1 for the murder by gassing of her imbecile son. Sentenced on a Saturday, she was reprieved on the Monday. “Of course,” Dr Selwyn continued, "if euthanasia should be introduced in this country it would require alteration oi the law which forbids suicide and of the law of murder. What is the answer from a Christian point of view? Ought we to support a movement which claims to rest on such humanitarian grounds?

“The doctor’s dilemma is sometimes brought into the question. Should he, in certain cases, administer an overdose of a drug which will bring life to cn end sooner than it would usually end? It seems to me to depend on whether the doctor aims at putting the patient out of his misery, or of alleviating the present pain with which he is called upon to deal even at the risk of life. “I think no kind 'of Christian principle would be violated if the doctor thpught he would alleviate that person’s pain, even though some risk of life were involved. Is it not what every doctor does in an important operation?” “TOO CLEVER FOR THE POLICE” ENGINEER CAUGHT AFTER MANY CRIMES At the age of 79, John Brown, an engineer, was stated at London Sessions recently to have been the brains behind big cases of mail-bag and safe robberies and warehouse breaking, and to have been “too clever for the police for 30 years.” He was sentenced to 15 months' hard labour. Evidence was given that his sister, a Mrs Robertson, the wife of a New York millionaire, until recently allowed him £lO a month. Sentences on two other men charged with him were: Henry Myers, aged 50, traveller, to five years’ penal servitude, and Frank Jeyes, aged 64, warehouseman, 15 months’ hard labour. All were charged with breaking and entering the premises of Messrs A. Lewis and Company, Limited, tobacconists, in Rochester Row, Westminster, and stealing 40,750 cigarettes and other property. Jeyes was stated to be an ex-prison warder and a trusted employee of Lewis and Company, whose duty it was to lock up the premises at night. Detective-Inspector Dance, of Scotland Yard, said Brown went to America in his early days, but returned to England about 30 years ago. He was convicted three times in America. Witness added: “Although he has never been convicted previously in this country, for many years, he has been regarded by the nolice as the organiser and brains behind big cases of mailbag thefts, safe robberies and warehouse-breaking, so much so that he has been under observation by the police for months on end. “As far back as 10 years ago, 1 followed him daily for many weeks, and during that time I saw him associated with some of the cleverest criminals operating in England. He was then suspected of ieing concerned with others in the theft of mail-bags while in transit. He has been associated with Myers for over 20 years. In 1922 he was suspected of being concerned with others in the theft of jewellery valued at £14,000.” Replying to Mr E. H. Butcher (for Brown), Inspector Dance said Brown had been too clever for the police for 30 years, and had kept out of harm’s way. The inspector said cigarettes stolen from Messrs Lewis’s premises previously had found their way to cut-price shops.