From Many Lands

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1010, 28 June 1930, Page 19

From Many Lands

I— tabloid reading for the WEEK-END 1

FLYING FIRE FIGHTER COMPLETE WITH SKIS. An aerial fire engine, intended to fight forest fires in Canada, lias been specially designed in Britain for use in Canada. The fire engine is allmetal, and is driven by a 200-h.p. Armstrong-Siddeley engine. It carries chemical appliances, and it can alight on land or water. During the winter it will lie fitted with skis so that it may alight on snow. Light airplanes patrol the forest area, and will call the aerial fire engine by wireless. "THE OLD WOOL CLIPPER” CONFUSES AUSTRALIA HOUSE. “Could you please send me a photograph of an old wool clipper,” an old gentleman wrote to Australia House which, anxious to oblige, promptly sent a picture of a bearded man sheariug an elderly Merino ram. j The inquirsr very indignantly rejoined that he thought the officials knew the difference between an old shearer and the old clipper Cutty Sark. REWARDED! * RESCUER’S EARS BOXED Alarmed by shouts for help coming from the top floor of a block of flats, a bookbinder’s assistant, Andreas Kovacs of Budapest, rushed to the balcony of his flat on the third floor. Leaning over the parapet, he was just in time to clutch the falling body of Miss Maigarte Pribusz, who threw herself from the balcony overhead. When Kovacs dragged the girl to safety, he was rewarded by a resounding bos on each ear. Margarte protested with indignation against his undue interference in her private affairs. She happened to be a highly-strung girl who, after a violent quarrel with her mistress, had determined to revenge herself by a spectacular “tragedy." -MY LORD, THE ELEPHANT” ; HOW MANY HORSE-POWER? How man; 1 horse-power equals one elephant-pow er ? This is the question an English lorry-driver is asking. Recently his lorry, loaded with bricks, was stuck in a field at Worcester Park. The engine was powerless to move it. A well-known menagerie passed by i and, seeing the plight of the lorrydriver, one of the elephant keepers led the animal to the lorry. He spoke to his charge, and the ele- i phant obediently lowered its head and I easily pushed the vehicle out of the ! field. ARTIFICIAL SILK FROM CARBON DIOXIDE GAS Artificial silk can be made from carbon dioxide gas obtained by burning coal and water, according to an announcement by Dr. Harold Hibbert, Professor of cellulose Chemistry in charge of the investigation institute of the Canadian Pulp and Paper Association, Ottawa. The discovery means that it is possible to take ordinary cane sugar and convert it into cellulose, from which artificial silk and kindred articles can be made. Dr. Hibbert. thinks it is the first step toward the realisation of Dr. Levinstein. former president of the British Society of Chemical Industry, who predicted the making of cotton, paper, and silk without use of the cotton Plant or the spruce tree. STRONGER BONDS MAKE MARRIAGE SAFER In the hope of lessening marriage failures and restoring the traditional solemnity of the rites of matrimony, the Rev. Dr. W. Russel Bowie, rector of the fashionable Grace Episcopal Church, New York, announces conditions for weddings in his church. A declaration is drawn up which all brides and bridegrooms will be asked to sign before being married in Grace Church. One promise is "The cultivation of those qualities of self-control, forbearance and unselfish love which religious ideals help to create.” Another is ‘The purpose to enter a lifelong union of mutual faithfulness and devotion, and to become associated with some Christian Church.” “My action,” says Dr. Bowie, “is a protest against the apparent lightness with which the younger generation is entering matrimony.” BEAUTY TREATMENT FOR PAMPERED PETS Londou has its beauty parlours for dogs and cats —but one has yet to discover any such establishment rivalling in sumptuousness one which is in New York (says a special correspondent of the “Daily Express,” writing from New York). The specialists who conduct it care for the personal appearance of the pets of some of America's wealthiest men and women. They claim that three times as much money can be spent in beauty treatment for a cat or flog as for a woman. Twenty-two of their customers are griffons belonging to the much-mar Tied Miss Peggy Joyce. Miss Gloria Swanson, the film star, sends her sheep-dog to be shampooed regularly six times a year. He is charged the maximum price —£3 3s—because his hair is so long that it touches the ground. Cats cannot be shampooed, as they are liable to become rheumatic. Instead, they are dry-cleaned by a secret and expensive process, used elsewhere only for the sacred cats of the royal household of Siam. Health as well as beauty is cared for by these enterprising experts. They conduct a country sanatorium, where dogs that are jaded by the hectic luxuries of city life go for a low days’ rest cure.

