GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 20076, 13 October 1928, Page 3 (Supplement)

GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

STATUE TO BARBER. No barber did as much to make women's heads beautiful as Antoino, the man who earned the title of " King of the World's Hairdressers," and who called his work " psychological coiffure." A statue is to be placed on his tomb in Paris. It shows an impressive malo figure resembling Antoine standing over a kneeling woman who has her neck turned toward him, as though for his critical approval of her shingle. " MONEY GIVEN AWAY." A decision regarding obstructions to highways in connection with advertising " stunts'' was given by tho Middlesborcugh magistrates recently. A tradesman had exhibited a notice stating >hat Treasury notes would be given away, and the crowd that assembled interfered with the flow of traffic. Ihe tradesman was summoned for obstruction. The defending solicitor argued that fclie obstruction was caused by the peoplo and not by tho tradesman. The magistrates upheld that contention, and tho police withdrew the summons. A WONDERFUL SURVIVAL. A sorrowing Canadian father had his grief suddenly turned to joy. He was carrying the body of hist little daughter who ha>l fallen into the St. Lawrence River, and had remained there for three houis. when he discovered she was alive. The doctor who was called, explained that when the child fell into the watei, phe struck hei head, and this stopped the working of the heart and lungs, and she floated motionless until pulled out. 11 TWINS QUITE COMMON." j

Medical literature records soma remarkable cases of multiple birth, and makes twins seem commonplace. I hero is one instance of'seven living children born together of which only one did not survive. Five cases are known of six children born iit once. The average of twin births to single ones is about one in a ICO; triplets about one in 6000; and five births at a time about one in ten million It is rare for all four of quadruplets to survive, although thu four girls of the Keys family, born in Oklahoma 14 years ago, all lived. CIVILISATION'S PROGRESS. An interesting list of the things England has spread through tho world was given by Mr. 11. A. L. Fisher recently They arc: Parliaments, railways, factories, cooperative societies, safety bicycles, tobacco, afternoon tea, athletic sports, aseptic surgery, child welfare work, boy fonts and girl guides, jury system. Salvation Army, high-class tailoring, and Gilbert and Sullivan. Germany takes tho honours in beer, music, and disciplined knowledge; France iu taste; and the United States in brilliant mechanical mvcntivenoss. CHILDREN FIRE TORPEDOES. The Navy Week at Chatham was a great success, and about 50,000 peoplo paid for admission to tho dockyard there and to view the battleship Marlborough at Nheerness. A feature of the week was tho large number of school-children who •Tvare shown over the ships. Tho chief attractions wero the four L class submarines, recently returned from China. Queues 150 yards long lined up to go aboard them The crowd also viewed with interest the huge 15in. guns of the Marshal Soult, a coast monitor. Girl Guides and Bov Scouts aetuallv fired torpedos from destroyers when attending Plymouth .Navy Week.

NEW FORM OP SWINDLE. Tho inexhaustible ingenuity of the American mind has invented a new form of swindle, to which is given the expressive name of " flopping." A " flopper " is one who chooses a building which ho know 3 to be insured against ouits for personal injuries received in or about it. Tho " flopper" executes a fall, spectacular but harmless, and is soon picked up by a bogus ambulance (consisting of his confederates), who bandage him and depart as to a hospital. The is then put into the hands of a crooked lawyer, to get what he can oat of the insurance company.

RICHEST FOOTBALL CLUB. The Tottenham Hotspur Football. Club is tho richest in the world. Its profits since the war total over £74,000; its assets are £98,000, and its liabilities a nominal £BOOO. The club owns freehold property valued at £61,000. All this has been achieved upon an issued capital of £4892. Thanks to progress in the cup, the " gates" increased last season by £2OOO. The sum of £3996 was spent upon engagement of players, and £3250 obtainod by transfer of players In i 382 the club s members wero work mg lads of fourteen to fifteen, who played with their great-coats as goalposts. Tho cbib was frequently to debt in its early days, and threepenny concerts were held to raise funds. The first. " gate" amounted to 17s, but, as the goalposts had been " commandeered" from a neighbouring dub, tho match was finished abruptly

