NEWS OF THE WORLD

Manawatu Times, Volume LV, Issue 7039, 24 December 1932, Page 5

NEWS OF THE WORLD

QUEER EGG-SHELL PERFECT REPLICA OF WATCH An odd phenomenon was seen at Barton Malpas, Cheshire, England, on the farm of William France. It was an eggshell marked with a perfect replica of a watch. The Roman numerals arc complete, and even the minute divisions arc perfectly plain. Mr France has heen offered large sums of money for the egg. There is no explanation of the freak, hut it is certain that the egg has not been tampered with. I FATHER KILLS SON TERRORISED WHOLE VILLAGE A violent, unruly son was killed by his father in a Jugoslavian village near Belgrade. He was only 17 but was drunken and dissolute, terrorising the whole village. Even the police carried firearms to protect themselves from him. Suitors were afraid to make love to his two pretty sisters. When his father refused to make over the farm to hsn, he burned the barn and killed all tM cattle. So the father took desperaV measures. The court, on hearing tit! story, took the view that it was justifiable homicide. LONDON’S COAL EXCHANGE FLOOR CONSISTS OF 4000. PIECES. The structure of the floor of the Coal Exchange witnesses to the extent and importance of London’s sea-borne coal trade. It consists of 4000 pieces of inlaid wood, and represents a mariners’ compass. In the centre is the City of London’s coat of arms, the dagger blade in the arms being a piece of a mulberry tree planted by Peter the Great, the famous Emperor of Russia, when he worked as a shipwright in Deptford dockyard. The Corn Exchange, of which the tower overlooks the Pool of London, was opened on October 29, 1849, by the Prince Consort. IMPORTED SKELETONS BRITISH CANNOT BE BOUGHT There is one thing you cannot buy as a British-made article. Skeletons 1 Perhaps you may wonder who would want to buy such a thing. Every medical student requires one for the purpose of study, and there is a brisk demand for them—so brisk that most students can afford to buy only half a skeleton, a right-hand or a left-hand side. All come from foreign countries, and ,the reason for this is that their laws are not quite so strict as those of Great Britain, where when a man dies he must be buried, and once he is under ground he has to stay thercl Several firms in London and other university towns import skeletons, and they do a big business. The average price of half a skeleton is £5 or so, but a whole one costs more than twice as much.

SHEEP NEED NO SHEARING CUBIST CATS AND DOGS Sheep which need no shearing, and living rabbits, cats and dogs with fur dyed in geometrical patterns, are the results of eight years of experiments by a young Soviet scientist. The scientist, Professor Iliin, treated a flock of 2500 sheep with chemicals. Ten or 12 days later, says the Tass Agency, they shed their wool. It took between three and seven minutes to remove all the wool from each sheep, compared with an average of 40 minutes for shearing. In addition to chemicals, the use of infra-red and ultra-violet rays has been employed in the experiments, by which rabbits are reported to have yielded nearly twice as much down and fur. Rabbits, cats and dogs whose fur has coloured squares, parallelograms, triangles and stars may be seen walking about in Professor Iliin’s laboratory. By the dyeing process white rabbits have been turned into black ones, and sables and martens made darker, their value thus being increased. DRINKING-WATER PROBLEM SOLVED AFTER CENTURIES After centuries of waiting, the drink-ing-water problem of the famous island mount, Mont St. Michel, off the north coast of France has been solved. There has been no source of drinking water on the island itself. A digging of wells was impossible, and so the thirsty were dependent on rain or bottled water. All this has now been changed. Mont St. Michael has a water supply of its own, pumped through a pipe line from the neighbouring village of Moldrey. Work on the project was started early this year and is now virtually finished. The cost was 650,000 francs. Electrically-operated pumps have been installed to force the water to the mount, where there arc two reservoirs, each containing 100 cubic metres, one near the summit and the other at the base of the famous abbey. SHYLCCK OFFENDS JEWS “MERCHANT OF VENICE” BANNED Shakespeare’s “Merchant of Venice” lias been banned from the elementary schools of Baltimore (U.S.A.) as the result of an agitation by Jewish rabbis and Protestant clergy, who considered that the character of Shylock was likely to create prejudice against Jews. The Protestant Bishop of Maryland, Dr Halfenstein, was one of the religious leaders who appealed to the education authority to withdraw the play from school curricula and libraries. One interesting aspect of the ban is that Baltimore has one of the largest Catholic populations in America, and was originally founded as a settlement where Catholics could escape from persecution in other parts of America. MOLTEN GLASS FLOOD BRIGADE’S INGENUITY The ingenuity of the Milan (Italy) Fire Brigade was put to a severe test when firemen were called out to stop a flood of molten glass. One of the sides of a huge furnace tank in a glass factory suddenly gave way and immediately the whole floor of the factory became flooded with liquid glass. The workmen all managed to escape, hut could not stop the flow from the tank, and the transparent lava spread to the doorway, into the street, and downstairs to the cellars of the factory. The lire brigade sent for large supplies of ice, with which the firemen solidified the creeping margins of the glass. They then turned to the seething bulk itself, hosed it with iced water, and gradually made it all solid. Next day, with the factory very much under glass, the second phase of the work was begun—the liberation with pick and hammer of the densely encased premises. Workmen’s jackets and other personal belongings could be seen in the glass as if preserved in ice.

