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Manawatu Standard, Volume LIII, Issue 255, 25 September 1933, Page 6

According to Hon. J. G. Coboe, Minister of Justice, the Government is at present considering the question or making it mandatory for stock mortgagees to enter into a pooling arrangement in connection with proceedings before adjustment commissions.

A fortune of 121,091 dollars (about £24,000 at par) lias been left by Mr Pietro lerardi, a New York bootblack who arrived in the United States as a penniless immigrant when a young man. He obtained a concession for a bootblack-stand in the Grand Central Railway Station, where he worked until a mouth before his death. He employed more than 20 assistants, but was always active himself in serving his customers.

Many quaint and curious provisions are included in wills made by people who seek to govern the destinies of posterity. An instance is reported by a Sydney paper, which states that a lady of quality lias just left the revenue of £30.000 to her grand-daugli-ter with a proviso that the bequest is to be cancelled if the person or children commit a broach of the proviso stipulating that they must not propagate extreme political views or Communism. Such a possibility is remote, but there it is. A remarkable instance of the effect of freezing of the ground beneath a building is afforded at the freezing works at Kaiapoi. The ground beneath the freezing chamber is frozen to a depth of ldin. Naturally, as moisture has worked its way under the floor and has been converted into ice, a steady pressure has been exerted upward, and the walls, which weight GOO to 700 tons, have been lifted ovei a foot. The strain has cracked them, and so workmen are now engaged in restoring the chamber to its original condition. The story of an expedition to Russia in April last to recover buried treasure m Ekaterinberg ( (now re-named Sverdlovsk), the town where the Czar was assassinated, was told at Bow Street Police Court, London, on August 10. It was in connection with this expedition that a man was charged with obtaining credit without disclosing the fact that he was an undischarged bankrupt. During the proceedings the prosecuting counsel said the buried jewels were reputed to be worth at least a million or two million pounds. It sounded an extraordinary enterprise, but apparently it had the sanction ’of the Soviet Government, and a pact was entered into by which the proceeds of the jewellery, when recovered, should be shared with the Soviet Government. It was in connection with that adventure that these proceedings arose. A witness stated that upon the arrival of the expedition in Russia search was made for the treasure. The site was found, but the jewels were inaccessible. The original house had been replaced with workmen’s dwellings, and that being so the expedition returned to England. “I sincerely believe the jewels are there,” said the witness ill reply to a question. “I think thej 7 are from what 1 know now. The jewels were there originally.”

The canning of jellied eels lias been commenced in Greytown, and the results are reported to be very satisfactory.

During repairs to the roof of the Baptist Chapel at Sutton St. James, Lincolnshire, a colony of bees was discovered. The honey is to be sold at a bazaar in aid of the church. An unusual verdict, “death due to suffocation caused by a tight collar,” was returned at an inquest in Dublin on the body of a man aged about 20, who was found dead in his bedroom in a Dublin hotel.

Mr Alex Bourne, a farmer of Netherton, near Paeroa, aged about Go, met with serious injuries the other day when driving his cows from one paddock to another. Two beasts attacked him and before assistance was forthcoming he received severe cuts on the face below the eye, and also on the leg and chest. Nineteen years ago to-day, on September 25, 1915, began the famous offensive by the British and French Armies at Loos, an operation which lasted until well into October. The result was the gain of a salient driven into the German front north of Lens. The British losses exceeded 60,000 and those of the French were also very heavy. Indifferently spelled and punctuated, and conveying an appeal purporting to be from a Spanish prisoner, letters from Madrid have recently readied a number of New Zealand residents, including several at Palmerston North. It is an old form- of confidence trick wherein promises of a rich reward are made to the person forwarding money to secure the writer’s release from custody for bankruptcy. Piping, an honoured art in Scotland, was the subject of a picturesque ceremony in Skye. A memorial cairn was unveiled to the great hereditary pipers, the MacCrimmons, by Macleod of Macleod, twenty-seventh chief of his clan. The MacCrimmons were the acknowledged leaders in the art, and to their college students used to go from all parts for a seven years’ course of instruction: A graduate, it is said, had to learn 300 tunes by heart. Pipers of to-day gathered in their honour and played airs of the old masters in a misty Atlantic setting. Rarely in the history of gold mining in Otago has there been such interest taken by overseas capitalists as there is at present. Recently representatives of English and African gold mining companies spent a week on the Otago goldfields. After visiting the Nokomai claim and watching operations there they went on to Queenstown and Cromwell. From there they visited St. Bathan’s and Kildare, and other claims, and _ on their return the Wetherstones field. If the report of these mining authorities is favourable much capital for mining development may come into Otago (says a Dunedin exchange). An amendment which is to be introduced by Governor-General’s Message in the House of Representatives will, it is hoped, secure wider support for the Poultry Amendment Bill upon its re-introduction in Parliament this session. The Bill was passed by the House of Representatives at the close of last session, but was thrown out with somewhat facetious comment by the Legislative Council. The amendment, it is stated, will define more clearly the purpose of the main operative clause dealing with the registration of poultry runs and the payment of fees, the functions of the controlling poultry board and the payment of allowances. Since May last live camps for unemployed have been held on _ outlying portions of forestry estates in England. The men are kept in health by work each day in the forest; in the evenings they can indulge m recreation and amusement. Food is also provided for them. Other holiday camp schemes have their little problems for the men who attend them. A speaker at the British Social Hygiene Council’s summer school at Oxford described how wives resent their husbands going off to these camps. One man, for example, had bought himself a pair of cheap trousers to wear on liis holiday, but, in her anger, his wife took them and cleaned the grate with them to prevent his departure. Another chapter in the history of India and the Middle East was discovered as a result of the excavations at Mohenjo Daro, in Sind, which brought to light the remains of an Indian culture akin to the Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilisations of about 4000 to 3000 B.C. They have brought to light also something of much interest to modern agriculturists. The S.P.G. School, established by the late Canon Crosthwaite at Umedpur, United Provinces, obtained from a tomb unearthed in the excavations :n Mohenjo Daro an ear of wheat, which they have succeeded in reproducing. The wheat is of peculiar type, each head having small branches up to nine in number springing from it; and, judging from the weight of grain produced in the plot grown at the school, it is unusually prolific. The seed is now being sold for the benefit of the mission farm. The practice of placing wheat in tombs for the nourishment of the deceased in the spirit world was well known in antiquity; and the ear of wheat from which the ears now illustrated were grown, may have been buried for 50U years. So far as can be discovered, there is no other grain like this “mummy wheat” in the world to-day. An analysis taken at the Agricultural Research Institute at Pusa led to the report that “the food value of the wheat compares favourably with that of our Pusa wheat.’

