NEWS BY MAIL

Gisborne Times, Volume LVI, Issue 6321, 25 February 1922, Page 7

NEWS BY MAIL

STORY OF A DOUBLE

SON REPORTED "‘KILLED” BELIEVED STILL TO BE ALIVE.

An amazing war story of a double has resulted in Mrs Symonds, of 129, Leighton Road, Kentish Town, N.W., being convinced that her son, Private E. 0. Symonds, of the 11th Rifle Brigade, who was reported killed in 1916, is alive and suffering from lost memory.

She 1 uis been in communication with another Mrs Symonds, whose son was reported missing, and believes that this man was buried as her boy. Armed with photographs of her son, Mrs Symonds has been all over tho country in her endeavors to trace him, and states that she has met numbers of people who have seen him quite recently. She has heard from men who claim to have seen him in Limburg prison-ers-of-war camp; nurses and others at a Brighton hospital, she says, recognise the photograph as that of a recent patient. Mrs Symonds is certain that, two years ago, si’ > saw her son on the Embankment. He did net recognise her. find disappeared ri the crowd.

HAIR PULLING DUEL. WOMAN FINED FOR ASSAULTING HER NEIGHBOR. W hen Mrs Louisa Baker, of Windmill Street, and Mrs Mary Renfold, her neighbor, faced each other in Brighton Police Court on an assault summons, few could follow the story because of the rapidity of the wordy duel. In the end Mrs Baker was convicted cf the assault and fined Ids. It all arose over anonymous letters which Mrs Baker alleged were sent her by Mrs Penfold, who asserted that when she denied the authorship Mrs Baker seized her by the hair and pulled her to the ground. Mrs Baker: We had hold of each other’s hair and were both on the ground. Mrs Dorrington, a sister of Mrs Pen fold, said Mrs Baker was biting her sister’s ear. Mrs Baker: Biting her ear? I must have been hungry. The anonymous letters have been taken charge of by the police to make investigations. SANTA CLAUS—BY AIR. S IT TIN G B O TJ R N E CHILDREN HAVE A REAL SURPRISE. Sittingbourne was provided with a sensation. A wireless message reached the town that Santa Claus would descend from the clouds with Christmas presents for children. Many thousands of children thronged to a field near the town, and a band was present tc play to the people. At the appointed time an aeroplane appeared and, amidst loud cheers, blew over the ground and alighted. Out of the machine stepped Santa Claus. The mysterious visitor scrambled toys amongst the crowd and then drove off at the head of a great procession of delighted children to a large trading establishment in the town.

STABBED BY HIS BABY BOY. TERRIBLE ENDING TO A ROAIP. The initiative faculty which is inherent in every child led to a terrible tragedy which culminated in the death of a butcher's assistant named Hyman Coleman, forty-seven. Coleman lived at Winchester Place, ivingslrvid. He had a little boy of tour who had been taken to see the pictures occasionally. 0;i December 3 Coleman was romping with his son in his home. Suddenly the little fellow snatched up a large butcher’s knife and plunged it into his father's chest, saying something about “what they do in the pictures.” The blade penetrated into the lung, it was done in an instant, before

anybody could interfere, or the father protect himself.

Coleman was taken to the .German Hospital at Ralston, and died there.

• OIL PAINTING'’—‘WIFE. FATHER DEGEN'S PICTURE OF THE ROAD TO DIVORCE. Speaking at Coalville, Father Degen said: “The girl who is ignorant in the sens; that she can’t sing, dance, play the piano, or discuss the topics of the day, soon begins to pall upon her young husband, to whom a characterless headpiece does not make an enduring appeal. He might as well have married an oil-painting! “Finding home-life dull, he naturally takes 'to spending his evenings at the club. Thus, be gradually drifts away from his wile. who. in her disappointment, takes a rise out of him by displaying her charms to other men. A matrimonial suit in the Divorce Court is the usual climax.”