NEWS FROM OVERSEAS

Taranaki Daily News, 20 July 1935, Page 10 (Supplement)

NEWS FROM OVERSEAS

SOLDIER’S FATAL DECISION RODE HORSE TO PLEASE NIECES Although he had decided not to ride in the Royal Artillery race meeting at Farringdon, Major Lowin James Tilleard Housden changed his mind at the last minute so that he would not disappoint his two • little nieces, who wanted to see their uncle take part. A few minutes after the race started his mount refused to jump, and Major' Housden was thrown. Nineteen horses passed over him, and he received such serious injuries that he died in hospital. Forty-eight years of age, Major Housden had a brilliant war record. He won the Military Cross, and was four times mentioned in despatches. LEECHES POPULAR AGAIN CAUGHT IN THOUSANDS IN FRANCE Leeches for blood-letting—famous old-time remedy—are back in use again. One London dealer receives and disposes of 500 a week. They come by air from France and are caught by men who wade in rivers and capture the leeches, which cling to their legs. Once London hospitals used 50,000 leeches a week. Then science advanced, and leeches went out of favour. But it has been found that the old cure-all is efficacious in certain casses. Application of a leech is a sure cure for certain types of optic inflammation. A leech costs fourpence in London at the present time. POLICEMAN ROBBED HELD UP IN LONELY LANE A man armed with a revolver held up a policeman in a lonely lane at Sidcup. Kent, and robbed him of his whistle and chain. Police Constable Damen stopped a young' man in Foots Cray Lane and asked him what he had in his attache case. The man drew what appeared to be a revolver, and held up the policeman. , . , . When the policeman drew his whistle the man gave him a kick on the hand, snatched his whistle and chain, and ran off with them. The constable gave chase, but the man disappeared in the darkness. , ENGLISHWOMAN’S ESCAPE FIRED ON BY SPANISH BANDITS Two Englishwomen narrowly escaped death when armed peasants fired, on their car near the village of Bujan, close to Corunna, in Spain, recently. A bullet grazed the shoulder of Miss Amy Reilly, and the hood of the car was riddled. Miss Reilly’s companion was Miss Dorothy Bowman. The pair were motoring through Spain. It aupears that they left their car by the roadside while they went to have tea. Some armed peasants were attracted by the prospect of booty in a car abandoned in such an isolated district, and when the women came back they found them in possession. The women managed to drive off, but the peasants fired a volley after them, and Miss Reilly, as stated, was injured. Their adventure was not finished, for when they reached the village the police, suspicious of the bulletmarks on the car, detained them for inquiries. Eventually they were released, and later their assailants were arrested. Miss Reilly and Miss Bowman continued their tour to Lisbon, where they embarked for England.

’PLANE RESCUES GIRLS FROM HORRIBLE DEATH An aeroplane, swooping down on the Indian territory of San Blas, a few miles from the Panama Canal, saved two girls from being burned alive at the stake recently. Police leaped out and hurried up just in time to stop the proceedings. The girls, aged 18 and 13, were suspected of being possessed of a devil. They had set up a wooden image in their hut, and lay in their hammocks singing all night. The other members of the tribe were horrified and met to consider their fate. It was decided that they should be burned alive. RICHARDS AS A ROUGHRIDER Gordon Richards, the champion English horseman, had the stage to himself at Epsom recently during an important race meeting. In the first race he rode Mr F. Hartigan’s Lone Isle, a notoriously flighty mare. She refused to go to the starting post. She bucked, kicked, shied and nearly had Richards out of the saddle a dozen times. ‘ The crowd roared with laughter. Richards looked very grim. Eventually the mare consented to accompany a policeman’s hack down the course, still bucking and kicking like a demon. “Ride him, cowboy!” the wags shouted. She was not placed in the race, but this adventure seemed to have roused Richards. He won the next four races, including the City and Suburban on Lord Woolavington’s Montrose, which started favourite. . ( ENGINEERING MARVEL COMPLETED FIVE YEARS’ WORK ON NEW TUBE STATION After five years’ burrowing, boring, propping, encasing and otherwise safeguarding numerous overhead public services, the London Transport Board, as successors to the tube authorities, were able to open recently, the new Leicester Square Station. In many ways the achievement is an engineering marvel. Many difficulties had to be encountered which were unexpected. The work was carried on in a confined area underneath the busy traffic junction of Cranbourn Street and Charing Cross Road. Through one moderate-sized hole in the roadway thousands of tons of material had to pass. The contractors used a million bricks, 7000 tons of cement and 1350 tons of steel, and they excavated 34,000 cubic yards of clay. A circular booking-hall with shops and showcases likes those at Piccadilly, all artistically treated and with soft diffused lights, is a handsome feature of the building. There are five stairway entrances from the street, and three of the escalators are 161 feet long—the longest in the world—and capable of a speed of 180 ft. per minute. During rush hours they will be run not far below the maximum. In constructing the booking-hall possession was taken of half the road at a time, and from this limited space, after foundations of neighbouring buildings had been underpinned, headings were driven in all directions in accordance with the spider’s web design of the steel roof. Though not quite so large as the Piccadilly tube the new station has given engineers and contractors more knotty problems to solve. They are proud to have solved them satisfactorily.