The only flying school in the world at which a pupil may receive instruction in every branch of aviation and in all its allied subjects lias just completed the second year of its work at Hamble in England. Its tone and its particular methods are now fairly well established, and many lands which are only now beginning to find regular uses for aviation will have much for which to thank the Air Service Training School. At present a number of Indians, who hope later to become pilots on the main routes in their own country, are taking the complete course, occupying three years. There are young men at the school from many countries. The3' include a young American who had looked in all the schools of the United States for such training as he is getting at Hamble, and has now settled in the district for the three years that will be occupied by getting full qualifications. The school has also been asked to undertake the flying training of the sons of General Chang, who are of about the age of entry to a public school but would prefer to substitute aeronautical training for general education. Pupils have their own comfortable quarters and an unusually good mess. They have squash courts and they play most other games. They have begun to accumulate trophies for annual competition, and there is every sign that a high tradition is in the making -which may set a standard in aeronautical training to the whole world.

“Things must be reviving in this fair land. We have had a pleasant surprise in having our maintenance grant increased by £400,” states the director of a Melbourne Technical School in a letter to Mr G. G. Hancox, the director of the Palmerston North Technical School.

The Department of Native Affairs has decided to proceed with a treeplanting scheme on Hapara'ngi Mountain, overlooking the Horohoro block, about nine miles from Rotorua. Under the scheme, 60,000 trees- will be planted, and the work will be undertaken by the Native Department in conjunction with the Unemployment Board. To-day is Dominion Day, an anniversary not generally observed, although the banks and law offices were closed. Flags were flown on P!“ ,! c buildings and the All Saints’ Children’s Home. For those on holiday the weather was unkind and although the early morning was bright and sunny, rain set in early in the forenoon with a sharp fall in the temperatures and a changeable wind. To have her tongue pierced by. a paling was the painful experience on Saturday of Margaret Blenkhorn, the three-year-old daughter of Mr and Mrs Blenkhorn 24 Montreal Street, Milson. The little girl was playing on a fence and suffered the injury when she fell. She received medical attention and was taken to the Hospital by the Free Ambulance. The injuries were not serious and sire was discharged later in the day.

Twenty-eight years ago there was perpetrated what perhaps was the most remarkable murder in the annals of crime in New Zealand, when an ex-Oxford University, student, Lionel Terry, took the life of an aged and decrepit Chinaman, Joe Kum Yung, in Haining Street, Wellington. The time was Sunday evening, September 24, 1905. The Executive commuted the sentence of death imposed on accused into one of penal servitude for life, and, after serving a period in gaol, he was transferred to a mental hospital, where he is still detained.

“There is absolutely no foundation in fact for the suggestion that* I am to go to London to negotiate loan conversions,” said the Minister of Finance, Rt. Hon. J. G. Coates, when a report that he was likely to proceed to England immediately after the present session of Parliament was referred to him. Mr Coates said that any negotiations which were necessary could quite well be conducted from New Zealand. The Minister also denied the suggestion that he is a candidate for the High Commissionership in London. “I am a New Zealander. All my interests are in New Zealand, and I propose to stay in New Zealand,” he said.