GENERAL NEWS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XL, Issue 12272, 16 May 1903, Page 6 (Supplement)

GENERAL NEWS.

CITRATE AND LADY'S LOVE.

At Gloucester a new curate of St. Mark': rs the Rev. Lionel J. Lord, has had to prose 11 cute a previous parishioner, a lady name ;r Whittal, of Crown Lodge, Evesham, wh ie tried to prevent his approaching marriag il by declaring that it had been divinely re h vealed to her that she was herself to b it his wife. She had written to the Bishop* d secretary alleging that she had been cruel!; a wronged. It was stated that she was suf n fering from mental derangement from re ° ligious causes, and arrangements bavin; ? been made for her to be taken care of, tin e summons was withdrawn. 13 A BOY AND GIRL MARRIAGE. c c Alice Hughes, 18, described as married 0 was charged on remand at Worship-street . Police Court, a few days ago, with steal i ing a number ol waistcoats, the property of her employer. Prisoner, it appeared. worked on the garments at her own home and pawned them. Her story was a painr fill but not a very unusual one in thai 1 district. She said she. pawned the thing.': - to get food to keep herself and her bus--5 band, who had no work. They had mar- - ried on Christmas Day last, after a three ) months' acquaintance, and she had mainly - supported him. It came out that at the I very time the girl was in custody her bus--1 band, also 18 years of age, was before the t Court for being drunk, and was fined ss, i As the girl went down the passage to the t cells her husband, looking out of one oi - them, saw her, and said,- Have yon come * to pay my fine?" Then he learned that she c too was a prisoner. Sho said she had given him her last 3jd on that morning. " The wife was bound over under the First Offenders' Act. ; WJIEX A WOMAN' IS IN LOVE. ' 111 support of a summons taken out . against a "decorative artist" by his wife for arrears of maintenance, a hale old man ; stepped into the box at Southwark County Court, and said lie was the wife's father. " That man," he declared, " was never any good." Judge Addison: Then why did you allow your daughter to marry a hangeron like him? Witness: Ah! sir, you can't control a daughter when she takes a fancy to a man. She is so wrapped up in him that she is deceived by him. Judge Addison : If daughters had sense they would listen to their parents more than they do, even in love affairs. Witness: You're right, sir, they would., Judge Addison: And girls are worse than boys in that respect, I believe? Witness: Yes, they are. sir; but that man would deceive anybody. He fed at my table for two years, and came there with a great, big portmanteau, making out he had got no end of things; but what did it contain? Nothing, sir, but brushes and colours. I kept "them for months I set him up in business, and lent him money, but all to no purpose. An order for the husband to pay 10s a month was made. GLADSTONE STATUE IN THE ABIiEr. The statue of Mr. Gladstone, which Mr. Brock, 8.A.. was commissioned to execute some time back, is now in its place in Westminster Abbey. It stands on a round pedestal of delicately-veined white marble, close to the spot where the great Liberal statesman lies buried in the " north cross" of the Abbey. The statue is some three yards or so away from that of Gladstone's famous contemporary, the Earl of Beaconsfield. Both works are mounted upon similar pedestals. Mr. Gladstone's effigy represents him roue'd as a D.C.L of Oxford; his .attitude is erect and alert: his face, which wears a thoughtful expression, is turned towards the right; and his lefthand grasps a roll of documents. All who knew Mr. Gladstone pronounce the likeness an excellent one. No inscription is yet carved on the panel of the pedestal, but this work is often done after a statue has been placed in the Abbey. WOMEN AS CANVASSERS. At the Mansion House Virgilio Maurique Gonzales, 40, agent, of Stoke Newington Road, was charged on a warrant, before Alderman Sir Horatio Davies, M.P., with assaulting Mary Ann James. ' Prosecutrix, aged 20, was employed as a, canvasser by the Property Insurance Company, of Lom-bard-street. About mid-day she called at defendant's office in Idol Lane in the course oi hei duties. She entered at the request of defendant, and she alleged that he first made some objectionable remark to her, and then committed the assault complained of. Cross-examined, prosecutrix said it was not true that defendant simply put his arm round her waist. She did not scream until she heard someone coming up the staiis. In reply to the alderman - prosecutrix said it was her duty to go from ; house to house and office to office canvassing for the company. The manager of the company said they employed about 30 of these girl canvassers. Detective Fitzgerald stated that upon arresting defendant finder the warrant he denied the charge, and suggested that it was very wrong that these girls should be allowed to go round in this way. Mr. Beard (defending) asked the alderman to deal with the case as a common assault. The alderman said he thought- it • a most dangerous practice that young girls ! should be allowed to go about canvassing ■ from office to office in the way they had heard in this case. At the 'same time, while it was allowed, the girls must be protected. He should commit defendant for trial, but would allow bail in two sureties ;of £20 each. DEADLY SOCIAL STRIDE. A great strike riot, accompanied by much • bloodshed, has occurred at Slatoust, in the Government of Ufa, in the Urals. Five hundred workmen in the State Ironworks there came out on strike and demanded the release of three of their comrades who had been arrested. The Governor of the* Province, who had come to inquire into the affair, was mobbed as he was entering the house of the manager of the works. The rioters stormed the house, smashing the doors and windows. When summoned to disperse they stood their ground and wounded the Assistant Mayor with a revolvei shot, The gendarmes and troops then fired on the mob, of whom 28 were lulled and 50 wounded. HOW IMPROPER DIET IS DEPOPULATING RURAL FRANCE. As in England, according to Cloudesley Lrereton, an English scientist, the attractions of town life- and higher wages are among the more obvious causes of the depopulation of the rural distiicts of France. But there are other causes which have been giving the statesman and the philosopher something to thing profoundly about. The low birth-rate is partly due' to the high standard of personal comfort, and partly also to the system of inheritance. Mr Brereton quotes the witty Frenchman who said that the English system of primogeniture confines the number of fools to one per family, but that the French have discovered a most effectual way of. rendering the whole family imbecile. But Mr. Brereton also casts a sad slight on the present condition of what was once the most temperate country in Europe, li not in the world The phylloxera was even a more terrible curse to France than was imagined when a. Pastern endeavoured to stay its ravages. It made good wine dear. The poor were driven to beetroot spirit, absinthe, and to other honors lor their stimulant. We are told that a workman's breakfast consists of slices of bread floating in spirit. Even i children are brought up on this "soup." The inevitable result., are already showing themselves. The number of recruits unfit I for service in the Northern departments has I increased sixfold; in some cantons tlv recruiting of conscript, is practically impossible. Sixty per cent, of the*males and seventy per cent, of the female., in the lunatic asylum at Alencon ar. alcoholics. PRESIDENT SENDS A GIFT TO THE POPE. President Roosevelt has sent to Cardinal Gibbons, and the lattci he. forwarded by special messengei to Pope Lc_ XIII., a gift to be presented to the Pontiff on the celebration of his jubilee. • The gift consists of ten handsomely-bound volumes, containing all the messages and official documents of the Presidents of the United States, from Washington to Roosevelt. The gilt was intrusted by Cardinal Gibbons to a clergymau who sailed from New York for Naples recently on the steamship Liguria. - Autograph letters from the President and Cardinal Gibbons to His Holiness accompany the gift.