MISCELLANEOUS CABLES

Greymouth Evening Star, 24 January 1931, Page 12

MISCELLANEOUS CABLES

QUERY AND REPLY. CAMBRIDGE (Mass.), January 15. Attorney Frank Stewart asked John Wright, a witness in a Court action a question which covered 36 typed pages and contained 12,000 words, and then demanded, “Answer Yes or No.” John Wright promptly answered “Yes,” and thus expressed his belief that £45,000 was a reasonable charge for the work an executor had done in settling an estate of £2,000,000. POET LAUREATE UNIFORM. LONDON, January 16. Suggestions that the Poet Laureate should adopt a broad sombrero, and a flowing cloak as his official garb are made by the “Tailor and Cutter.” This journal is critical. John Masefield, exsailor in clipper ships, and writer of verses of singular beauty as well as virility, is himself one of the most simple of men. He would be as little disturbed at the thought that his overcoat was worn —if he thought about it at all, as he would be at the comments thereon of the “Tailor and Cutter.” John Masefield’s overcoat was showing signs of wear and tear when worn at his recent appearance at the Exhibition of Persian Art. “There are certain privileges and duties attached to the position of Poet Laureate. Why not a uniform?” the paper concludes. BLIND SOLDIER’S PLUCK. LONDON, January 14. It takes a lot to keep Captain lan Fraser down. Formerly known as the blind M.P., and for years head of St. Dunstan’s, the London hospital for blinded soldiers, he has now passed his final Bar examinations. In part, he used Braille type, but found that he was not quick enough at it and employ- ! ed a secretary to read to him most of his law books and lectures. Aged 33, he was in the regular army before the war, in which he lost his eyesight. In spite of it, he has been active in public affairs and was in Parliament for five years.

>*■’ WANDERING DAUGHTERS. , LEIPZIG, January 16. Headstrong daughters who defy their parents by going obediently to bed at an early hour and then, when everyone is asleep, stealing out in search of adventure,” will not find things so easy in future. An inventor has, patented an electric clockwork apparatus which will give them away. Primarily it was designed for use in hospitals. It is attached to a bed, and it registers when the occupant enters bed and when he quits > it, and whether he sleeps quietly. It might also be used as a check on bad hours. WAR VICTIM’S DEATH. LONDON, January 15. That she would have his body cremated and would scatter his ashes on Hill 60, where he lost so many friends in the Birmingham “Pals” Battalion, was the promise Percy George Arnold, chief steward of the Birmingham Hospital, obtained from his wife on their wedding day in 1927. Arnold, himself a member of the battalion, was wounded and held prisoner in Germany. He had bullets extracted from his arms and a lung, but continued ailing. An X-ray examination in 1927 disclosed 16, pieces of shrapnel deeply embedded in his lungs, the poisoning from which caused lingering death,, Arnold refused to cease work, declaring that he must wear out, not rust out. His wife was herself ill when he died, and she is awaiting recovery to cross the Channel to fulfil her promise. GRAVEYARD INSPIRATION. LONDON, January 16. Edgar Wallace will have to watch Rev. H. G. Wilks, vicar of Upper Thong, whose thriller, entitled “Karstein,” has been staged at Holmfirth, Yorkshire. Mr Wilks played th,e name part of a German scientist-criminal who poisons his beautiful ward to secure her fortune, and pushes the body into a coffin hidden behind a sliding, panel. The greatest thrill came when the audience saw an illusian of flesh growing on the girl’s skeleton. Many of the onlookers turned away and hid their faces in their handkerchiefs. Mrs Wilks was in the coffin and the vicar’s bare-legged beauty chorus, “The Thongbirds,” danced and sang. Mr Wilks admitted that he got his inspiration while walking in the graveyard of his church.