NEWS OF THE WORLD

Greymouth Evening Star, 26 July 1920, Page 8

NEWS OF THE WORLD

BUILT IN A DAY. The "Central News" New York correspondent says :—Here is a titbit for people dissatisfied with the slowness of housing' schemes. It can be used by them "in evidence against." As a result of the recent tornado, many dwellings in Isabella Street, Wilmetto, Chicago, were laid in ruins. One man rendered homeless was James Irving, who' has been thirty years employed by the Chicago Telephone Company. The company, compassionating their old servant, one morning dispatched over a hundred bricklayers, carpenters, iasterers, and other workmen to the scene. By six o'clock the same evening they had rebuilt the dwelling, a three-room affair, and Mr Irving and his family moved in a few minutes afterwards. PRICES FOR POLITICIANS. Housewives of Chicago, where 5 the Republican National Con'ven- , tion met on June Bth, combiner! to exact a merciless revenge on politicians for the high, cost of last year's Irving. The large hotels nurl available flats were early , booked at premium rates for Convention week. Herein lay the women's chance. They "magnanimously" agrfeed to offer to fbelter unbooked delegations at their homes for prices ranging . from ,£IOO for a two-room flat to .■£6oo for more elaborate accommodation. Mr Frederic "W. JJpham, treasurer of the Republican National Committee, found him- [ self powerless to check the women's demand, which the lat-fo-n declared fair when it is considered that they left rues, bric-a-brac, china, and so forth, to the mercies of a lot of visiting politicians. WIRED WIRELESS. • It is announced that a new discovery of the highest importance to the future of telegraphy and t:\lenhony has been made by Major-General George 0. Squier, chief -signal officer, U.S. Army. It is not claimed that the discovery has been developed to a complete invention, but only that the possibility has been demonstrated of using''tare wires laid in the.sea for the transmission of messages by a new application of what is known as "wired wireless." by which a wireless current n.av be sent between two' or more points with a wire as guide. The advantages of wired wireless consist in its multiple possibilities and its secrecy. It is reported that experiments have been successfully conducted with ordinary copper wires on the Potomac River, messages beingsent, not through but alongside the wire as a guide. TRAGIC END TO A GAME. A tragedy at Perpignan, France, raises once more the question of the influence of cinemas on children. A number of small boys between 10 and 12 were playing, when one suggested that they should reproduce the scenes of a cinema drama witnessed the previous Saturday. The hanging scene in the film was chosen as the most exciting. One of the little boys readily agreed to act as the victim who was to be lynched. He stood on a chair, and the ncb.se was slipped round his neck. A moment, later the chair had fallen from under his feet and he was swinging in the air. A woman, alarmed at the shouts of: the frightened children, rushed up and cut the child down, but he was. dead. UGLIEST WOMAN SOLD. Amidst the respectful hush of Christie's sale room (says the Pall Mall Gazette), there was put up to auction the picture of a woman who could not have attracted more interest or a larger crowd had it been the portrait of the Helen for whom Troy burned, or Venus herself. It was the painting by Quintin Matsys of the ugliest woman on earth, Margaret, Duchess of Carinthia and Tyrol, in dim mediaeval days. The Duchess may have been a very estimable person, but she

undoubtedly Avas hideous—if her portrayer tells the truth—as hideous as sin. No 'pantomime ugly sister ever came up to the appalling travesty of the, human form that Matsys' brush has I.ft 0:1 the canvas. The great lady's face is nearer that of one of the great anthropoid apes than a woman, with tiny eyes, an upper lip incredibly long, a nose for which : no word can be found—and the t whole monstrosity crowned with a ; jewelled head-dress that multi- <

plied her "charms" a hundredfold. Instead of proving a disability to her selling value, the lack of beauty seemed to enhance it. Bidding started at 30 guineas, and rose ranidly by twenties to a large sum. The picture was finally carried off by Mr Blaker at 330 guineas. Quintiu Matsys (1460-1530) was born at Louvain, and died at Antwerp. Much of his work is characterised by a strong religious feeling, permeated, however, by a realism which frequently degenerated into the grotesque. Quintal's sister Catherine and her husband suffered at Louvain in 1543 for the then capital offence of reading the Bible, he being, decapitated, she buried alive in the square fronting the cathedral.

