HERE AND THERE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16327, 17 January 1921, Page 6

HERE AND THERE.

SEA AIYSTERY SOLVED. Two men were swimming in the ocean recently at Bensonliurst (New Yorkb Avhen one of them found a leather poc-ket-book. tightly bound by a piece of wire. Only a cigar wrapper was inside, and on the white side of that were these AA-ords in pencil :—“ Longitude L? latitude 51. German cruiser Emden i* shelling us. No hope. —Cyclops.” The Cyclops disappeared in March. 1918. She was a Navy collier of 19.000 tons displacement, loaded with a cargo or manganese, with 57 passengers and 20 officers, and a crew of 213. The collier was due in port on Alarch 13. 1918. She was last heard of at Barbados. British. West Indies, AAhere she reported on Alarch 4. A SURGEON’S TROUBLES. Dr James AL Neff played a delicate little joke on bis wife. Cora M. Neff, when he unloaded 30,000 dollars in fivedollar bills upon her. He could have made it more subtle had be used nickels or pennies, or even dollars, but even as it was Mrs Neff was plainly embarrassed Dr Neff is an internationally known surgeon. He and bis wife did not hit it off iust- right, so he tried to get a divorce in the Australian courts, but failed. Then he tried in the courts ot Switzerland and France, but failed iv each case. He next began suit in Spokane, but lost there also. Then Airs Neff swung into motion and began divorce proceedings. The Court indicated that it would grant her a decree, and under the she is to receive a lump sum alimonv lieu of all claims of 43,000 dollars. Or this sum 30,000 dollars is in cash and tho remainder in notes, insurance money and a monthly allowance of TOO dollars. What will T do with all this money?” she complained as the 30.C00 dollars was shoved across the table, ct the banks are closed and I have no pin< e to keep it.” Tile Court called up the First National Bank and arranged to have the money received there, and. escorted bv tAA-o detectives. Airs Neff relieved herself of the cost 1 v burden. -Mrs Neff’s attorney out in a bill for 5000 dollars, but the Court cut it in half. LAST SURVIVORS. The last survivor of the Light brigade charge at Balaclava. Mr .1. A. Kilvert, J.P.. died at Wednesburv (Emrland). at tlie age of eighty-seven. Ho was only twenty-one at- the i ime of the charge, and as only 326 were left in the brigade after it the link between the twentieth centurv and the famous episode could not have been expected te last much longerThere is a curious interest about the last survivors of historical events, says a writer in the il Sunday Observer.” The last man who fought at W atorloo was Lieutenant Afaurice Shea, who died at Sherbrooke, in Canada, in 1 Q 92, aged 98. Older still was the last who bad taken nart in the American Wa r of Independence, who. fighting as a lad of sixteen, died in 1869, at the age of 109 Tho last surviA'or of the massacre of Cawmiore, General Sir Alowbrey Thomson. died at Reading in 1917. But the most striking of these stories is the well known one of the last two survivorr of those who signed tlie American Do claration of Independence. On July 4, 1826. the jubilee of the occasion. John Adams, one of the signatories, lay dying, and just before he passed away, at sunset, he was heard to say : “ Jefferson still survives.” But Thomas Jefferson had died that day at noon. A HUMOROUS THIEF Absconding with £6640 of public fund*, an Alsatian tax-collector, Szagger, baa sent to the authorities a letter of excuse for his action. Szagger was a German who, as he had married a French woman, was granted naturalisation papers. But his neiglibours did not like him. He writes:—“l have been insulted by the people of the town. They say that T am a German. T cannot stand their innuendoes, and so I am returning to the land cf my forefathers.” Szagger enclosed with his letter a complete statement of accounts, and ended up by stating that he had taken the contents of the safe as compensation for his injured feelings. *‘ Owing to the scarcity of housing accommodation in Germany,” he added. *‘-I cannot give you my next address. Please do not worry about my pension. T consider myself sufficiently repaid by tho sum I am taking with me.” THE FLYING CENTENARIAN. KnoAvn in the Alidlands as “ The Flying Centenarian,” Airs Ann Sissons, of Aransfield (Notts), celebrated her LOlst birthday on November 22> last. Last summer she made three aeroplane flights, once in company with a young blood of. eighty. At a thousand feet up, Avhen the pilot showed her the indicator and explained it, her only remark Avas : ‘‘ I am nearer Hea\’en than a good many folk.” Despite her great age, she is a '.veil-known figure in Mansfield streets, answers the calls at her own door, and inakes a practice of a. daily walk. She has been a widow for thirty years, brought up eleven children. and has seventy, grandchildren. THE RIGHT*TO STRIKE. The alleged refusal of a professor in Edinburgh Royal Infirmary to give medical attention to a Fife shire miner during the coal strike was discussed by the Executive Board of the Fife, Kinross and Clackmannan Miners’ Association. The miner was suffering from, sciatica, and called at the infirmary- on instructions from a local medical mart. On learning that the miner was on strike the professor, it is said. remarked. “So am 1.” and the interview ended. Numerous protests haA*a been lodged, and tlio various branches of the union are considering whether they will withdraw their subscriptions to the infirmary. Action has been deferred, however, until the matter is discussed by the board of management of the infirmary, upon which the miners have a representative. AMERICAN ELECTION BETS. Some extraordinary bets were mad® on the Presidential election in Amencii. To crawl on one r B hands and knees across a bridge and back, to swim across a river regardless of the weather. to promeuadi in one’s wife’s clothes, to stand in a shop window and sing a popular music-hall song a huudred times, to blow a feather half a mile, to walk througli the principal streets carrvimr a large placard with the inscription ‘ : 1 am an abs vho predicted y. Democratic majoriiv. to submit to a mock funeral, to soli patent medicine on street coruers —such, says a “ ATauchoster Guardian ” correspondent, an some of the £i stunts ” into which even respectable business men have entrapped themselves through an unlucky wager on the election TRYING TO MAKE IT RAIN A report ha A been received trora Johannesburg that airmen had tried to cause rain by dropping dust on rue clouds. An Aatto aeroplane ascended 5000 ft for the purpose, but the dust thrown cn to the clouds tailed to produce a shower. This is the first tine iu the history cf man's attempts to produce rain that he ras gone up into the sky (which seems the right- placed to try liis hand. '-The first so-called i ainmakens (apart from the prayerful men of Biblical narrative;?' Avere probably the witch-doctors of saA-age Afring, in modem tiroes incantations and weird rites involving the sacrifice cf beasts have given way to experiments with more or less a scientific basis. Powerful rockets tired from the hilltops ?iua** been tried in India. Charges of dynamite have been projected m the njr m the United States- Firing into the cloud" with hig _ g:: u< »»n? bff» j>ti*4*d U» «»a> vHfci .✓