NEWS OF THE WORLD

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXVI, Issue 3444, 17 March 1932, Page 2

NEWS OF THE WORLD

FIVE HUNDRED UNIVERSITIES. AMERICA'S SCHOLARS. There are at least 500 universities in the world to-day, whereas there were only 77 in 13th century Europe. In America one out of every 125 of • the population attends a university, "in Germany one out of 650, in France one out of 700, in England one out of 1000. But it seems that England need not envy America. The intellectual foundations of a university, says an educationist, are laid in the primary and secondary schools. He says the nation with the best primary schools is likely to have the best vigorous intellectual life. NURSE MURDERS CHILDREN. FEARED SEPARATION. Believing that she was to be discharged, a nurse, who was devoted to two children, is supposed to have murdered them and taken her own life at'Chicago. When Mr. and M*s. , J. Heindel returned home from a - bridge party they were surprised that their two boys, aged 11 and 4 "years,-failed to meet them as usual

at the door. There was also no sign of the nurse. A search resulted in the discovery of the bodies of all three hanging in a cupboard in the basement. It is believed that the crime was committed by the 23-year-old nurse because, being deeply fond of the children, she feared separation from them. The parents, however, say that they did not contemplate discharging her. CRUDE BOOK-KEEPING. / MESOPOTAMIAN METHODS. How the Mesopotamian business man of 3000 years ago kept his records is shown by a collection of antiquities on exhibition in the University of Pennsylvania museum. One of the clay cunieform tablets records that a farmer namer "Arilludupti" pledged his entire farm as security for the loan of three and a half pounds of lead. Another tablet lists all the housse, clothing, lead, copper and barley which changed hands when two brothers agreed legally to adopt a small boy. A cylindrical, hollow clay receptacle containing 49 pebbles and a long cunieform inscription belonged to an illiterate shepherd named Zakaru. The pebbles represented 49 sheep entrusted to his. care. The records were found near Kirkuk in Northern Mesopo-

tamia, where an archaeological expedition from the Harvard-Bagdad school and the University of Pennsylvania museum spent three years in excavating a mound once the site of the city of Nuzi, noted for its commerce and art. WHITff CHILD'S RESCUE. Clad like the natives in a blanket and bandeau, and working like the natives around her, a light-skinned, fair-haired girl attracted the attention of a welfare nurse in the poor quarter of an Orange Free State town called Ficksburg. The girl, apparently between the age of 13 and 15, was taken from her surroundings. She only spoke the Basuto tongue. Subsequent inquiries established the fact that her father was an Englishman named Johnson, and that her mother's maiden name was Van Zyl. The couple, it is believed, were married shortly after the girl's birth. They went to Basutoland, where Johnson, it appears, worked for Indian traders. The mother died, and the father migrated and left his daughter with the Indians. The girl mixed only with Basuto children. Being desired in marriage by, an Indian and also by a petty chief who offered to pay for her. in cattle, she fled to Ficksburg and there found work.

The girl is intelligent and healthy, and has been placed by the Union of Education Department in a private industrial school. The Department is contributing to her upkeep until she is 18, and has assumed the role of guardian. The girl is learning Afrikaans, the language of the Dutch South Africans. The father is believed to be alive, but cannot be traced.