AN ESSAY ON" LIFE.

(What are your expressions of opinion concerning]' your neighbour? The following' witty proc auction,, as it were, holds up a - mirror to each of us.) ' i Man is brought into this world t without his consent, and leaves it i decidedly against his will.! During - his peregrinations on earth his 1 time is spent in one endless round - of contraries and niisunderstand--1 ings. In infancy, he is an angel; - in boyhood, a devil; in manhood, ? anything from a lizard up; in ■ duties, a veritable fool. If he , raises.a family, he is a chump; if , he raises a cheque, a thief, and i the law raises trouble for him. If , a poor man, he is'a poor manager, > without sense; if rich, dishonest, ' but considered smart. If he is in i politics, he's a log-roller and a I crook; out of polities, you can 1 place him as an undesirable citizen. If he goes to church, he's a wowser; if he stays away, he's a sinner. If he donates to the Foreign Missions, he does it for ' trade; if he does not, it's because lie's mean. If he does you for ' anything, he's a shark: if lie " doesn't lie's a mug. If he saves, ; he's a miser; if he spends, he's a ' spendthrift. If lie mets with an accident, his friends are sorry; if ' he doesn't, they're sorry. If he ' has a hobby, he's a crank; if he hasn't, he's a waster. If he oils | up, lie's a hog; if he won't shout, [ he's unsociable. If he dies voung* there was a great future before 1 him; if he lives to a ripe old age, he is generally a rotter, living only to save funeral expenses and nark his family. LONELY ENGLISH HEROINE. The story of an Englishwoman's heroism in Bolshevik Russ.a is being related with admiration by refugees from that country who have recently arrived in London (states the "Daily Mail"). They tell how, since 1917, cut off from her relatives and friends, Mrs. Violet Froom, the wife of an engineer in the Urals, has stood by her voluntary post of Br.tish almoner in Petrograd. She has been ambassador, consul, doctor, lawyer, family adviser, universal provider, and. even parson. She lias nursed the sick, begged money from everyone to provide what food could be obtained to nourish them, and has read the burial service over the dead. Not only that, but she had also rescued the bodies of English people from the cellars and warehouses in which they had been thrown, and given them Christian burial. The risk she has run can be imagined from one of many incidents. She heard that an Englishman had died and that his body had been thrown into a warehouse with hundreds of other dead, because the Bolsheviks refused to dig graves. She obtained permission to f.nd the body, but was told she must take an escort, as the bodies were in charge of Chinese and the Bolshevik commissary would not answer for her safety. She said she preferred to go alone, but eventually she took the guard and recover;d the ' mounting the soldiers over it until she could get a coffin and bury it according to the rites of the English Church. The latest information brought by refugees is that Mrs. Froom is still in Petrograd, and is still working for the old and infirm people of English descent who are nnable to leave Russia. BABY" BOBN IN OMNIBUS. A pitiful story was told to the Tottenham magistrate by a young wife, who said that 14 days previously when riding in an omnibus .slie gave birth to a baby. She was taken to a hospital, and on being discharged she went home, but her luiobana immediately turned her into the street. The magistrate (Mr. Or.en): What reason did he give/ —He said thai because I gave birth to a baby in an omnibus I was not fit to live with. It was his baby?—Yes. Mr. Green decided that it was a case of a summons for desertion. He said the woman should not go back to her husband. Could she go to her mother? "Yes," said the woman, ' but the has only one room." Will she be able to maintain you ? —No. The woman, obviously, very weak, said that she had had nothing to eat since midday the previous day,, and siie had tramped tne streets all night. Mr. Green said the other day a man sent him a £1 for the poor box; the woman could have it. "Thank you," said the young mother. BIG FIGHTING FUND. TO OPPOSE PROHIBITION. British brewing distilling interests, backed by a fund of £1,200,000 are forming a gigantic organisation to fight "pussyfootism." Former army and navy officers and mea are being mobilised as chief campaigners. Three hundred are to start

immediate training in speech-making and propaganda work. During the next few weeks, in public and open-air forums in London Mid the provinces the attempt will b. j begun to neutralise the effect of American and Canadian anti-saloon workers.