NIC AMONG THE HEROES.

Taranaki Daily News, 21 October 1933, Page 10 (Supplement)

NIC AMONG THE HEROES.

Nic is a fine blue Persian cat whose mistress, Miss Fothergill, runs a Johannesburg boarding-house. Whether Nic has always acted as night' watchman is not known, but he was evidently making a tour of the house one Sunday night recently, everyone else being asleep, when he noticed a coil of smoke creeping from under a door. At once he rushed to Miss Fothergill’s room and woke her with his miaows of alarm. There was time to call the fire brigade and save all the things, though the top storey was burned out. Now Nic’s name is added to the long roll of cats who have saved human beings.

SAMUEL MASON'S WAY. MAKING THE WHEELS GO ROUND. There are many ways of helping to make the wheels of life run more smoothly. Twenty years ago, when Mr. Samuel Mason was lying ill in hospital at Hull,

he made up his mind that if he recovered he would undertake, as a thankoffering, to keep the castors of all the hospital beds oiled, so that when the beds were moved about the wards they would run smoothly without jerking the patients. As soon as he was well enough he started on this monotonous task; and ever since, year after year, he has spent part of his week-ends doing this service for the patients. As time went on the work increased, for there are now nearly 300 beds at the Hull Royal Infirmary, and an annexe of a hundred more beds has been opened When Mr. Mason left Hull about two years ago everybody thought the work was ended. But distance makes no difference to him. Although he is now 73, this energetic old man travels once a year to Hull from Churchdown in Gloucestershire, and as actively as ever he sets to work to oil the castors not only of the beds, but of any other piece of hospital equipment which has wheels.