From Many Lands

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 732, 3 August 1929, Page 19

From Many Lands

TABLOID REALING FOR THE WEEK-END.

WALES’S TALLEST PEAK OWNERSHIP IN DISPUTE Nobody knows who owns the highest mountain in Wales. Until recently. too, tew cared, tor the summit of Mount Snowdon was covered with dilapidated buildings quite out of harmony with a spot important enough to be pointed out to sightseers. The Council for the Preservation of Rural Wales suggested that the summit be made into a national park. Whereupon it was discovered that the ownership of the peak had been in question for years. So, until the courts decide, or the several rival claimants agree, the movement to beautify Mount Snowdon will stand still. ICED SODA, ONE WRONG ORDER DELIVERED! When a soda fountain burst in a Clapham Junction confectioner’s shop, Miss Vera Agassiz had her leg broken and received a wound on the forehead from a piece of flying metal. The proprietor said he was filling the fountain when there was a roar, and the metal container flew into pieces. “f was flung backward into my kitchen. The panels of a door were shattered, and part of the fountain was hurled into the garden. Miss Agassiz was flung backward into the shop, where she was later found under a mass of sweets and pieces of wood.” A CONVICT EMPLOYER WITH EX-CONVICT EMPLOYEES So great has been the demand for model ships made by a prisoner serving a twenty-one years’ term in a Philadelphia penitentiary that a factory has been established on his behalf to manufacture more models on similar lines. The man—whose name is James Sanders —started a few years ago to make models of famous ships. He disposed of his work through a -welfare agency. The demand for the models increased and Sanders obtained the assistance of other prisoners. Then he saved money and arranged with his mother to establish a factory in Philadelphia, at which they employed many ex-convicts. THE GULLS’ PICNIC CREOSOTE DESTROYS FISH Thousands of fish were killed as a result of a train wreck near Amherst, in America. When ten freight cars left the rails at the headwaters of the Wallace River at Wentworth, a drum of creosote was broken and its contents spilled into a small rivulet. The rivulet carried the substance, poisonous to fish, into a brook and thence it was borne into the deeper pools of Wallace River. The effect upon trout, salmon and eels was disastrous. Dead fish lay along the banks of the river for three or four miles and hundreds of gulls came intend from the salt water to devour them. BAD RISKS MILLIONAIRES SHORT-LIVED According to American insurance company reports, their experience of millionaires as policy-holders is not a happy one. Several oflices show a mortality rate for this big business two or three times the normal; one company has suffered a loss rate of 204 per cent., that is, has paid out £204 for every £IOO received in premiums. Just recently a very wealthy man applied for a policy running to several millions. The application had been insisted on by his partners, who were alarmed at his heavy drinking. The suicide rate among millionaires, also, is said to be heavy due to business worries. IL DUCE’S METHODS MAKING FOOTBALLERS WIN The Rev. Herbert Dunnieo, M.P., vtho conducts English football teams on European tours, relates an amazing story of an incident at a match between Italy and Austria attended by Mussolini. “From the splendid isolation of his box,” said Mr. Dunnieo, “Mussolini saw that things were not going too well for Italy. “He contrived to let the Italian players know that if they did not win, every man Jack of them was in for two years* military service. Italy won! “I can vouch for the truth of this story, for Dr. Bauwens, the tinest referee on the Continent, was in charge of the match.” MAGIC, 1929 SOME ENGINEERING FEATS Wonderful building and engineering feats are the order of tlio day just now. Thus we are promised that in a year from now —on May 1, 1930 — 'be tallest and largest sky-scraper in the world will be ready for occupation, although the work of clearing the site has not commenced But the builders are not to wait for the old buildings to be taken down. They are planning to lay The foundations of the new 40-feet skyscraper while the old buildings are being de molished, so that the two jobs of work will go on simultaneously. This is in New York, but British engineers can point to a feat just as wonderful in India, in the recon struction of the Attock Bridge, between Lahore and Peshawar. Two 300-feet spans have been thrown across the Indus, enclosing the old bridge, without interrupting the traffic on it for a single moment. Now, when the old structure has been taken avvav, the job will be finished —witharrangements having been necessary out any interference with transport from first to last.

