THE WIDE WORLD.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LII, Issue 16211, 8 December 1926, Page 10

THE WIDE WORLD.

NEWS FROM EVERYWHERE. SIX SILVER WEDDINGS. COLOGNE, Oct. 14. What must be ,» rare pleasure has fallen to thy lot of a widow living at a small village near here, She had six children. Within the last four years situ participated in the silver wedding festivities of four of them and this week the remaining two also celebrated their silver weddings.

ALPHABET OF 4000 B.C

PARIS, Oct. 17,

The discovery, near the French villag'o of Glozcl, of bricks and other carthV/orkj marked by signs which are evidently intended to bear a meaning, is causing great interest among archaeologists. M. Salomon Reihach believes that the signs represent a pro-Phoenician alphabet of about 4000 B.C.

ELECTROCUTED BY TRAILING WIRE.

PARIS) Oct, 10.—A strange aeroplane accident has occurred at Toulon. While an aeroplane was carrying out experiments a long wire became detached and came into contact with the high tension electric cable which supplied the district with current. A young woman who was picking beans in her garden was touched on the shoulder by the wire and was immediately electrocuted. Her mother, who rushed to help her, was also killed,

SOVIET SHEPHERDS UNDER, UNION.

MOSCOW, October 29.

For the first time in history, the shep. herds and cow herders of Russia have been placed on a trade union basis. The Soviet directed that hereafter employers must provide shepherds with social insurance, free lodgings, a shorter working day, and, in the event of illness, food, medicine and clothing for one month. The owners are forbidden to exploit the shepherds or curtail their wages for minor infractions. The new union is expected to embrace about one million persons.

CALCUTTA AGAIN SEETHES

CALCUTTA, Oct. 18

Calcutta was seething with excitement when 500 processions, each carrying an image of the goddess Durga, traversed the streets before immersing the goddess in the River Ganges. The police were faced with a, delicate task in preventing communal clashes, but were successful, except at Kidderpore, where a few rounds were fired to awe the mob.

Armored cars patrolled the danger area and British infantry were hold in reserve. Tavo boats capsized in the Ganges during the immersion and eighteen Indians are missing. MONEY EXCHANGE CAUSE OF DUEL. NICE, France, Oct. 14.—A dispute over foreign exchange provided the grounds for :i sword duel between Count Paul de Yillers, a Frenchman, and a former British army surgeon, Dr. Jarvis. The count was wounded in tfce ear during the third bout. The seconds stopped the eoiiibat, but the duellists refused to shales hands and left the field unreebricilcd; The two men were arguing about the dollar and pound rate of exchange During the arguhient they said things' to each other which both thought could only be wiped out in blood*

POWER FOR MIRACLES.

BA'RHARET, India. October 2.

Sadhu, a religious has been stirring the devout all through India with bis miracles.. A, Bbnibay news.paperimah described how he visited Sadhu on a moonlight night. The ascetic miracle-worker asked the correspondent to look at him steadily, whereupon he saw the ascetic's face gradually darken, getting dimmer until it disappeared. About 100 people present at the interview became, frightened, and began to stampede in. terror, when it was noticed thai the whole body had disappeared. Then came a voice in the darkness, asking them to quiet down, and soon after the ascetic's body again materialised. The whole crowd fell on their knees to worship the ascetic.

LONDON PEEK LOSES LAST SON

LONDON, Oct. 11.

Lord Desborough, created a peer in 1905, and a famous athlete and sportsman iu his younger days, is without an heir to his title* as the result of the sudden death of his only surviving son, Hoiii George Ivo Grenfell. George, 27 years, and a Grenadier Guardsman, "died after a week's unconsciousness, following a motor-car accident, when his car ran iuto a wall. . A coroner's jury has returned a verdjet of accidental d^ath. Death has now eleamed all three of Lord Desborough's sons. The two others died within a few months of each other in 11)15. He and his wife, however, have two daughters, one of whom is' now the wife of Sir John Sulmond, air nutrshal and principal aide-de-camp to the King. COST OP OIL WELLS.