! HUMANE ENGINE-DRIVER STOPS TRAIN FOR SHEEP ■ hile a train was on its way from j Princetown to Yelverton (Devon), along the moorland railway, the j j driver saw a sheep in distress. | It was almost engulfed in a bog, I ; while at the edge of the bog stood a j j lamb, crying piteously, j The train was stopped, and the fire- i | man went to the sheep, pulled it out i by the head, and laid it on the ! grouncr, wliere it was left to recover. ■ Then the train went on. It arrived at Ye’lverton on scheduled time. ‘ j “COME INTO THE KITCHEN—” ! FARMER SAVES HIS HORSE I I Firemen and volunteers fighting the j ! grass and brush fires in New Jersey i entered the farmhouse of John Cole, i i They dashed into the building to get a j | brief respite from the terrific heat of i ; the burning brush. j In the kitchen they found Cole and ' hls Plough horse. The farmer said he had rescued the animal from the barn, which had burned, and had ] keen forced into the house because of : the heat. The firemen saved Cole’s j home. OFFICES DE LUXE LARGEST IN EUROPE A central cooling plant and flood lighting during dark and foggy weather are among the features Thames House, Westminster, will possess. This wonder office-building, the largest of its kind in Europe or the Empire, will provide about 17 acres of space, and will have! New forms of heating and ventilation, noiseless non- ! slip floors, patent waste-paper chutes, j central vacuum-cleaning installations, i 13 fast electric .lifts, water service from 1 deep wells. The architect Frank Baines, j whose aim has been to provide ideal i surroundings for large staffs of com-1 ! mercial firms. 7 THE DAILY SMOKE AGED MOTHER’S HABIT i . Sydney’s most intriguing woman I cigarette smoker has been discovered. A woman, of 62, grey-haired, the I mother of two grown-up sons, she sat j in a Pitt Street tram and, pulling out | a tobacco pouch and packet of papers, \ deftly and coolly rolled herself a cigari ette! j ‘T’ve smoked cigarettes for over 20 j years—and I’ve always made them j myself,” she said blithely. I “I always light up on the tram, train | or ferry. Believe there’s many a ■ flapper would like to, but she’s not game!” REVENGE IS SWEET BUT SOMETIMES PAINFUL I Crashing his fist through the window of his house from the outside, a man tried to punch the face of his wife, ■ who was inside. He lost so much blood in cutting his wrist that when he was admitted to Sydney Hospital his life was desi paired of. According to his own statement, his injuries were the outcome of a quarrel i with his wife. He alleges that with the assistance l of two other men, he was thrown out ■ of his own house. , While thus locked out his wife’s i ! face appeared at the window. I "I had to get revenge somehow," he j | said at the hospital, “so I tried to land i her one by sending my fist through | the window.” With two severed arteries and a severed tendon at the base of the thumb, he was detained for observation. i „

OSTRACISED STRANGE SCOTTISH LAW The unusual sentence of outlawry was passed on James Fleming Robertson, an Edinburgh chartered accountant, in the High Court at Edinburgh recently. Robertson w T as accused of embezzling £I,OOO received by him on behalf of a trust estate, and when the case was called Robertson, who had been on bail in £2OO, failed to appear. His name was called twice inside and outside the court room, but there was no response. The Solicitor-General said that Robertson's solicitor had received a letter from Mrs. Robertson stating I that she did not know* where her ! husband was. | The bail bond was ordered to be j i forfeited. Outlawry may be pronounced in ; ' Scotland on the motiou of the Crown I when tlic accused person is held to have absconded or fails to appear to plead to the indictment on the day of trial. MIRACULOUS ESCAPE A BABY’S SOFT FALL. _____ . | Overbalancing out of an open beflj room window in the third storey of a house at Cheriton, near Folkestone, England, a 13-months-old boy slid down a sloping roof, over which he shot, falling in the road 30 feet below. The baby, the son of Private Thomas Leadbetter, First Battalion Sherwood Foresters, was picked up by a postman, who was surprised to find the child conscious. He handed the babv to the mother, who dashed out of the house expecting her son to be terribly injured. She had been in the room, and as she turned round j had seen the infant’s feet disappearing through the window. The child was taken to hospital and kept under observation for over a day. No bones | had been broken. j Private Leadbetter said the doctors ; could not find anything wrong with | the baby except a few bruises and I scratches.