GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20384, 12 October 1929, Page 9 (Supplement)

GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

KING'S. SIX-WHEELER OAR. A six-wheel car has recently been delivered to King George V. The car is intended for uso on tho Sandringham estate and for special work. It, is state,d that tho car can climb steep gradients, and by means of a special fitting to tho wheels can travel over hog, land, and heather. :DAYS FOR HOLIDAY-MAKERS. .England enjoys fewer official breaks than almost, any other country. Canada has 11 public holidays in the year as against England's 6. Queensland has iS, including' tho King's Birthday, Coronation Day, and Armistice Day. Now York, despite its reputation for hustle, has 10 compulsory holidays, tiermany has 12, Franco 14, Italy, 14, Switzerland 16, and Jugoslavia no fewer than 40. A RECORD WEIGHT BRIDE. America's Musical Fat Girl, " .Tolly Bertha" Cillev, who weighs 36st. tllb.*, married Ciera Id Lindioff, tho " World's Best Living Skeleton," who weighs 6st. 51b., at tliti Registery Oflicc at Edmonton, Alberta, recently. Thero was 'no taxi-cab in Edmonton big enough to accommodato the bride, and the registrar, whose car has an oversize door, gallantly drovo tho happy couple back to the fair ground. A LINK WITH BRIAN BORU. Ireland claims a special interest in M. 'Aristide Briand, now for the tenth time Primo Minister of France, for, though a Breton, born at Nantes, tho great statesman is of Irish descent. M. Briand's great-grandfather, Conell Briand, was an Irishman who settled at Fmisterre as overseer of a bleaching factory, and thence his family migrated to Nantes. Conell is said to have claimed descent fro'm tho great King, Brian Boru. » OUT-OF-DATE BLACKBOARDS. ■Blackboards of translucent ground glass lighted fro'm behind aro proposed as a substitute for tho usual black surface familiar to, every school child. The old typo of blackboard is difficult to illuminate so that all tho room can see, but tlio ground glass, electrically lighted from the rear, allows everything chalked upon it to be seen from all parts of tho room, oven when a combination of daylight and artificial illumination is bt- ; ng used. FISHERMEN'S STRANGEST CATCH.

Two old Portsmouth fishermen, Ilenry mud Joseph Morris, recently made their most valuable and strange catch. When they pulled up their nets off Sp_itbunk\ between Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight ihey found fish in plenty, but they also found something else. The " catch" was a cinema camera, raid to be worth £3OO. It had been lost in June when tl»e boat in which a sceno was being " shot" was tilted bv a sudden .wave. FIE ST SEORTHAND SYSTEM. Modern shorthand dates from the patent granted on July 26, 1588, for 15 years to Dr. Timothy Bright, resident physician * nt St. Bartholomew's Hospital, which licensed him " to teaclie, irnpryntc, and publishe, or cause to bo taughte, imprynted, and published, in or by character not before this time commonlye knowne and used by other oure subjects." In the same year Bright published a description, of the system in his book, " Characterie.- An arte of shorte, swifte and secret writing by character." MAN WHO DRESSED THE ARMY. The death occured a few weeks, ago of Mr. Arthur Bradley Lambert at Flansham, near Bopnor, at (he age of 71. As section superintendent of the Army Clothing Department from 1914 to 1916. he was largely responsible for the clothing of the troops during the most difficult period in the history of the British Army, and for these services lie was awarded the C.B.E. Mr. Lambert was (he son of a formei general manager of the Great Western Railway. He leaves a widow and two daughters. FLYING TO THE PLAY. Modern hustle was further exemplified recently by the inauguration of the Piccadilly Aerial Theatro Service, when 18 people left Paris in the afternoon in a luxury aeroplane, flew to London, dined * at the Piccadilly Hotel, saw a play at a theatre, supped and danced at the hotel after the show, and returned to Paris early in the morning. The party were (he guests <if (he Piccadilly Magazine whose chairman, LieutColonel Sir Walter Gibbons, and directors arranged the trip as tho first of n regular theatre 'plane service. The party included Sir Seflon Brackner, Sir Godfrey Paine, Mr. C« B. Cochran, and (he members of his company from the Pavilion Theatre. • AERO TRAINS OF THE FUTURE. Cigar-shaped trains suspended from an overhead rail track and driven by airplane propellers may lie seen in the future if the new system evolved by Mr. Georpe Bennie, of Edinburgh, is found practicable. A trial is to be made in Scotland vhen the full-sized model has been completed. It is said that speeds up to a hundred miles an hour will be possible.- At high Speeds tho streamline cars, will rise slightly, taking their weight from overhead rails. A double line of overhead ftirplanewavs is estimated to cost about £19,000 a "mile, as compared with nearly three time? this figure for rail tracks of the ordinary type.

