GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19298, 10 April 1926, Page 3 (Supplement)

GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

" A LITTLE TERROR." Described as a .little terror," Ivy Woods, an auburn-haired London girl, aged 20, was sentenced at. the Isle of Wight Police Court, to three month's hard labour lor breaking the window of a shop ftt Owes. When slit* was arrested she bat the hand of the constable, and in ('owea' workhouse she. violently attacked arid bit another inmate. Woods said she was deaf, and she took no interest, in the proceedings. PLANES INSTEAD OF SHIPS. Some of the biggest shipbuilding yards in France are. so slack that they have decided to turn their attention to aircraft buildaig. The other day a. big South American liner was launched at St. \azaire, and the launching was made the occasion for the opening of a huge aircraft factory which had been laid out in the shipyard. This is only one. example of the shipyards turning their energies to the building of the craft that are fast becoming rivals of the ship for oversea traffic. | THE CHIMES OF MALINES. Ma lines Cathedral, where Cardinal Mercier was buried, would have had the highest Gothic tower in the world had the plans of the architect been carried out. It wis designed to exceed the spire of Lum Cathedral by 22ft, thus soaring 550 ft toward the heavens, but funds failed, and- the height was reduced to 318 ft. Fortunately the economy was uot extended to the bells, and Malines chimes have for centuries known only ono rival in Belgium—the belfry of Bruges. During the war the cathedral was several times under fire. A MUCH TRAVELLED FAMILY. An American private inquiry agent, who has had the task of tracing the ancestors of a certain resident, in the United States named Ross, has discovered many astonishing things. Ho seems to have undertaken a life's work. The agent was surprised at the number of Highlanders who scattered to Europe and Asia during the 17th and 18th centuries, their names changing in the process. .In Germany, for example, he came across a man styled Count von Ross, while in Holland there is a big family, Ros, who originated in Scotland. BETTER THAN THE THUMB. Fruit farmers have up to now just pressed on the fruit with the thumb, and experience has told them when it is ready for picking. An instrument has been designed by the United States Department of Agriculture which registers on a dial the exact firmness of an apple or other fruit. A plunger is pressed against the flesh of the fruit, and the pressure it will withstand is shown by a pointer on the dial. An enormous number of tests have been made with these instruments, from which tables have been compiled to help the farmer to pick his fruit in the best possible. condition for export. SCARING A GHOST. A .recent ecclesiastical method of removing an evil spell from a seems to have been less simple than that of Archbishop Thomson in exorcising a ghost from a mansion \yhere he once spent a night. He was lodged in the haunted chamber, and in the morning his hostess inquired anxiously if he had seen anything. " Oh, yes," replied the Archbishop, " I wakened to find an old pinched-looking man in the room. I jumped up and asked if he lived in the house. He nodded assent. Was he a parishioner ? I asked. Again ho nodded. Then, said I, I should like to ask your help for our new school building fund- At that, ho vanished, and disturbed me no mor<£" FRENCH EDUCATIONAL FAILURES. After forty years of compulsory education France is faced by the fact that a fifth of her young conscripts cannot pass the simplest educational tests. It is all said to'be due to non-attendance at. school, largely arising from the employment of children of school age. But it is not only the young conscripts who are found wanting. Secondary education is described as a failure. It is declared (hat/ apart from his knowledge of the sciences, the average graduate today knows much le3s than his predecessor of fifty years ago. He reads the newspapers, but has no leisure for the great writers, and lacks the incentive of intellectual curiosity.

EARLY RAILWAY IN ENGLAND. The centenary of the opening of the Stockton and Darlington Railway, which took place last year, draws attention to thf) wonderful way in which the British railway system has developed from isolated fragments of primitive lines into a network of some 23,000 miles spread throughout the country. Tn " Early British Railways," Mr. H. G. Lew in shows the development of the railway from the time of horse-drawn trucks to the leviathans of the present day, and although traces of the old lines are still to be found, they are getting fewer arid fewer year bv year. In the early days of locomotion many companies were formed to build railways between different cities, some Ifing no longer than ten or eleven miles in length. Prior to the passing of Lord Seymour's Act;' in 1840, once a railway company had obtained its charter it was free to act as it wished. THE DUKE'S NEW HOME. Orirzon Street; London, where the Duke and Duchess of York have taken Lord Howe's house, is rather a rare example of a street maintaining for nearly two hundred years an association with the family from which it took its name. Originally tin* street was called Mavfair Row, and it was renamed f.'urzon Street, after George C'urznn, third Viscount Howe, the ancestor of the preserr; Earl Howe, the ground landlord. The street had once a rather scandalous reputation in connection with May/air Clmpel, where the drunken parson, Dr. Alexander Keith, performed clandestine, marriages. • Among the. more or less (ainutis people married there in the twenty years prior to 1754 were the Duke of Chandosand Mrs. Jeffrey, Lord Strange and Mrs. Smith, Lord Kensington and Rachel Hill, tho Duke of Hamilton and Miss Gunning, and Lord George Bentinck and Mary Davits. THE PETTED PEKINGESE. The exhibitors at the Pekingese Club Open Show held in London were all women. Every dog cama with its own luxuri-ously-equipped pen and reclined at ease on gorgeous cushions of silk or satin. Their baskets were in many cases trimmed with tapestry of Oriental design. Tho pens provided by the show authorities were used for storing can-do-cologne, powder, and other toilet items. Scent sprays were used to provide a finishing touch, and malted rnilk was ready as light refreshment. Womenfolk of tho Pekingese dog tribe certainly do not. make good mothers owing to tho fuss arid admiration which r.Urrcutid their lives. The owner of one pretty pet, Lit-zo, a bundlo of red hair that reclined : a a pen daintily fitted with a gay-flowered cretonne that, matched the colour of her coat, declared that Lit-zu had killed all Jjar puppies in extreme infancy by licking them to death.

