HERE AND THERE

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17453, 3 February 1925, Page 6

HERE AND THERE

AN EYE FOR EVERYTHING. A HIXX TO VISITORS. The following! verse will be found on the door of the parish church at> Stret ton-en-le-Field . Derbyshire : “11 in this church you’d like to see. Call at the rectory for the key. And if your heart is so inclined. The church expenses box you’ll' find.” “BEWITCHED” HJS PIGS. A, pica of justification on the ground that the woman had “bewitched his pigs” was put forward by Alfred John Matthews when he was sentenced to a Devon. last month. for assaulting Ellen Garnsworthy. She had east an. evil eye over the pigs, he said, and they died. Matthews had scratched the woman’s arm with a pin, one of the scratches being five inches long, in order, a.s be thought, to rob her of her supposed power. FATHER CHRISTMAS AND A TRAGEDY. For causing an obstruction by walking through High Street. Beckham, dressed a.s Father Christmas, John Foster, aged fifty-two. a pedlar, was fined IPs by the Lambeth magistrate in England last month. A constable said the children naturally followed Foster. Two minutes after lie had been taken into custody a child, aged three, ran into the road and was knocked down and killed by a motor-’bus. Foster denied that he was in anv wav the oau.-e of the accident. He would not like to have that on his conscience, he added. WOMAN AND SON GASSED*. A woman and her sou wrre found unconscious in a house at Winobmore lliil. Middlesex- Entering the bouse. Cyril Jack Sotnner detected a smell of gas and turned it off at the meter. On the table was a letter addressed to him from his mother. Rushing upstairs, ho found his mother, Amelia Sonnier, forty-nine, a widow, and his younger brother, Claude Erie, fourteen. in a bedroom, suffering from th© effects of gas poisoning. Oxygen was administered and the mother and son were taken to hospital, where both lie seriously ill. MOTORING EARL FIXED A batch of tliirtv-six motorists appeared before the Woking magistrates, England, on charges of having exceeded the speed limit at Ockham and N\i~ley, and fines totalling £6O were imposed. Among the defendants was th* Earl of Cottenliam. who was fined £3. Superintendent Holloway said that when stopped and told his speed was estimated at forty miles an hour, the earl said: “You’re about right. In fact, when your whistle nearly blew* me out of the car my speedometer was at forty-two." Major Henry Soagravo, of Putney vale, was fined £2. Constable Elkins said that when he told the major that, his speed was fortymiles an hour, he replied. “ J dispute it. If you or anyone else can get forty out of this car you can have it.” DEAD ON CRICKET FIELD. The circumstances in which a collier met his death on the cricket field near the racecourse at Doncaster are being investigated by the English police. Foul play is suspected. Albert Needham. aged thirty-eight, a marrieu colliery surface worker, was found in front of the pavilion, having hied to death frojn a wound in the chest. No weapon has been discovered. Tt is stated that a young man and a woman were in the field when Needham entered it just before midnight on Saturday. A description of the couple has been circulated. Large numbers of people visited the field and examined with interest what they believed to bo indications of a struggle. AN AMUSING APOLOGY. The following curious apology appeared in a Lincoln newspaper iu 1806 : Whereas T, Benjamin Birch. Of Boston town (and near the At Stamford Market, o’er the how!. Got drunk and slandered neighbour Cole. For which he has to my vexation Bv law compelled this declaration That 1 . without just cause or reason Made use of words as base as treason. And therefore do his pardon ask - A most unpleasant, paintul task. Rut as T own T was to blame. AN by. dang it! then I’ll sign my B. Birch. Boston. January. ]BOG. “LONGEST CEMETERY ON EARTH. • •*NYe should naturally imagine that the man who built a great stone harrier across the north and north-west of China would be held in high esteem bv bis people, that posterity would bail him as a benefactor, and that the splendour of his work would give I bis name, undying glory.” says a w riter in “T.P.’s and C assell s UVeet lv.“ “But wc hear nothing ot the kind. Rich and poor. learned and simple, speak of the builder of the Great Wall with contempt. They los© s ight of ibe Wall in contemplating the wickedness of the man who built it 11 is said that Hw ang Ti utilised every third able bodied man in his kingdom for the work. Millions must have been so employed hr the time the task was finished, and it was not completed during the First Emperor’s reign. More than two thousand yMr> ago the (Deal Wall was built, and the Unman agony entailed in its construction is remembered in China to-day Every inch of that far-flung Wall r associated with human suffering, and it lias been grind;, but truthfully described as the longest cemetery earth.” BROADCASTING STAMPSA new phase of stamp-collecting ban developed in the States as an outcome of broadcasting, anti it may .spread tn England. Each broadcasting station stamps, printed in different colours tor the various wavelengths. To receive one of the stamps, the ‘‘radio fan writes to the station he sus|H*ct> he ha* hoard, describing v.hai ho lias heard, li the evidence is sa tid n< :•ny . ho receives the stamp to add to his collection. Already there lias boon i.-sued a r album extending i«» ninety-six pagewit.h spares for the stamps of all , recognised stations in tlie 1 niter States and Canada, arranged alpha betically by States and rail Wtor? U is. by the way a revenue earning seheme. for the American station? ar< charging ten cents for each stamp. Th* charge is likely to be increased, how i ever, because it is barely sufficient t< ’ cover the engraving of the stamps, pos tage. and clerical expenses. It is pro > posed to issue special stamps for spe I cial occasions, such ns the inaugnra address of a President or th* broad Lasting of a national convention.