NEW DIPLOMATIC CODE. A now kind of diplomatic code was used in a message sent to a certain Swedish Minister. An eminent Swedish diplomat, who held the post of Swedish envoy in a foreign country, had rendered his country valuable services, in recognition of which the King conferred on him the high decoration of the Grand Cross of the Order of Vasa. The diplomat's colleagues in (he I'orrign Office of Stockholm decided to send him the following laconic telegraphic message of congratulation—" St. Matthew ii. 3. He was at first rather mystified by this unusual communication, but finally he got hold of a Bible and looked up the chapter and verse referred to in the.gospfil of St, .Matthew, which runs as follows: —" And then they beheld the star and rejoiced greatly."

POVERTY PREFERRED TO WEALTH Preferring poverty to wealth, Mrs. IClaudß Herring has gone back to work in a restaurant in the San Francisco Bay district, and her husband, a former rail■way in ari, now owner of a valuable [Wyoming oil property, has obtained a •divorce. " Dear Claude," Mary Derring wrote in tho letter he showed in court as proof of his wife's desertion, " you wonder why I have forsaken the luxury you gave mo to return to the old restaurant life, ,but I can't stand expensivo things. Remember you gave me a book one time, anil I read in it 'Poverty grants to those she loves the only urge pf life, the boon of desire.' That's me." Mr. and Mrs. Derring wero married shout six years ago, before oil was found bn the railwavman's Wyoming homeMead.

CLOSING OF MANY PRISONS. While British Home Oflico statistics rovonl that fewer people nre sent to prison, thoro is not, compared with 30 years afjo. any striking decrease in crinio. Despite this, tho number of British prisons is now one-half of what it was at tho beginning of tho century. Since 1900, 26 gaols havo been closed, while fewer than one-third of Iho number of people sent to prison in 1906 are so severely dealt with to-day. BRITAIN'S MOTOR FLEET. Twenty years ago there were 114,000 licensed motor-vehicles in Great Britain. Official figures show that, there are now more than 2,000,000 and between 250 and 300, are daily added to the licet. England and Wales havo nearly 50 per cent more mot or-vehicles per mile of road than the United States, and more than four times us many as France, These aro striking figures to consider in envisaging the present-day congestion on the highways and byways of Britain. NEW RAILWAY TRAIN RECORD. Britain has set up'a new record for an express railway journey which challenges tho world. Under new schedules, tho Great Western line has now running nn express at an average speed of 66.2 miles an hour, which is believed to be a record. Tho train in question is the 2.30 p.m. Cheltenham to Paddiugton train, the journtjy by which has been shortened by five minutes. The train travels llic last 77 miles of its run in 70 minutes. MANY FOSTER-FATHERS.