LEGS BROKEN 20 TIMES HALF LIFE SPENT IN HOSPITAL Arthur Brown, of Weymouth, England, is again in a hospital with a broken leg. It is the 20tli time he has suffered fractured limbs and he has spent half of his 18 years in hospitals while waiting for the bones to knit. His first fracture was when he was two and a-half, and the longest time he has been without one was 14 months. His last fracture was on a doctor’s doorstep. Many doctors have visited him and they say it is a case of brittle bones. NOVELIST IN WORKHOUSE PHILANTHROPIC MISSION A successful novelist who has written five “best sellers” and is a friend of 11. G. Wells and John Galsworthy, is a philanthropist who lives in a London workhouse,, though he is well-off. His name is Christopher Massie. His philanthropy takes the form of educating clever slum children. The proceeds of his latest novel he is devoting to the education of a little girl 11 years of age. He hopes to give her an education that will give her a chance in life, he says. Massie is 52 years old. ALL THE SAME NAME MUDDLE IN ITALIAN [VILLAGE There is a small village called Russgnaeh in the Province of Trieste, all the inhabitants of which are surnamed Russgnach and named either Felice or Felicita, according as they are males or females. This cxtraoi’dinary fact was brought to light recently when a small boy, named Felice Russgnach, was admitted to a hospital in Trieste for treatment of a wound accidentally inflicted hy another boy named F'elice Russgnach. He was accompanied by his parents, named Felice and Fclicita Russgnach. Both his parents, it was learned, were the offspring of two couples named Felice and Felicita Russgnach. CAR GIVEN TO RESCUER COST £IOOO An American singer travelling in France, Mr Parker Steward, who was the victim of a motoi--car accident near Vil-leneuve-sur-Alliei", has presented the vehicle in which he was driving and which cost £IOOO, to a farmhand who helped him after the smash. The accident occurred in a lonely spot, and both Mr Steward and his servant who was with him were injured. They were found by a man named Eucellier, who assisted Mr Steward to the nearest farmhouse and bandaged his wounds. While this was being done the baggage in the car was stolen, thus making it impossible for the singer to give anything to Eucellier as a mark of gratitude. He therefore asked him to accept the damaged car as a present.

FEWER VIPERS IN FRANCE AN INSTITUTE DISAPPOINTED Although picnic parties and holidaymakers may find satisfaction in the shortage of vipers in France this year, the Pasteur Institute is somewhat unhappy over this state of affairs. The institute has 10 viper-hunters at work in various parts of the country and pays them three francs a head for living snakes. One of the hunters opci-at-ing in the Massif Central caught 1254 serpents in a week, some of them more than two and a-half feet long. But, despite this and other heavy “bags,” the institute expected better results from a season which has been especially favourable for the breeding of these poisonous snakes. The institute makes snakebite antidotes 'from the poison of the reptiles. SLEEP-WALKING SAILOR FALLS INTO SEA The mate of the ti'awlcr Avonsidc, who is no more superstitious than most sailoimen, had the fright of his life recently when, 60 miles off the Scottish coast, he saw a hazy figure climb from the open sea over the stern of the ship and disappear into the shadows forward. He called the captain and together they investigated. By the light of the moon they saw wet footprints which led to the crew’s quarters. A heap of wet clothing lay on the floor. In the bunk above was the shiveiung form of Alfred Middleton ivho said he walked overboard in his sleep. The shock of the cold water awakened him and he grabbed a rope as the stern went slipping by. Feeling a bit ashamed of himself he went back to his bunk, hoping, he said, he had not been noticed. JURY DEFIES JUDGE NEW TRIAL ORDERED “There has been a gross miscarriage of justice such as I have never known in my 32 years’ experience. The jury have "refused to accept the order of the court.” This was said by Judge Gwynne•Tanies at Wincanton (Somerset) County Court recently, when a jury refused to assess damages. The case, an action for damages, arose out of an accident in a garage. The jury returned a verdict in the defendants’ favour, stating that there was contributory negligence by the plaintiff. Judge Gwynne-James, however, ruled that there was no evidence upon which the jury could reach such a verdict, and when the jury was asked to assess damages they said they were not going to assess any. Judge Gwynne-James, in ordering a new trial, said he was not sure that he ought not to commit the jury for contempt of Court. He said it was the most perverse thing he had ever heard of, OBSOLETE MAN WOMAN’S SUPERIORITY Dr C. R. Fay, Reader in Economic History at Cambridge University, told an audience of women all about the inferiority of man. He was delivering the Fawcett Lecture at the Bedford College for Women, Regent’s Park, London, N.W. “Men can run faster, fight more powerfully, and lift greater weights than women,” he said, “and the body of a woman can be kept efficient on less food than a man’s. “But the mastodon perished because it was too big. The horse has perished because power generated by oats in an animal frame is less effective than power developed by petrol in an engine. “I sometimes fear a time when millions of men will be as the horses, with this difference, that the horse has survived for sport only, while men will survive for sport and the dole.” Women, said Dr Fay, were not mentally inferior to men, and in the world’s histoi’y women had done most of the work while men went out to hunt and tight.