HERE AND THERE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19812, 2 December 1919, Page 6

HERE AND THERE.

A remarkable bird found in Mexico is the bee-martin, which lias a. trick of ruffling up the feathers on top or' its head into the exact semblance- of a beautiful (lower; when a beo comes along to sip iiouey from the supposed flower it is snapped up by the bird. The War Council at Le Mans has condemned Captain Caste-Heron (41th Coloninl .Infantry) to five years' penal servitude and military degradation. On t-lm eve of the offensive before Verdun' on. February 20, 1916, he surrendered to t.ho enemy, involving his company. It. is said that the captain was slightly wounded nod was affected by the violence of the bombardment and thf* liquid fire, and that he refused, combat notwithstanding the order to " fight to -.a liuish." The water supply afc Takapuna ho,s hern a, cause of anxiety for yearsownnr to tfoo fact that Lake Pup-uka iias shown signs of gradual exhaustion- It has now been discovered that tho reticulation system is very defective, and that of six nud a half million gallons pumped by tho Northcoto station, and paid for by the- Takapuna Borough Council at the rate of lOd per 1000 sallons, only four million gallons was being paid for by consumers, the other two and a half million gallons being lost throuph leakage, Investigation of tbo reticulation showed that two-inch pipes ran into three-inch -and back to one-inch, and so on, A Frenchwoman criminal who wm very prominently before the publio about thirteen years apo has made her reappearance in Paris, says the " Daily Chronicle." Her real name is Augustan* Pesal, but she was penerally known no that time as" Madame Oent-lvilos" (Madame Sixtcon-Stone). in allusion to her remarkable corpulence. Swindling throuph matrimonial advertisement was her speciality. She pot into (ouch with l>r Herbert, a physician practising in London, ami induced him to come to a villa she had rented with her husband at Hois le Hoi. near Fontaincbleau. under the pretext of introducing him to an heiress. Tho couple attacked HorIwrt with the evident intention of murdering, robbing tiini and throwing \m body into the Peine. Though severely hurt, he escaped their elutehes and gave the alarm. The woman and her Ivislmnd were arrested and tried at Versailles Assizes, where the woman, who had been the leader in the conspiracy, was sentenced to eight years' penal servitude and twenty years' banishment from France. She has now made herself liable to additional punishment, lor returning before the period of banishment had expired. How she succeeded, in entering the country is a mystery, as she certainly is not the kind of person likely to pass unpercoived. She would probably have remained undisturbed m Paris but for indulging in several small swindles. The police, who.se attention was tins drawn to her. observed situs of much professional skill about, her operations. Suspecting her to be an old hand, they took her t<> the anthropometric a] dopartniimt at, the, Prelum!, where hoi- identity was soon di&covflweL -