HERE AND THERE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16496, 5 August 1921, Page 6

HERE AND THERE.

CHILD SUICIDES. In leas than a week live girls under fifteen committed suicide in New York City alone from worry over school work. 'lwo shot themselves, one jumped into the river, and two others inhaled gas. According to Dr Hoffman, statistician of the “ Save a Life League,” the tragedies are part of a wave of suicidal mania which is sweeping the United States. Last year, he says, no fewer than 12.000 persons took their lives, and as many more made unsuccessful attempts at suicide. Of these 707 were children, the hoys averaging fifteen and the girls sixteen years of The youngest child was only five. Divorce is the most prominent cause of suicide among adults, says Dr Hoffman, the cost of living and the prohibition laws ranking next. One man killed himself because his new clothes did not fit, and a woman took her life because her husband did not like the pie she made for him. IMMORTALITY IX 1925.. Judge Rutherford, president of the International Bible Students’ Association, successor to the late Pastor Russei! told a great audience at New i ork that no one need die after 1925 unless ho chose, because that vear was clearly set in the Bible for judgment on the Satanic order which now rules the world. Immortality would be accomplished in that year, said Judee Rutherford, by the re-discoverv of a perfect food which Adam forfeited bv sinning. There will be steady increasing satastrophes between now and 1925 overwhelming two-thirds of those living on earth. The survivors would he nourished and sustained for ever hv the perfect food which the lord would reveal to His people. Bald men will have their hair restored; toothless gums will grow new teeth, and men and women will become as beautiful and shapely as in the days of their youth,. Judge Rutherford’s authority was impaired durinrr the war by statements he made absolving from mortal sin any of his disciples who sought to evade conscription. * * SEWING HAIR OX THE BALD. Hope for the bald is held out bv a machine invented by Dr James Thompson, a New York physician, which, it is claimed, can sew hairs on human heads. A very fine needle worked by electricity can “ affix ” 100 hairs an hour. The machine is to be exhibited the annual dinner of the New York Bald Head Club, and after dinner the inventor will sew one hair each to the beads of eight members. Prizes will bo awarded for ther barest bead. * * PICKPOCKET EXTRAORDINARY. A story illustrative of remarkable dexterity on the part of a pickpocket was told in the criminal sessions in Melbourne recently. One evening George Day, of Napier Street. Fitzroy, got into conversation with a man whom he met casually in a hotel near Spencer Street station. He mentioned that his brother had lost both his legs at the war. The stranger expressed sympathy, and Day, with a pass or two of his hands over the stranger’s thigh, indicated that each limb had been cut off “ there and there.” In this simple manipulation Day had cleverly gone through the stranger’s trousers pockets and abstracted a purse containing £l. Being found guilty, he was ordered four months’ imrpi#onment by the Judge for larceny from the person. TRAGEDY OF POVERTY. The tragedy of the marriage of Jeanne Balet, a girl of fifteen, to Georges Youcoux, a boy of sixteen, was revealed in the Paris Courts, where the husband was sentenced to fifteen months’ imprisonment for wounding his wife with a revolver. Before marriage she was a midinette; he was au insurance clerk. They fell in love, but his earnings were barely sufficient to keep himself, and she went on working. Presently, however, they decided to chance love in a cottage. They married. For forty-five days she struggled to keep home? going oil her husband’s meagre earnings. Then she gave up the attempt and went away, leaving behind a pathetic note: “We have not enough to keep us. You have not enough for yourself, and now I am an added burden. Good-bye. All is over.” Months later, seeing her in a Paris street, he fired three revolver shots at her, but only wounded her slightly. NOT A HERO TO HIS WIFE. An ex-soldier, aged thirty-six, who was wounded in the war, and has hi.j right arm atrophied, has asked the protection of the Versailles polite against his termagant wife, who, without pretext, constantly assaults him savagely with a knife. The unfortunate husband, says Retiter, is covered with scars, and showed, the police a deep gash in his wrist which, he declared, his better half inflicted.