NEWS FROM ALL QUARTERS

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIV, Issue 791, 22 August 1923, Page 12

NEWS FROM ALL QUARTERS

GERMAN INNOCENTS. Italy is nowadays considered the Germans' Number Two home, but this does not include the privilege of singing "Deutscland über alles'' in the public cafes. ,-.. , . Two street musicians stopped in front of a cafe, and played "Deutschland über Alles." All the Germans sitting at the tables jumped to attention and sang uproariously three verses of the hymn. Their enthusiasm annoyed the Italians sitting in the cool of the evening. They called on the waiters to send the musicians away. This the Germans resented, and three husky youths, students from Berlin, used insulting language to the Italians, with tho result that a fight started. The police interfered, and took the musicians and three of the Germans to the police station. "IN CELLAR COOL." A big liner got ashore off the Azores. Divers went down. But one aged warrior of tho undersea contrived frequently to achieve tho inexplicable—go clown sober as a judge, and come up drunk. Curiosity got to such a pitch that Diver Lambert became the diver deputation to ascertain, if possible, this submarine mixing of wine with water. What happened was quite simple, if dangerous. The old man would get into an air-loch in the hold, raise his head into it, unscrew his head helmet, and—take a generous draught from a bottle of spirits. Then he would resume his helmet, and enter into the briny once more 1 This business was stopped, the old man being warned that while he could have a case ashore, he must not have even a bottle afloat!

WOMAN'S AIR DASH. In a specially hired air express a woman made a dash across Northern Europe from London to Copenhagen. The passenger, a Miss Moorhouse, wished to join a party of friends who left London last week for a steamship tour of Sweden and Norway, and paid the Daimler Airway Company £l4O for a special aeroplane to catch them at Copenhagen. The journey is about 600 miles. COSTER'S MARATHON. \ ___ Forty Costennongers competed in the barrow Marathon at the famous English horse show at Richmond, many of them being accompanied by their wives and children covered with pearlies. Tho prize, consisting of a donkey, a new barrow, and a load of bananas, went to Mr W. Page, of. Edgeware Road, London, who drove a very nice looking grizzle jenny. INSURANCE MANIA.' A wife's, mania for life insurance was described at the North London Court when tho husband sought an action against the insurance company for the recovery of the premiums. Tho husband said his wife 'had taken out twenty-three policies all of which she paid from the housekeeping money. As a result of her folly ho and the family had to live in a very frugal way. Four of the policies, ho added, were on the life of a child of two. ROBBERY ROMANCE. In connection with a robbery of £I3OO from Boland's flour mills, Grand Canal street, Dublin, C.I.D. officers have made six arrests—three men and three women. Two of tho men are soldiers in tho National Army, and, it is stated, engaged to bo married to two of the girls. Trousseaux and quantities of goods believed to have been purchased with the stolen money are reported to have been recovered as well as £250. It is learned that the soldiers will be tried by military court-martial. LIFE SENTENCE ON A BANK ROBBER. At Manchester Assizes Francis Breen (28), an Irishman, was sentenced to penal servitude for life for complicity in a bank robbery at Prestwich. The charges included two of attempting to murder it police constable and a civilian, who, after the robbery, pursued the intruders, among whom, it was alleged, was the prisoner. Breen pleaded guilty, and said he had not prepared a defence because he had no desire to be. taken back to Ireland, where he was wanted, and shot for an Irish offence. A NEW CRIME. A man who declared that he had been swearing in his sleep while in bed in his own house appeared at Bath Police Court charged with using obscene language within the hearing of passers-by. A police constable stated that while he was outside the house of the accused man, William Spurrell, after midnight, he heard a torrent of expletives lasting for half an hour. He added that Mr Spurrell was apparently soliloquising over his three years' imprisonment in Germany during the war. Mr Spurrell said that, owing to his sufferings as a prisoner of .war, he was liable to talk in his sleep in this fashion. "OUTSIDE ONLY!" Tho London bus driver has always been known for his ready humour, but the man on the rear platform has taken that honour now. The staff instruction department of a certain company rubs in so much the desirability of politeness to passengers that perhaps this attitude is responsible for the remark of a conductor as he stood on the top deck at a stopping place and thus addressed the crowd of would-be passengers: "Will the ladies and gentlemen who are unable to obtain accommodation in the interior -of the vehicle kindly ascend to the superstructureP Eh? What*" '