AGAIN FOR SALE

A TAX-FREE ISLAND Brechou, a romantic little Channel island, ownership of which carries freedom from rates and taxes and a seat in the Parliament of Sark, is again for sale. Mr. Angelo Clarke, hotel proprietor, of Staines, bought it in February last and is now offering it for sale by auction. HIS TIP! AN UNDERTAKER’S UNDERTAKING Strange customs among the country undertakers of Upper Bavaria were disclosed when the “corpse watcher” of the village of St. Wolfgang was arrested for having appropriated the almost new boots, socks, leggings and shirt of a mechanic killed in an accident. With a show of offended innocence the accused told the court that, according to time honoured custom, the wearing apparel of anyone killed in an accident became the property of the undertaker. His fee was only 10 marks, which, he declared, -was such a paltry sum that it had always been understood he might have the clothing as a tip. The court with utter disregard for traditional custom sentenced the grasping undertaker to two months in gaol. GOG AND MAGOG FAMOUS CLOCK FOR AMERICA Cheapside is likely to lose a familiar object which is of great interest to visitors to the City of London. Mr. Henry Ford, the United States motor-car manufacturer, when last in .England, took a fancy to the famous clock at the premises of Sir John -Bennett, Ltd., watchmakers and jewellers. The clock is surmounted by the decorative figures of Gog and Magog, who have struck the hours on a bell with hammers for more tban a century. Mr. Ford wished to have this clock with the figures for his American factory. A director of the firm stated that they accepted the price Mr. Ford offered, but negotiations are proceeding as to who should pay for taking down the clock. BLOOD TRANSFUSION DEAD GIRL, LIVING MAN Transfusion of blood from a dead person to one on the point of death was accomplished in Rumania recently, effecting what is believed to be the first successful operation of its kind. The doctors at the Chij hospital joined the arm of a girl, Rosa Jancu, at the moment she had died of injuries sustained in an automobile accident, to the arm of a man, George Morar, who had stabbed himself in the breast and lost most of his blood. Morar, who was considered as dying, it is now believed, will recover. ST. PAUL’S NOW SAFE BIG REOPENING CEREMONY The work of strengthening St. Paul’s Cathedral is now completed, and in the opinion of the experts responsible the building is once more safe. A great deal, however.- still remains to be done before the full use of the cathedral is restored, and the chief task is the refacing of the columns supporting the great dome, ail of which have been filled with cement. Then, too, the great organ has to be moved back to its old position. There is every reason to believe that the whole of the work will have been done in ample time for the great reopening ceremony which is being planned for a date in June of next year. There is also likely to be a considerable surplus from the fund subscribed for the restoration of the cathedral, the allocation of which is undecided. HEROIC CRIPPLE RESCUES BABE FROM CANAL A cripple rescued a child from a canal at Donisthorpe, Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Leicestershire. Seeing the child, whose name is Jeffery Evans, and whose age is two, in the canal, Thomas Gilliver, who was in a self-propelled chair, got out and crept into the water. Sitting on the bottom of the canal, Gilliver grasped the child’s toes, and although up to the neck in the water, held the boy up until assistance arrived and both were pulled to safety. SENTENCED THROUGH TRUMPET I DEAF MAN TO BE HANGED A man 70 years of age was sentenced to death at Norfolk Asizes. His only comment on hearing the sentence, which, as he is very deaf, was communicated to him through an ear trumpet, was:—“l shall get to heaven a little bit before my time.” He was Wallace Benton, a smallholder, of Tilney Street, Lawrence, near King’s Lynn, and he was found guilty of the murder of Thomas Herbert Williamson by shooting him in a It was alleged that Benton, owing to financial difficulties, was dispossessed of his land, and that "Williamson, a married man with three children, succeeded him. On the evening of March 21 a shot was heard, and Benton was seen pacing up and down with a gun under his arm. Williamson was found shot dead, i and Benton, who gave up the gun to the police, declared that the weapon j went off accidentally.