SPARROW MURDERED.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 112, 13 April 1936, Page 2

SPARROW MURDERED.

MOST LEARNED BIRD. An unusual murder, the victim of which was the most learned and popular sparrow in Budapest, occurred there, says the correspondent of the London Times, as a result of the cutthroat competition of vested interests. The sparrow had been adopted by a lonely old spinster who had charge of a newspaper stall at the main railway station. The bird was clever, jovial, and business-like. It learned to accost pas-sers-by, minded the stall when the mistress was delivering papers, and scornfully rejected buttons tendered by customers instead of coins.

The bird’s fame grew. It attracted hundreds of admirers and increased tho business. Thus it aroused the jealousy of rival newsvendors. One day, when the mistress was absent, her small companion was trapped and wilfully murdered by “persons unknown.” The Times honours the bird with a sub-leader, deploring the fact that the world’s vast reserves of sparrow-power have gone unharnessed. It points out that the bird followed a profession of which the late Edgar. Wallace was an ornament in his youth, but was the victim of a murder surely more dastardly than any contained in the lurid pages of that great author s work.