DUTIES OF COLPORTEUR. It is -ixtraordinary the number of little known soc.oties there are, their existence unsuspected by the average mar Such bodies as the Anti-Viv.section Society, 'ho National Association of Schoolmasters, and tho Civil Service iSocioty explain themselves and their work in their titles. One that does not is the Christian Colportage Association. This was founded in 1874, but tne average man will wonder what a " colporteur" is, and what ho does. A colporteur is a man who goes round the count!y selling religious tracts, pamphlets. arid oooks The Christian Colporteurs visit towns and villages. They call on domestic servants in the oig houses of Belgiavia and Kensington, and set up their book-van among tho roundabouts and cocoanut-shies of fairs in tho country and at the seaside. During their 65 years of existence thoy havo sold million bocks.

A MODEL RAILWAY SHOW. England has a Model Railway Club, which recently had it annual exhibition in London Hundreds of miniature models of locomotives, electrical and steam, wero on view, and the show drew not only the boy enthusiasts who would naturally be expected to flock to such an exhibit, but numbers of business men who perhaps in their boyhood had yearned to be engine-drivers, and the actual heads of some of the railway systems of tho British Isles. The exhibition also included a motion picture of certain tiny railroads now operating in England, Scotland, and Wales. Tho first miniature railway in England belonged to the Duke of Westminster, connecting his mansion and farms with a station on the Great Western. At tho Empire exhibition at Wembley there was a miniature train at Treasur3 Island. In all, this little railway carried moro than 150.000 passengers.

ROYALTY AND SHIP NAMES. Royalty figures largely in t.ho names of ships, and among tlio " Kings" there is King Arthur, King Alfred, King Edward and King George V. There is also the Queen Alexandra, tho Queen Maud, and the Queen Mother. The Prince of Wales and Prince George also have their uames upon ships of the merchant marine. There was a Duchess of York in tho Southampton and Isle of Wight Steam Packet Line, a paddle steamer, but the company have changed it to the Duchess of Cornwall, and the Canadian Pacific Railway Company launched recently another Duchess of York. NEW MAMMALS AND BIRDS. Three mammals and 12 birds new to science are among the 151 mammals and 1794 birds which have arrived for tho Natural History Museum in London from French Inao-China. They were obtained by a Franco-British expedition under the leadership of M. Jean Delacour, and the British Museum sent out Mr. \\. P. Lowe, a \yoll-known collector, to assist with the preparation of specimens. Those obtained wero divided equally between tho Paris and the British Museums' natural history departments. The purchases for the department of zoology include 56 mammals, 230 fishes, and a small collection of parasite worms from Brazil. TUNNELLING THE ALPS. Another great railway has been driven through the Swiss Alps, this time from Nice northward to Cuneo to join tho line to Turin.

Tho line passes through Sospel, a favourite resort of Riviera visitors Hitherto, except for' a tramway from Mentone, Sospel has only been attainable by road, and an extraordinarily thrilling motor drivo it is, over the Col do Brans, 3000 it. above the sea level, with hairpin bends zigzagging up and down the mountainside. Between Nice and Sospel the new railway has 19 tunnels and 10 viaducts. '1 he tunnel under the Col is nearly four miles long, and one ot the viaducts carries the train 60ft. above a village on eleven arches. Beyond Sospel are 16 tunnels and 17 viaducts. GRAIN SACKS FOR FARMERS. Every year the railways in Britain provide hundreds of thousands of speciullymade sacks for farmors and importers of grain, and the demand for theso is very heavy. On one railway alone there are more than 2,750,000 of grain sacks in use. Jute is made up into sacks of special size and quality. Each sack weighs 41b. and is sewn with flat seams and provided with a special lip to assist in tho loading of the grain. Tlic sacks are handled and controlled from sack depots, each dealing with 10,000 a day and repairing about 3000 during the same period. Tho average lifo of a sack is 17 years, but even then it is not usoless, for it is either sold to paper factories or turned into gloves for workmen. COURT UNDER OAK TREE. Although during the long vacation in England two Judges, as a rule, carry on, and a regular open court is held each Wednesday, and a private chamber sitting on Tuesday, if on any other day an cmer gency matter arises a Judge is empowered to hold Court any where—in a train, on tho golf links, on the banks of a river or under a spreading chestnut tree. Mr. Justice F inlay on one occasion was held np by lawyers while shooting in Savcrnake Forest, and he granted an injunction while the Court assembled bonoath tho foliage of a giant oak, £ind Mr. Justico Swift, when asked to exercise judicial functions as ho was about to enter a train at a London station, took the party into his carriage and settled the business cn route. There is also story of a judge who left a swimming pool to dress and hold a vacation Court.

