GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20229, 13 April 1929, Page 3 (Supplement)

GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

THE HOUSE OP WINDSOR. The House of Windsor, of which King George V. is tho first representative, is in direct descent from Egbert, King of the Welt , Saxons and first over-lord of the English. The lino of descent embraces Alfred the Great/and William the Conqueror, also the Emperor Charlemagne. Rodrigo the Cid, and the Emperor Barbarossa. DEATH'S LONG ODDS ON RAILWAY. How small is the risk of fatal accident among English railway passengers is emphasised bv Sir Herbert Walker, chairman of the Southern Company, who points out that tho death-rate is one passenger /for every 36,000,000 carried. In other words, a passenger making two journeys a day, six days a week, would have to travel for about 57,000 vears before meeting his chance of being killed. MAN BUYS A PRISON. Bodmin Prison, Cornwall, which has been closed for many years, has been sold at auction for £IOSO. The purchaser was Mr. T. C. Lee, a contractor, of Ipswich. During the war, when air raids were being made on London, the Doomsday Book and other national archives were housed at jhe prison. In the days when executions were public many took place outside the grim walls of the budding, and drew crowds from all parts of the county. / AN UNDERGRADUATE'S CHEQUE. The establishment of St, Peter's College at Oxford for poor students emphasises what an expense a university education is. College bills and bills for rooms come to about £2OO a year alone —this for little more than half the year —and other expenses are considerable. Rhodes scholars receive £4OO a year from the trustees; but they cannot go home in the vacation. There is one undergraduate at Oxford now who has so many scholarships that he. receives a cheque each term instead of a bill. I LINK WITH A FAMOUS QUEEN. 'Workmen demolishing a thick stone wall at Bock ford Library, part of Hamilton Palace, Lanarkshire, have brought to light ft sixteenth or seventeenth century prison door. It was inside the wall and led to no passage. The theory is put forward that it was part of the earlier Hamilton Palace, and that when the present palace tvas rebuilt it was considered easier to build around the door than to remove :t. It was at Hamilton Palace that Mary Queen of Scots, after the escape from Loch haveri, gathered together her supporters for a last futile bid for the throne of Scotland. THE FIRST TYPEWRITER. The first typewriter, for which it was triumphantly claimed that ''it could print almost, as fast as one could write with an ordinary pen," appeared just one hundred years ago. The machine was known, father grandiloquently, as ''Burt's Family Letter Press." and was built by an American, William Burt, The machine was heavy, cumbersome, fcnd made mainly of wood. The modern typist, who delights in her "feathertouch" machine, would he justified in pondering how the inventor could possibly havo viewed the offspring of his Creative brain with anything but dismay. Nevertheless, Mr. Burt was so proud tf his "typographer" that he "printed" K long letter to his wife on it, extolling PS own cleverness in no uncertain terms.

WOMEN AS TAXI-DRIVERS. There aro now no women taxi-drivers in London. In Paris they exist, and ono of them, a comfortably stout woman, is a great favourite with British and American visitors, whom sho conveys, in roystcring loads, to tho heights of Montmartre. According to the commissioner of metropolitan police, only four women drivers were able to pass tho examination that entitled them to a licence to drive a taxi during tho war-time rush of applications. A £11,000,000 MONUMENT. A huge monument to America's greatness costing £11,000,000 is being planned by Mr. Paul Kroeger, a New York capitalist. The monument as planned would be a building about 400 ft. square, of granite and marble, in which would be displayed historical relics of the nation. It would be " the tallest tower in the world " 1500 ft. high—and would be capped with a light of 24,000,000 candle-power having a radius of 300 miles. ART COLLECTION DESTROYED. An airman flying above the Hudson Rivel - , -New York, early one morning recently saw smoke pouring from the roof of one of tho large mansions in Riverside Drive. lie swooped down low over the houses in tho vicinity, giving the alarm. Tho fire brigade had difficulty in reaching the house, as the road was covered with ice, and many' hydrants were useless. The house, which belonged to Mr. Otto Marx, the well-known art collector and financier, was destroyed, along with his valuable collection of pictures, including several paintings by Rembrandt. THE MAGIC OF CRICKET. There is a young American in charge of a factory not far from London employing British labour in the production of an American article of commerce. Imbued with the modern idea of staff well-fare, lie decided to run baseball teams, and set about getting tho neccsarsy equipment. He himself helped, with great enthusiasm, to teach baseball to his employees. The scheme failed: the men did not take at- all kindly to baseball. Then someone told the employer to try cricket instead. He did not know much about cricket —but his men did. They taught him the game. GIANT OF 10,000 YEARS AGO. A man powerful enough to engage in battle to the death with a huge buffalo of a size and type now extinct is considered by B»itish authorities to have been traced by a discovery reported from tho Transvaal. The bones and skull of a primitive man were found lying near the fossilised bones of a giant buffalo, whoso head measures 12ft. across. " This appears to bo evidence of a iaco of men, earlier than the Negro, in South Africa, for whom search has been made for a considerable time," said Sir Arthur Woodward, former Keeper of the Geological Section of the Bj'itish Museum. "If this is so the discovery is of great importance. " In the absence of moro information it is impossible to give oven an approximate date when this typo of man may havo lived, hut the bones aro probably not older than some specimens in the British Museum. It, is quite likely that this man died in fighting tho buffalo, and that he was a normal man of his time.

