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Evening Star, Issue 24081, 30 December 1941, Page 2

Tlfero wore no eases set down for hearing in the Police Court to-day. Mr P. Neilson, M.P., has been informed by the Minister of Health that ho has approved of the establishment of a dental clinic at the Anderson’s Bay School. The scene was an Auckland backyard. Tho perspiring householder was digging a slit trench with tho dogged persistence of one who will do or die. A neighbour wandered over and watched him labour. An irritating silence developed, broken finally by tho neighbour. “ Building yourself a little nest, eh?”’ ho rcmhrked amiably. The householder glanced up in disgust. “ Yes,” ho agreed pointedly, “ and there aren’t going to be any cuckoos in it, either'” —and bent to his labours once again. David Dovant, once partner in the famous “ firm of magicians ’’ Maskclyne and Devant, has died a helpless cripple in a Putney hospital, aged 73. Paralysis forced him to retire in 1920, and he had been in hospital for years. Famous British magicians used to go there to show him their latest illusions, and the whole Magic Circle gave him a performance every year. This man, who had been the greatest magician of them all, could not move—only his eyes, voice and brain were active. But ho still worked out tricks and told his male nurse how to make the apparatus and perform them. Tho helpless magician had a great sense of humour. Among tho stories ho used to toll was one of a madman who hold him up and compelled him to produce money out of tho air.”

“ T would like to toll the story of Derek Belfall,” said Sir Harry Batterheo, High Commissioner for the United Kingdom in New Zealand, at the Nelson College breaking-up ceremony, “ He was a Boy Scout in Bristol. During a severe air raid he was sent with a note to a particularly dangerous area. On the way he stopped to put out a lire single-handed with a stirrup-pump. Next he stopped l to rescue a baby from a burning house. Then he hurried forward with his message. Soon afterward ho was mortally wounded by a bomb splinter, but he carried on and delivered his message. Dying, he was carried to the hospital, and he died with those words on his lips: ‘ Messenger Belfall reporting. I have delivered the message.’ To deliver the message entrusted to us. to play the game, to do our duty, can any of ns do more? ” concluded l Sir Harry. “If we try our best to do that, wo shall have made a success of life; we shall live or die . happy.’’