HORSE HUNT IN THE SEA. Breaking away when being exercised oil the beach at Great Yarmouth, a young thoroughbred horse dashed into the sea and swain out half a mile vound a vessel anchored in the roads. Chased by boatmen, the horse led them back to the shore, and then went, to sea again. When at last secured it landed as fresh as it started. The remarkable hunt was witnessed by a large crowd of spectators. COSTLY PARIS FROCKS. A triple duty tine of £SO was imposed at Westminster on Joan Noel Arnott Wright, 25, unmarried and independent, of Ronrnemout.h, for concealing dutiable goods when returning from the Continent. Questioned at. Victoria Station, she admitted that she had six pairs of new silk stockings about her when her trunk was passed at Dover. Further search resulted in the finding of three new silk dresses which she said she purchased in Paris. PERE GARIOT'S JEST. After the funeral of M. Isidore Gariot, of Lot-udy, in Brittany, his children searched in vain for the. money it was known he had saved up. It must, they thought, have been somehow buried with him, They obtained an exhumation order. Now the exhumation has taken place, and the money has been found in the folds of a coat which Father Gariot had asked to be wrapped round his body. It. counted 4,650 francs. CORONETS AND SHINGLES. In connection with the recent. Royal opening of the British Parliament, some of the wives of peers on looking at their coronets that they had worn on previous occasions discovered that all was not. well. The coronet that was made for a head with a mass of locks will not sit properly on a head that has since been shingled. Coronets cannot be padded with paper in the same way that the hats of commoners are treated, and so the coronets had to go to the jewellers to bo re-made. BREAKABLE MONEY. Greece's new forced loan, to be raised by the simple expedient of cutting a piece off every banknote, was Peter Pan's method of paving Solomon Cow in " The Little White Bird." It is also a reminder that long before the days of paper cur rency money that could be similarly cut was in existence. The penny was t.he lowest English coin under the Norman Kings, and various authorities have thought, that it was issued with a deep cross indented upon it to enable those who wished to break it into halfpennies and farthings. A CHOICE IN CHINESE. Those who suppose that there is only one Chinese language will be interested to know that in the recent foreign language examination for army officers one subject was Chinese and the other "Colloquial Pekingese." The two languages aic quite distinct, and this is probably the first time that any Englishman not connected with the Chinese Consular Service has passed an examination in the latter language. For several Years, until recently, there was only one officer in the Army List who had passed in Cantonese, another of the languages of China. ANTIQUITY OF THE LIFT. New escalators at. yet another London station give a reminder that the lift, which the moving staircase seems to be gradually superseding, is far older than most people imagine.. A traveller has recorded seeing one in Luxembourg iu 1777. Describing the Empress Maria Theresa s establishment, the traveller describes an ingenious machine "of Count Thun s invention," by means of which the Empress was conveyed through a well from one floor of the house to another. Incidentally, he also unchivalrouslv explains the invention by adding that her Imperial Highness was "too unwieldy to go up and down stairs."

ESHER'S GREEK THEATRE. Esher Place, Lord D'Afcernon's country house, from which wireless enthusiasts have been accused of stealing trees for broadcasting masts, enjoys the distinction of being perhaps the only house in England with a complete Grecian theatre. The theatre is on the side of a grassy bank. There is a large flat plateau for a stage, with box hedges behind to form a green room, and the audience sits in rows on seats cut out of the bank. On several occasions Lady D'Abernon has organised pageants and other entertainments in her out-of-door theatre, and it is often used during the summer for amateur theatricals. BABY ELAND AT ZOO. A baby eland—the largest of the antelopos—w'as born at the London Zoo recently, tho second event of the kind since the war. During the first few hours of its existence Dot, the baby, was quite lively, nosing around inquisitively, apparently satisfied with the world as it found it. the little one settled down comfortably in the straw and thus it passes most of its time. Elands are easily satisfied. It is said that they am live and keep fat on the driest leaves, even when these, can be. rubbed to powder between the hands, and that they can live for months without drinking, as they do in the Kalahari Desert. ROYAL SILVER WEDDINGS. Celebrations which have taken place iJi Holland in honour of the twenty-fifth wedding anniversary of the Queen and the Prince Consort may servo as a reminder of the fact that most of the kings and queens of Europe have already passed this interesting milestone in their domestic affairs. King George, and Queen Mary have been married nearly thirty-three, years, but the oldest, royal married couple are the King arid Queen of Sweden, their wedding having taken place nearly forty-five years ago. The King of I he Belgians and his Queen celebrated their "silver jubilee" last year, while both the King and Queen of Italy and tho King and Queen of Norway have enjoyed almost thirty years of married life. The King and Quc.cn of Denmark are two years short of this total. A GEORGE 111. ORGAN. An interesting gift has beers mado to Eton College in the shape of a small organ built" in 1760 lor George 111. by Snetzlor. The King gave it to Queen Charlotte, and she later on made a prosent of,it to the Princess Amelia. At one of tho Royal sales early in tho last century it was bought, by Lord Egroinont and set up at, his seat of Orchard Wyndham in Somerset. Tho organ was lent for many years to tho neighbouring church of St. Decumau. Recently St. Decwnan's procured .a new and larger organ, and Mr. William Wyndham, of Orchard Wyndham, offered the old organ as a gift to Eton College. It was accepted and has now been set up in Election HalL The organ has a beautiful dark wooden caso of tne period, with a flat front of gold pipes surmounted by a broken pediment. It is an admirable and quite untouched specimen of its kind. Tho portraits of its former Royal owners. George HL and tho Queen, Kang beaido ii.