WOMAN'S GIFT TO POOR CHILDREN The guardians at Worksop, Nottinghamshire, have received £IOO to bo invested to provide an annual tea for workhouse children from Miss Ellen Godfrey, a 54 years-old domestic servant, of NewYork. Miss Godfjev, who was born in Worksop, wrote: "When at school I made up my mind as I saw the I'oor Law children go by that if I had enough money when I grew up 1 would be kind to all poor cnildren. I am only a servant. It took me 20 years of hard work to save up £IOO, but oh, the joy it gives mo to write this little letter!'* THE ORDER OF THE GARTER. A £50,000 maintenance fund for St. George's Chapel, Windsor —(lie ancient home of the Knights of (lie Garter—is now being raised, and living descendants of members of the Order of the Garter are being traced and asked to contribute to it. It is estimated that these descendants of the world's most famous order of chivalrv, must now number at least 50.000/ arid may be 100,000 or even more. They are being found in all ranks of soeieOy and doing nil sorts of work. One of them is a cobbler in South Wales. Many others are in America and the Dominions BAG OF GOLD FOR HOSPITAL. Occasionally considerable sums in Kpkl are found in the boxes outside British hospitals. Thirty-nine half sovereigns were taken from 'the Westminster Hospital box one day last year, and on another moro recent day a bundle of twenty £1 Treasury notes. In the Charing Cross 'Hospital box HTiro was £243 one morning—£2oo in notes and £43 in gold. A woman called at the Middlesex Cancer Hospital and left £9O in gold, and it is thought that it was the same woman, who, visiting the Queen's Hospital'for Children, and left there a bag of gold containing about £2OO. » TRAIN LATE » CERTIFICATES 'A measure which will appeal to New Zealanders, who have been travelling lately on the Main Trunk railway, has been adopted by the Argentine Railway administration in order to save employees from trouble with their employers. Argentinians have a peculiar dread of rain. Although there is never much rain in the counljry, when it docs rain the traffic is dislocated and trains are liable to considerable delay. Now every traveller is entitled to receive from tho station-master or the controller of the train a so-called " rain certificate," which confirms that tho train in question arrived late, and was tlitis the cause of tho traveller's late arrival at the odico. WHEN THE KILT WAS BANNED. According to historical records, the wearing of tho kilt was abolished by law in 1746. This step was taken as one of the consequences of the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745. The law which prohibited it contained a series of oppressive clauses providing heavy penalties for all who wore the kilt. These harsh measures were, however, repealed in 1782. Tho following report of a case shows how the repression of the kilt was carried out: — " John McLaren, of the parish of Ardchattan, aged about 20 years, was brought before mo by Lieutenant John Campbell, being apprehended for wearing a philabeg (kilt), and convicted of the same by his own confession. Therefore, in terms oF the Act of Parliament, I delivered him over to the said Lieutenant John Campbell, to serve his Majesty as a soldier in America, after reading to him the second and sixth section of tho Act against mutiny and desertion. Certified at Armady, 26 September, 1758.—C0. Campbell, J. P.

WORLD'S SMALLEST AIRSHIP. 'A balloon company in America recently built what is claimed to bo tho world's smallest airship. It is 65ft. long and 30ft. in diameter, and has a gas capacity of only 22,000 cubic feet. With a 22-liorse-power motor-cyclo engine it attained a speed of 20 miles an hour. The airship ha 3 possibilities for. such work as aerial advertising, aerial photography, and traffic control. With its ability to hover over one spot it has, for certain phases of such work, an obvious superiority over tho aeroplane, its employment for such purposes may mark a new phaso of airship utility. OAT AND MOUSE FRIENDSHIP. A Manchester cat caught a mouse a few months ago, but instead of making a meal of it made a friend of it, and allowed it to share the basket in which he slept. The cat washes the mouse, plays with it, and cannot bear to bo out of its sight. Tho only separation was when tho cat was placed under tho care of a veterinary surgeon for a few days. The cat's transports on being reunited to his friend took so boisterous a form that his owner feared a return of predatory feline characteristics, but the pair soon settled down to their former tranquil life. THOROUGH TRAFFIC JUDGE. Merlin's new special court to deal with offences against the traffic legulations is presided over by a judge, who took positions as a tram conductor and a motor-driver to qualify. J )r. .Fritz Krouheim is the judge, and the court deals with all infractions of the traffic regulations, and not merely motoring offences. After a course at a training school, Dr. Kronheim was granted a conductor's iicenco and a motor-driver's licence by tho municipality, and worked at both occupations before inaugurating tho new court on New 1 ear's Day. He is said to he the only judge in the world so qualified. AN AERIAL MOVING VAN. The bulkiest articles can be transported across tho world at a speed of 100 miles an hour in a new aeroplane, which has recently passed the fullest flying tests. its spacious cabin looks like a railway luggago van, for the machine lias been built as a " tramp " of the skyways. Jt is known as tho Vickcrs Vellore, and can be used as a freight-carrier, for tho transport of troops, or as a long-dis-tance bomber. Electricity supplies tho lighting of this aerial pantechnicon. The sides and roof are reinforced with wooden stays, and the floor, built up of wood in the manner of an Underground railway carriage, is similarly strengthened. SNAKES AS PETS. Hundreds of snakes are sold by dealers in Britain, chiefly to women, One woman is said to keep a snake to frighten burglars, and there is lrttlo doubt that it would serve its purpose well if called upon. Usually tho snakes—they are nonpoisonous—are kept in glass cases, but sometimes a special conservatory is built for them. One commercial traveller takes a python all over the country with him in his motor-car. While pulling down a wall, in Camden Town, some builders came across some snakes. They were qtiilo harmless, and had probably been kept as pets by someone, living near and had escaped, 'i'iioy had mado a nest of paper and straw. Green and other bright-hucd lizards and tortoises are also in demand. Last season more than 50,000 tortoises wero imported from abroad. Tho largest weighed 901b.; tho smallest would not have covered a two-shilling piece.