GENERAL NEWS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 13948, 2 January 1909, Page 4 (Supplement)

GENERAL NEWS.

j; ORDER FOR AMMUNITION. I|| The Turkish Government has placed an I ! order with a FOR AMMUNITION. The Turkish Government has placed an order with a German firm for 300,000,000 f Mauser rifle cartridges of the new pattern, io:% order to be completed in two years. fill AMERICAN BEAUTY WEDDED. I ■ ' ■ ~ I Miss Marguerite Frey, winner of the If American beauty competition, has just been I married to Mr. Wilkins McClair Armour, I of Dallas. Texas. Tired of notoriety, sheI chose a quiet wedding, and only her parents II knew of the date. jj • BRITISHERS' CHINESE WIVES. I The Chinese wives of two British enginei drivers employed on the Kowloon railway, who arrived at Victoria, British Columbia, by the steamer Empress of China, are oeiris; detained for the poll tax of £100. The husbands are appealing to Ottawa. ! ] THE POPE LOSES HIS VOICE. I Romk, November .19.—The Pope had be- '. gun an address to-day at a reception of pilI grims when he suddenly lost his voice Mid I was unable to conclude his discouise. ahe | incident save rise to considerable alarm at I the Vatican, but in the evening the Pope I voice bad returned. f'*■ 11 LADY FORBIDDEN TO SMOKE. LADY FORBIDDEN TO SMOKE. [I At the Hotel St. Regis, Now York, the if other day. Baroness Hengelmuller, the wife If of the Austro-Hungarian Ambassador, was jl asked to extinguish a cigarette which she I was smoking. Some timo ago the same jl experience befell the actress, Mrs. Patrick II Campbell, in a New York hotel. I SMALLER DEMAND FOR PEARLS. If •As a result of financial depression a conff siderable quantitv of the Persian Gulf II peirls fished in 1905 and nearly all the I take of 1906 or 1907 have been returned or [1 left in the hands of the original JocaL If buyers. The prices of pearls have dropped fr to'the figures of 10 years ago, or by nearly U 40 per cenL Isiderablo quantity of the Persian Gulf pearls fished in 1905 and nearly all the take of 1906 or 1907 have been returned or left in the hands of the original local buyers. The prices of pearls have dropped to 'the figures of 10 years ago, or by nearly 40 per cent. jj MADAME DE TBEBES' PROPHECY. )*|: , Madame de Thebes, whose annual al- | manac is becoming as popular in Paris is I': Old Moore's Almanac in England, pro- || phesies that 1909 will be a "red year." 111 We shall be threatened with a general conll flagration, and the most critic.il moments II of the crisis will be from August, 1909, to p February, 1910. jj THIEVES RAID GAMBLERS. " | h'. Paris. November 19.—A gambling duo fi was raided last night at Beziers, and the m money on the tables taken bv tw& men jr. IE plain clothes. After their departure it was fi- found that they did not belong to the p police, and that the. gamblers had been the ]| victims of two daring thieves, who got |. d - away with £1800.

" FATHER OF THE VIPERS. . Leon Casse, the official viper killer in the v forest of Fontainebleau, is now Testing after y : an arduous, season, in which he has killed nearly 700-snakes.' Hi* average is ; 800 a 'I year; and he has been bitten so often that he has become immune to the poison of the v snake's bite. He is known as the "Father 'of the Vipers," and he sleeps on s mattress „,,made of vipers'' skins. }; j. •;-■'- HP ; ' M X, A GRUESOME RELIC. J* r< Xprk; Castle may beseen a,, collection • of relics which have-an Interest to lovers cf the morbidl f Amongst'.'them are the.fetters worrf"b'v Dick Turpni, arid a monster knife -. and fork. ''This" was used after the rising in 1745 when the rebels were brought to York Castle to meet their deaths by hanging.! It was the barbarous custom of the time to quarter the bodies, and this enor.jnous knife and fork were used for this "ghastly purpose. ' '•■■..■■.* ■ .., NEW AMERICAN COINAGE. The United States Mints have begun the coinage of money on si new systemj the on .both sidei of the coins being • suSITIJSTow th-i face of the pieces, instead of raised in bas-relief, as is . now the case with all coins throughout the world. The new-method allows coins to be piled in uniform/ height, and also protects the designs from being worn. At present the sunken design win 'be used only for gold coinage, , but if it proves successful it will be adopted for silver money. 300 ,TONS OF PENNIES. : Mr. G. A. Touche, who presided at the l annual meeting of the Sweetmeat Automatic Delivery Company, said the decrease in net Drofit corooaied with last year was £10.797. In 1906 they took 32,573,278 I pennies; in 1907. 33,983,671 pennies; and in 1908, 34,450,203 pennies. Altogether - hay took over 300 tons of copp*r during the past year. When the new arrangements were comoleted. there would be between 35,000 and 40,000 machines. A CURIOUS CUSTOM. : An Englishwoman living in Nigeria, lei is of a curious custom she noticed in the town of Girie. "Some of the round huts," she writes. " had bunches of short, dry bamboo twigs hanging from the apex of the thatch, rattling cheerfully in the evening breeze, arid, on inquiry we were told that -«ny young man who desired to marry hung out the signal, so that all match-making parents of daughters might take a note of his intentions, and presently parade their most attractive daughters for his benefit." PALACE HOARD. One feature of the present situation in Pekin, says the Times correspondent, is the hoarded wealth lying unproductive in the palace, amounting to millions sterling. The bullion entrusted during; the foreign military occupation of Pekin jr. 1900-1901, first to the protection of the American General Cliafiee, and afterwards to the English General Sir A. Gaselee, was estimated, approximately, at £9,000,000. Whatever was the amount of the hoard, it has since considerably increased. Under a more enlightened Regency there is hope that this treasure may become reproductive. ' 'HOW THE JAPS. PULL TEETH. The Japanese dentist does not frighten his patient with an array of steel instruments. All Ids operations in tooth-drawing are performed by the forefinger and thumb of one hand. The skill necessary to do " r this is acquired only after long practice, but when once it is obtained the operator is able to extract half a dozen teeth .n f- about thirty seconds, without once removing his fingers from: the patient's mouth. The dentist's education commences with : the pulling out of pegs which have been pressed into soft wood; it ends with the drawing of hard pegs which have been driven into an oak plank. with a mallet.

A MILLIONAIRE RECLUSE. i Geneva, November 16.—Dr. Gabrini, the richest and most eccentric man in Switzerland, has died at Lugano at the Jig© of 95. He has ■ left a fortune of . a little over £1,000,000, the greater part.of which he -made in America. He bequeathed most of huM»qney to. charities;. The doctor was a bent, tbxti little: man. He was never married, anaylived in the beautiful chateau of Ciani, with, only two servants. He employed a large number of gardeners to look after his magnificent park. The millionaire wore -the ehabbieetvof, clothes, and one of Lis favourite amusements was to conduct tour- , ists over his park in the role of gardener and to receive their tips. Every evening :>.'after a frugal dinner, Dr. Gabrini would walk, always alone, to a little cafe and drink his cup of coffee and glass of water, -returning home on foot. He neither smokci, drank intoxicants, nor gambled, »nd need to boast that he Uvea on four shillings tfdajj k ' '■• ■ ' ' ' ~' ..' : . ■■' , ;■;' ■■';/•" • "■'