NEWS OF THE WORLD.

Waipawa Mail, Volume XLVIII, Issue 86, 13 April 1927, Page 4

NEWS OF THE WORLD.

**♦♦♦+♦**♦♦*♦**+* Gift From the Pope. Ronald, the 14-year-old son of Mr Winston Churchill, who accompanied his father to the Vatican on the occasion of his recent audience, brought back to England a much-prized gift from the Pope. This is a blessed medal of gold in a special case bearing the Papal arms. The audience with Mr Churchill lasted about half an hour, and his son was admitted to the Pope’s presence for the last five minutes.

Dog Detective. The almost uncanny detective instincts of an Alsatian dog named Wigger, which recently saved the life of a woman at Ballaigues, -have been again exhibited. Complaints having been received of the destruction of a large number off tame rabbits on farms at Crans, on the Franco-Swiss border, Wigger was taken to the spot by a gendarme. After scenting a pen the dog took up a trail leading through the village across some fields. Here more dead rabbits were found. Wigger then made off across country with the gendarme following behind, and, entering the courtyard of a farm, flew at the throat of a large halfbred wolfhound which was chained in a kennel. Any doubt as to the author of the massacres was removed by the wolfhound’s paw tracks left on the scene.

U.S. Gift to Edinburgh. A gift of £74,000 has been made to the University of Edinburgh from the International Education Board of New York, one of the Rockefeller Foundations. The gift is made to the university as a contribution to the cost of a new department of zoology, which will be built at the King’s' Buildings of the University at West Mains road, Craigmillar, Edinburgh, where several departments of the university have recently been opened. Of the £74,000, the sum of £38,000 is for buildings, £IO,OOO for equipment, and £26,000 for endowment. The University of Edinburgh have already £41,000 in hand for buildings, and this added to the new sum available will make a total of £79,000 in all for buildings. The plans are to be prepared by Sir Robert Lorimer, R.S.A., in consultation with Professor J. H. Ashworth of the Chair of Zoology, in recognition of whose magnificent work the offer of this splendid gift has been made.

Too Many Teachers. Complaints mere made at the Conference of the London Teachers’ Association that there were far too many candidates for the profession. Cases were cited by Mr W. J. Burton, an ex-president of the association, of young teachers who, unable to get appointments after taking honors at college and gaining the teachers’ diploma, had been forced to take jobs at 30s a week. One young woman who had taken honors in history at Bedford College had been acting as assistant to the wardrobe mistress at a London theatre. Another, after qualifying at college, had had to take a job in an insurance office at £1 a week.

Amusing Caterpillars. Six nests of processionary caterpillars at the-London Zoo are providing visitors with amusing demonstrations of follow-my-leader. ” There is no appointed leader; whichever caterpillar happens to be in front is dutifully followed by others, nose to tail. They never move except in procession, even two or three forming up in this fashion. So strong is the instinct to follow that when an unbroken circle of these caterpillars was arranged around the rim of a barrel they kept “circling the circ” for four days, when, taking pity on them, he broke the procession and directed it to food. At the Zoo tiny pine and oak trees are being planted for them. As the foliage of each is devoured the caterpillars will break up their silken ‘' camp ’ ’ and proceed in procession to another.

Ten In a Cottage. “You cannot expect any family of ten people to live in that house of four rooms without having one or two lunatics among them,” said Dr. .1. W. Prince at an inquest held at Hartfield, Sussex, on a young married woman named Alice Funnell. It appeared that the parents, six children, and the wife’s father and mother lived in the cottage, which had been condemned. Mrs Funnell, who had had a hard time, was discovered drowned in a pond, into which she had appai ently walked and laid down to die. 50 Years a Housebreaker.

“He has beee housebreaking- for 50 years, and served 30 or 40 years in prison,” said Detective-Sergt. W. Poynter , at North London Police Court, when John Searle, aged 74, was charged under tl e Prevention of Crimes Act with being found on enclosed premises at Holloway. Searle

CLIPPINGS FROM VARIOUS SOURCES.