ENGLAND'S SMALLEST SCHOOL. There might be difficulty in deciding which is the biggest school in England but there can bo little doubt about which is the smallest. At Wasdale Head Churcb School there aro only four pupils. Wasdale Head is a well-known climbing centre in Cumberland. In this lovely but lonely place there onco lived more people, and 50 children attended the school. Now only a handful of folk dwell in this remote parish. The children do not go to their teacher, she comes to them from Nether Wasdale, an arduous five miles' walk. In heavy snow-storms she cannot come, and at the best of times the school is only open three days a week. Another unique thing about the school is that all the children attending it belong to one home. " GRAVES OF ELEPHANTS." The question whether elephants ha,ve a premonition of death and go away to uio has again been raised by a traveller v ho had the unusual experience of seeing a dead elephant. Captain Guy Dollman, assistant keeper of the Zoology Section of the British Museum, stated that wounded or dying elephants seek the solitude of the densest portion of the forest in which to dio. fie discounted the theory that the beasts make for secret cemeteries where huge numbers go to die. His explanation of this theory was that the. piles of remains found occasionally are of herds killed by largo bands of hunters for their tusks. These piles, ho said, almost invariably are without tusks.

" Whi.-n the bulls feel that they !iro dying," he said, " they make for the nearest flense forest, and that is why so few are lound that have died from natural causes."

INTERNATIONAL PILOT SCHOOL.

fho high esteem in which the skill of British pilots is held abroad is shown by Jio stoadily-mci easing numbers of foreigners who come to Lnglanci to learn to fly. Pupils of twelve difterent nationalities art, now being trained at- the flying school at. Stag Lane Aerodrome. Among them aro Indians, Egyptians, Norwegians, Italians, Spaniaids, Americans, Canadians, South Africans, Portuguese, and Japanese. Last year there were students from India, Siam. China, and Rhodesia. Miss Dagtiy Berger. of Oslo, joined the school without being ablo to speak English. She is now the first woman in Norway to hold a pilot's certificate Captain A. S. White, Chief Instructor of this school, states that many of his foreign pupils show great flying aptitudo. The school is now Hying something liko 250 hours p n'eck, and last year it completed 3603 .hours' flying. A QUAINT PARLIAMENT.' Probably the quaintest Parliament in the world is that of the island of St. Kilda, the lonely outpost in the North Atlantic. The St. Kilda Parliament is a non-elective assembly, and is essentially « gathering of tho wise men of the island. It consists of no more than a dozen members, and meets every day of tho year. The subjects discussed rango from tho lassoing of the fulmar birds which make their homes on tho island's rocky to the digging of potatoes. Every day tho male population of tho island meets outside the house of tho postmaster, an'd, sitting in a circle, discusses the day's work before them. The Parliament consists of men the majority of whom have never left the island's shores, and whoso notions of what is right and what is wrong spring from an innate lovo of fair dealing. Tho decisions arrived at concerning, among other things, the loss of some sheep or tho shortness of certain articles of food 'are accepted by the island's inhabitants as inviolable.