HERE AND THERE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17568, 19 June 1925, Page 6

HERE AND THERE.

AN EYE FOR EVERYTHING. SMOKERS’ MARATIION'. M. Lenoble, a member of the Pari* Cent Kilos Club, has won the 1925 French pipe-smokers “marathon" race. With thirty other smokers at Belleville yesterday afternoon he made his pipeful of French tobacco last longest - olmin 11 3-ssec—without once relighting it. The winner holds the title for BLIND MAN KILLED. Edward Smith, a blind newspaper seller and a well-known character in Bristol, was killed by a runaway horse. Led by his daughter, he was delivering newspapers in Surrey Street, a narrow thoroughfare, when the horse, dragging a railway lorry, dashed madly along. Smith, unable to avoid the horse, was knocked down, and he died a few minutes later. He was fifty-eight years of age. His daughter had a hairbreadth escape. “ ITALS- MET HU SALE H TI.M.S. Effingham, ligh cruiser, which lias taken eight years to build, went to sea for the first time on April 22 (said a London journal) to carry out trials. She was laid down at Portsmouth Dockyard in April, 1917, but since the v.ar has been regarded as a stand-by .job. Questions have been asked in Parliament concerning the date of her completion, and last March she was referred, to in the House as “ Methusaleh.” ; FIRE AND WIND SWEEP THROUGH VILLAGE. Fanned by a fierce mountain wind, a fire which broke out in the Swiss village of Sus spread with great rapidity, and the greater part of the village was destroyed. Sus, in the Lower Engadine, is but twenty miles from St Moritz, in the heart of the winter sports country. Forty-four houses and fortythree stables were destroyed, and the damage was estimated at 2.000.000 francs (£BO.OOO L little of which is covered by insurance. THE TRIALS OF RECTORS. Various formalities have to be oilserved by a London rector befere he is able to leave, the parish in which he works. These formalities become all the more troublesome when it is u case of his leaving the country. The Rev A. G. B. West, a former rector <.>: Essendon. now rector of St Dunstar.'s in East London, has just had an illustration of this. Mr West was about to revisit Australia, and was told by the ecclesiastical commissioners that it is not within their power to pay his quarterly stipend into his account until he has cabled an assurance of. inch’s own words, “ my deferred decease.” FIVE BIG BANKS OWNED BY 275.414 HOLDERS. “Those who are conducting the campaign in favour of what they call na tion.alising the banks should understand that the banks are owned, not by a few rich men, but by an immense number of individual shareholders, and that the average holding is rcmarkablv small.” This is a passage from a letter which Mr Walter Runciman, director of the Westminster Bank, has sent to the London “ Daily Chronicle,” with reference to proposals at the recent IX.P. conference for the nationalisation of the banks. Mr Runciman gives the following figures of five big banks: — Barclays. Capital, £15.592.372; 51.011 shareholders; average holding, £306. Lloyds.—Paid-up capital, £14.372.956: 55.668 shareholders; average holding, £2SS. Midland. —Paid-up capital, £11.976,S9O: 57,250 shareholders; average, £209. National Provincial. —Paid-up capital, £9.479.416; 41.603 shareholders; average. £225. Westminster.—Paid-up capital. £9.051.718; 09.552 shareholders; average, £l3O. Total paid-up capital of the five banks. £60,473.352; amount of average holding of the 275,414 holders, £219. Mr Runciman adds that one effect of nationalising these banks would be to buy out the tens of thousands of shareholders. and transfer control by expert financial directors to control by politicians for political purposes. which might become corrupt, and would be vci y dangerous. THE RICHES OF THE ANCIENTS. Croesus possessed, in landed propertv. a fortune equal to £1.700.000 besides a large amount of money, slaves ard furniture, which amounted to an equal sum. The philosopher Seneca had a fortune of £3.500.000. With such a sum anyone can afford to be philosophical. Tiberius, his death, left £23.625.000. which Caligula spent in icss than twelve months. Vespasian, on ascending the throne, estimated all the expenses of the State at £35.000.000. The debts of Milo amounted to £600.000 Caesar, before he entered upon any office, owed £2.995,000. He had purchased the friendship of Curio for £500.000. and that of Lucius Pauhia for £300.000. He squandered £147.000.000 cf the public treasures. Appius wasted in debauchery £500.000. and, finding on examination of the state of his affairs that he had only £BO.OOO. he poisoned himself because he considered that sum insufficient for his maintenance. Julius Caesar gave Scrvilla, the mother of Brutus, a pearl of the value of £40.000. Cleopatra, at an entertainment, gave to Antony, dissolved in vinegar, a pearl worth £IO.OOO. and he swallowed it. Clodius, the son of Esopus, the comedian, swallowed another •pearl worth £BOOO. One single dish cost Esopus £BO.OOO. Caligula spent for one supper £BO.OOO. and Heliogabalus £20.000. The cost of a repast for Lu-,-uilus was £20.000; the fish from his fishponds were sold for £35,000.