NEW YORK, October 9. According to Judsoh '€. Welliver, director of public relations of the American Petroleum ' Institute, more than £2.400,000,000. has been spent in developing oil fields in America since the original Drake well was.drilled in 1859. "In the last, ten years more than 250,000. wells have been drilled for oil," he declared, "and nearly one-third of these have produced absolutely none. Moreover, Wells must be drilled deeper and deeper all the time.. The Drake well found oil at 61ft. Nowadays wells a miles deep are not infrequent, arid some have gone down a mile and. a half. The average cost of wells drilled in California last year has been stated as £17,000 and of wells in other areas the average cost is fixed at £4BOO. He Raid that more than £2,000,000,000 capital was invested in the industry, and that taxes on the oil industry yielded £220,000,000 annually. He emphasised as one of the petroleum industry's principal benefits to the world that it fiad been the means of drawing the population closer together, not only materially, through improved transportation, but also economically and socially.

BETWEEN TWO FIR US. EIO DE JANEIRO, Oct. L—Ten people were wounded by bullets at a circus performance at Sao Gabrial. When an enraged lion aitacked a trainer, some of the ©rowd began shooting at the beast. The trainer was hit and seriously wounded, although he was rescued from the Hon.

PREMIERS' 200 BANQUETS.

LONDON, October 25

The newspaper cartoonists are finding considerable humor in the round of entertainment provided for the Dominion premiers. . One cartoon represents Premier King and the others dining imperiallv, with .John' Bull serving 60 dinners and 147 lunches. The Prime Ministers are depicted as growing fatter and falter, until they collapse, John Bull then calls a taxicab.

NEGROES LYNCHED

PRISON STORMED BY MOB,

ADKEN (South Carolina), Oct. 19. —A mob stormed the gaol and seized three negroes, one''of them a woman, and shot them dead in a pine thicket just beyond the city limits. The prisoners had been convicted 'of murder, the men sentenced to death and the woman to imprisonment for life, but they were to have had a new trial, to begin on Monday.

UNCLAIMED FOR 40 YEARS. CAPETOWN, Oct. 4.—A few months ago an envelope containing 156 diamonds, and valued at approximately £IOOO, was discovered in one of the deposit safes in the Kimberley Standard Bank. Investigation among the records of the bank show that the deposit was made in 1886 by a man named R. C. Cowie, but why the stones have remained unclaimed so long is a mystery. However, now there is a shoal of claimants from all over the world.

NEW SOURCE OF RUBBER

CAPETOWN, October 9.

A rich new source for rubber has been found here, it has been discovered that the African Euphorbia tree yields a sap or latex of a quality comparable with that of para rubber. A South African company has been organised to exploit a vast jungle near East London, said to number more than 60,000,000 trees. The average tree yields three pounds of latex. Attempts at vulcanising are said to haVd been quite satisfactory. Stress is laid on the fact that labor is plentiful in the East London district and that the region is free from fever.

MAYORS IN ITALY

ROME, September 22

The Fascist policy of getting rid of elective bodies in the cities and towns of Italy was pushed a further stage recently ," when Cabinet approved of a decree extending the "podesta" or Government Mayor system to townships where the elective system of urban government still prevails. Seventeen hundred small towns will thus be disfranchised and lose the right to govern themselves. The "mayor" will be an official appointed by the \ Government, The decree involved the total abolition of municipal election and provides administration of all towns by Government employees. The measure does not include the cities of Rome and Naples.

SYNTIIETIO OASOLINE NEAR

DISCOVERY.

PAJUS, Oct. 14.—Synthetic potroleum, long the dream of men engaged in chemical research, is now an . accomplished fact, says the Matin, thanks to the work of M. Audibert, n young chemist, director of the French, National Kesearch Company. Audibert obtained the result of experiments by submitting a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen to a pressure of 200 atmospheres. Tho result was filtered with the addition of a catalytic agent, tile nature of which is being kept secret. The petroleum thus obtained can be refined like the natural product, and wiil yield gasoline, kerosene, gas oil and other by-products;