Thero is a girl in Stockholm who has as many " fathers" as there are policemen in the city. This sounds rather strange, but tho explanation is that Mario Oiofsson's father was a policeman, and as ho and his wife died when the child was very small, his comrades adopted the child. Tho policemen raised a fund toward the girl's education, and soon every man in tho force kept a loving guard over Marie. Each year three policemen are appointed to act as foster-fathers and to give her a good homo and education. ( A NEST OF WIRES. Nearly everybody is on the telephone nowadays in the l>ig cities of America, and tho number of wires that are necessary to link up the multitudes of homes with tho exchanges has grown to something tremendous. A now telephone cable has just been made by the American Telephone and Tlegraph Company which consists of a sheath two and a-half inches in diameter, containing 1818 pairs of wires. There are 18 smaller tubes inside the. big cable, each of which contains 101 pairs of wires. Previously to this, the largest telephone cables contained only 1212 pairs of wires. HISTORY OF ARROWE PARK. Arrowo Park, where the Boy Scouts gathered at the great jamboree, is tho largest public park in England. Spreading a milo in length and half a milo in width, it covers nearly 500 acres of undulating, well-wooded country, and presents a wealth of glorious views out over the sea and Welsh mountains. The park is. an ancient ono. It was mentioned in the I'oomsday Book, and it has been owned in turn by many great Cheshire families, including the Duttons and Fleetwoods. It was purchased a few years ago from Viscount Leverhulmc by the Birkenhead Corporation. MONKS AS HARVESTERS. Silent, white-habitajl monks harvesting on the English countryside form a rare and striking spectacle, to be seen in recent days in Leicestershire. They are tho Cistercians of Mount St. Bernard's Abbey, not far away from the prim contrast of the mining (own of Coalville. The Cistercians have always been famous as the " farmer monks," and they take a vow of silence. Mount St. Bernard's alone remains of tho hundred or so Cistercian foundations in England before the suppression of the monastries. An Englishman St. Stephen Harding, was the co-founder of (he Order with St. Robert. DOLL'S LONG RAILWAY TRIP. A life-sized doll which was sent officially from Denmark to the international exhibition at Barcelona made the railway journey alone. It left Copenhagen occupying a place in a second-class carriage, and it requested from its travelling companions the help necessary to effect changes of trains by means of a small sign suspended from its neck on which ils appeal was written in Danish, German, French, and Spanish. Danish consuls in the towns through which tho doll passed attended at the. railway stations and put themselves at tho disposal of the quaint traveller. Tho doll accomplished the journey satisfactorily. CANDLE FINGER PRINT. A sentence of six months' imprisonment with hard labour was passer! in London recently on a young man who was charged with having broken into the premises of a firm of caterers in London and stolen 12,000 cigarettes, 600 cigars, and other property worth in all £IBO. lie pleaded guilty. It was stated that the premises were broken into about 12 months before, and the only cluo obtained by the police was a small pieco of candlo bearing (he impression of one finger. Beeently a mail was arrested as a suspected person, and if was then found that the finger prints corresponded with the impression on the candle. DAMAGE TO HISTORIC HOSPITAL

Tt has been discovered that the death watch beetle has extensively damaged the old oak beams and, panelling of the Hospital of flic Blessed Trinity, one of Guildford's showplaces. Tllo repairs will be rostlv. The hospital, which is in the High-street was founded in 1619 by Archbishop Abbot, who was borri in humble circumstances in a cottage in the town.

In a room over the tower gateway, Monmouth, a prisoner after his defeat at Sedgcmoor, was lodged on his way to London. The building, in the Jacobean domestic style, is in its original condition, and contains some of its ancient furniture. It is a home of rest for aged Guildford people. NAMES THAT LIVE. When a Mr. Dick Whittington was fired at the London Guildhall, recently, for having caused an obstruction with his motor-car, the court cat preceded him into the dock. The next defendant was a Dr. Samuel Johnson, summoned for having struck a tobacconist who protested his inability to sell snuff two minutes after 8 p.m. " Assuming that one man is ready to sell, and another to buy," said Dr. Johnson, frowning fiercely at the Court. " by wlfht rational law can a harmless transaction bo deemed contrary to justice? This is a country of free men. ." A magistrate here interjected '' No," very firmly. The defendant was heard to mutter " Blockheads" as lie paid his fine. The affairs of Mr. ■ Wilkins • Micawber were mentioned in the Bankruptcy Court a few weeks ago.