►♦♦♦♦♦♦♦••♦♦♦♦♦A* was stated to have entered a woman’s bedrpom while she was having an afternoon rest. Asked what he had to say, Searle, who is blind in one eye and partly deaf, exclaimed amid tears: “ I hope you will deal leniently with me as an old man. I asked for mercy when I was young, and I never got it.” A sentence of 12 months’ hard labor was imposed. Title Revived After 400 Years. A title over 400 years old has been revived by the appointment by the Lord Lyon King of Arms in Scotland of Lieut.-Colonel J. W. B. Paul, of Cakemuir Castle, Midlothian, to be Falkland Pursuivant. The title is taken from the Royal Palace of that name, and has been in abeyance since before 1500. Lieut.-Colonel Paul is the eldest son of Sir James Balfour Paul, who recently retired from the office of Lyon King of Arms.

Battle With an Alsatian. While Mr N. C. Harrison, of Portland Place, Leamington, was visiting a farmhouse near Warwick an Alsatian dog sprang at his throat and took a piece out of his scarf. Beaten off, the dog next attacked Mr Harrison’s terrier, and would have killed it had not he knelt on the Alsatian’s body, forced open its jaws, and choked it with its own tongue. His fingers were severely bitten. “It was the dog or myself,” he said. Year’s Bravest Deed. The gold medal for the bravest deed of 1926 was awarded by the Royal Humane Society to Mr Harry Smith, mate of the steam-drifter Sarepta. Last October the drifter was returning to Lowestoft from the fishing grounds in cold and bad weather"when Alfred Majoram, one of the crew, was thrown into the sea by a sudden lurch of the vessel. Marjoram, who was wearing oilskins and heavy sea-boots, was quickly carried 300 yards astern. The boat was brought round and a lifebuoy thrown to him, but he was too exhausted to use it and the mate sprang overboard and swam to him. Another lifebuoy with a line attached was thrown, and by its means the two men were with great difficulty rescued, bruised and exhausted, Marjoram being unconscious. Had the line broken both men would almost certainly have been drowned.

Cricketer’s Funeral. Clothed at his own request in an umpire’s jacket, and with a cricket ball in one hand, the body of the late Mr Harry Bagshaw, the one-time Derbyshire county cricketer, was conveyed 30 miles from his home in Glossop and buried at Eyam churchyard, near to which place he was born 67 years ago. Carrying out his wish, relatives of the dead cricketer arranged for the funeral cortege to pass through many Derbyshire towns in which he had played cricket. To do this the cortege travelled many miles over the Derbyshire moors. People in the villages through which the funeral procession passed, according to the route mapped out by himself, gathered to watch his passing.

Queen in Life-Saving Episode. When Queen Wilhelmina, of Holland, with a lady-in-waiting, went for a motor drive in the neighborhood of Scheveningen she saw a young woman plunge into the sea to drown herself. Queen Wilhelmina ordered the driver and a lackey to go to the rescue. Both went into the water, and they brought the woman ashore. Soccer Trains Two Months Ahead. There has been an astonishing demand for the dining ear train to be run from the Notts coalfields to Glasgow for the international match between Scotland and England on April 2nd. By the end of January 2700 seats had been booked, chiefly by miners on the borders of the Notts and Derbyshire area, where the coal-get-ters are earning big money. From £6 to £4OOO. The portrait of Princess Caroline, youngest daughter of George 11., attributed to Reynolds, which made £4OOO at auction, was sold in .1837 for £6. Reynolds painted this picture in 1766. The Princess was in tears throughout the sitting at the prospect of leaving England to marry the King of Denmark, and Reynolds used to say that he had the greatest difficulty with the portrait for this reason. His pupil Northcote, writing in 1818; said that the whereabouts of this picture was then unknorvn. The presumption is that Reynolds’ patron refused to accept the portrait (the shortcomings of which Reynolds excused by the tears), that it remained in the studio, and was sold for a paltry sum in the Reynolds’ studio sale after his death, the identity of the sitter having been forgotten. When it was resold for £6 it was described as “A Lady With a Guitar.”