NEWS FROM ALL QUARTERS.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20653, 29 June 1935, Page 12

NEWS FROM ALL QUARTERS.

SHE HAD SIXTEEN HUSBANDS. f ’A pixty-year-old woman of Beli Manastir, Yugoslavia, lias been married sixteen tomes —and she is now looking for a seventeenth husband. She is Sophia Nishtchevitch, and she declares: “I would not mind marrying for the seventeenth time it I could find a good match/’ Sophia outlived five of her husbands, but the remaining eleven she left because they were '■'nuisances and wastrels.” Xow she is awaiting her seventeenth proposal from some man who will value her for herself and not for the sake of her monej’. FIRST-CLASS FOR BEGGAR. There is in Spain a beggar who wishes he had never gone to Valencia. When he arrived there he was arrested for begging. It was discovered at the police station that he had hidden 700 pesetas (.about £2O) in his shirt. So the Prefect decided to send him back to his native village. But first he was given a bath and a haircut. Then, at his own expense, he was provided with a new suit, a new shirt, new shoes, a handsome walking stick—and a first-class ticket back. The change, some 12/6, was carefully placed in a waistcoat pocket of the suit. MIGRATION OF EAGLES. An extraordinary spectacle has been witnessed by the inhabitants of Bourgas. on the Black Sea. Several thousands of eagles, followed by a company of about 100 storks, have passed over the town, .making their way northward, and coming, apparently, from Asia Minor. The eagles flew in a straggling line about four miles in length, and took more than two hours to pass the town. Both eagles and storks flew at a height of more than 1000 ft, and seemed to be very exhausted, as if they had come a great distance. According to the semi-official newspaper ‘'La Bulgarie,” nobtody in the country recalls having ever before seen so large a migration of eagles. The migration of storks along the coast is, however, quite a •common eight.

ROBBED THE WARDER. -Josip Podkrajehek. most famous of .Zagreb pickpockets, has broken the Yugoslav record lor speed in getting back to prison. Josip was released after serving two years in Lepoglava, Zagreb’s famous •prison. As he said good-bye to prison officials at the gates he could not xesist the temptation to remove a silver watch from one of them. He was seen by another official, caught, taken to the local : lock-up and the next day appeared again before a Court. Within a few hours he was back in Lepoglava. THE OLDEST INHABITANT. The village council at Vary, in Kuthenia. got tired of having to support the oldest inhabitant, a woman of 99. So they smuggled her. on a camp bed, over the boundaries of Berchovo, and left her there. The authorities at Bereliovo saw that she was properly looked after—but they sent in a bill for her keep. The sum was higher than what the people of Vary had had to pay for her before. They therefore seized a favourable opportunity .and smuggled their oldest inhabitant back again. TOMBSTONE LIBEL ACTION. When Maximo Labrada’s wife died he was only too glad to allow his father-in-law to make all the funeral arrangements and secure a burying place and tombstone, says a message from Cebu, Philippine Islands. Glad—until lie went to the cemetery to inspect the result. What he saw made him rush off to his lawyer and institute criminal proceedings for defamation of his character, against his father-in-law. For the inscription on the tombstone was: ‘*She died of maltreatment by her husband.” “ WHO’S WHO ” OF CROOKS. Few of the million*, of visitors to London for the Jubilee were victimised ; ’oy criminal** or ‘confidence men. Scotland Yard, in fact, achieved a triumph of iorganisation. In the secret rooms there, •some time ago. the records of interna•tional “crooks” were traced. Few {suspects were able to leave the Continent, and those who reached London were so ‘•well watched that they might as well have (stayed at home. In fact, during Jubilee •Week there was an almost entire absence ‘of serious crime. Hundreds of detectives, jwho cheerfully pushed in and out of the • dense masses of people, prevented pickfpockcts from working. The Yard’s ’■'souvenir jubilee publication” is a book {into which has been condensed a comiplete record of most of the world’s notorious criminals, with their photographs and an explanation of the methods ithey usually employ. LIVED AND DIED TOGETHER. Mary. Blauche. and Annie Dunn for nearly half a century had lived together, •inseparable, in their home in Workington, •Cumberland. Together they went to London for the Jubilee. Together they -saw tin- Koval procession, returned to their hotel in Windsor. Together they tell ill of influenza. Within 36 hours ail three were dead. Together still, they •were laid in the same grave in Working.ton. Blanche, .19 years old, was the first to break the partnership. She became ill on the Thursday and died on the Saturday at 2.30 p.m. On Wednesday Mary, aged 60. and Annie, aged 48, were ill, too. Mary died, on Sunday at 5.30 a.m., Annie the next day just after midnight. They had been hurried, together, to a nursing home. But nothing could be done for them. And each died without her listers knowing of the tragedy that wa6 cto take them to the same grave.

THE DRIVER’S ORDEAL. A lorry laden with bananas bounced madly down the street at Montgomery, Alabama, and came to rest on the pavement. The driver jumped out frenziedly 111 to the arms of a policeman. “Officer,” he said, “I’ve got a tarantula in my pants! - ’ The policeman “operated” on the driver’s trousers with' a knife, and out dropped the big poisonous spider. Mr. K. L. Hathaway then drove his lorry away—under perfect control. HAIL THREE FEET DEEP. Birds, buck and even koodoo (antelopes) and zebra perished in the worst hailstorm within living memory, which swept over the Gordomu Estate between the Sand and Njelele Rivers in the Transvaal. Buildings were blown and battered down and natives’ household belongings—pots and pans and articles of clothing—were strewn over the veldt. In one instance a man, his wife and three children had just left a bedroom when one of the walls collapsed. Two natives were trapped in another house for several hours before being released. After the downpour hail lay on the ground three feet deep. THE RICHEST POOR. In Spain, where begging is an institution. the poor people are the richest in the world. This, at any rate, is the conclusion of a writer in the “Diorio de Madrid,” who has been examining the funds of Spanish charities and relief organisations. There are. to start with, 9390 private charities in the country, with a total capital of nearly £17,000,000, and an annual income of £500,000. devoted exclusively to poor relief. Then, some

5,000,000 manual labourers, insured through the National Relief Institute, will drawpensions at 05 from the institute’s capital of £13.000,000. Tliere are 600.000 unem : plos'ed in the country, and of the total of 22,000,000 inhabitants nearly half earn less than £3 5/ a week. There is a total of £95,000.000 existing for their help in times of need, excluding State grants for the reduction of unemployment.

GIANT TOADS WANTED. Giant toads are wanted in Queenslandto control sugar cane pests. So the Bureau of Sugar Experimental Stations propose to import them. The solution of pest problems in agriculture is often found with Nature itself, aud an entomologist is going to Hawaii to study methods of grub control there. He will return to Queensland with some giant toads which have been effective in controlling beetle* and other pests, says the annual report of the Bureau Advisory Board. If attempts to breed the toads at Meringa Experimental Station are successful the first generation will be liberated immediately into the grub-infested area.