NEWS OF THE WORLD

Waipawa Mail, Volume LXV, Issue 189, 9 April 1937, Page 4

NEWS OF THE WORLD

W T orld’s Smallest Book. A war veteran suffering from shell-i’oi-k bus written what is claimed at .. u.unuuy postage stamp. It is three-sixteenths of an inch thick and contains 98 pages. The war veteran, Valentian Kaufmann, took a year to write it. He used only one pen for the entire work, which he did as a 'obbv. Besides Schiller’s poem, The Bell,” the book includes anither poem and other material and dates, making 10,989 letters and 21 figures in all. Each letter is onefiftieth of an inch in height. ■'hilanthrepist Murderer. A 94-year-old man, charged with committing murder, is in prison at Virvitiea, Yugoslavia. He is Franjo Pap, who some years ago adopted Alexander Vejitch and his wife. He took them to live with him, and on his death, the old man promised, all his property should be theirs. But, as a result of making that arrangement, he developed the idea that his adopted son and daughter were trying t" 'risen him so ns to get eariv posses on of his. wealth. The climax cam" hen he ran to his room, snatched :p an open razor, and, it is charged, rushed back and slashed his adopted son, who died soon afterwards. Tvnhing Beggars. A ‘ ‘ banish-the-beggars ” campai'; hi 'h Budapest hoped to stop begug in the streets, has failed. It was .ped to prohibit beggars and to supideserving cases from funds col-oetr-d financially from the public But out of the 194,000 circulars remesting donations, only 60,000 ansvers were received. The amount reuired to support the beggars is 2.90,000 pengo (about £100.000) a ear. The sum which has so far been ffered by citizens amounts to only .000,000 peng'o (approximately £40."HIO) a year. It is doubtful yvhethei '■von this sum could be raised regu’arly, as some of the promises of roney are thought to he worthless. 'he Poker Fiend. A large estate, a fine house and a pretty young wife have all been 'ost—through playing, poker—by Tacob Ajdar. a yo''ng Yugoslav When the father died some months ago a considerable fortune was left to Ajdar, who lives at Vuchitrna, near Kosovska Mitrovitza. Now he has lost everything—and he is in prison serving a sentence for attempting to steal money so that he could continue gambling. AYhen he had no money left, a friend who was in love with his pretty young wife offered money for her. Jacob took it, and lost it all that same night. At his trial he begged the Magistrate to keep him in prison out of temptation. Payment in Kind. Theatre tickets were bought with articles of food at a gala performance in Vienna. In order to collect provisions for the poor of the neighborhood, the town council arranged a special performance at the municipal theatre. Tickets were to be paid for with edibles—one pound’s weight of anything nourishing was asked for a gallery seat, six pounds for stalls and 20 pounds for boxes. The box-office takings included COO pounds of meat, 800 pounds of flour, and 200 pounds of sugar. The total receipts from the performance were immediately shared among the town’s unemployed. A thousand of the town's poor had food for a week. The Maharajah’s Luggage. When the Maharajah of Indore arrived in America on a visit last August he was believed to have established a record in the amount of luggage he brought with him—no fewer than 100 trunks and bag's. He sailed back to India with more than 200 pieces, the increase representing his numerous acquisitions during' his tour of the United States and his visit to the Hawaiian Islands. His curios range in size and variety from a Los Angeles police badge to the mounted head of a Colorado elk. He is also returning with two new titles bestowed upon him during his visit—Captain of the Los Angelos police, and Deputy-Sheriff of Los Angeles County. Gunmen Pose as Police. Three neatly attired young men who proclaimed that they were policemen but quickly disclosed that they were bandits, held up 18 men in the Armenian - American Democratic Club, a social organisation which occupies rooms in New York. Within seven minutes they had every coin and every bill from the pockets of their 18 victims, and from the cash register at the cigar counter gathered two watches and raced down the stairs to speed atvay in a black sedan, at the wheel of which a companion waited. The gunmen, one carrying two revolvers and the other two one each, entered the place with the announcement: “We are the police. Got against the wall.” The astonished Armenian - American Democrats lined up as ordered and, while the man with two revolvers covered them, his companions went through their pockets. Officers at £64 Each. It costs a father £64 for his son to become an officer in the new German conscript army. This is revealed in a notice issued by the War Ministry in Berlin, for the purpose of reassuring' parents who might have feared that the cost would be higher. All that is asked of parents, the War Ministry states, is the sum of 800 marks (£64) for a new uniform and other expenses when their son assumes the rank of lieutenant. Since three and a half years elapse between the time when a father officially announces his intention of allowing his son to become an officer and the actual day of appointment, the War Ministry adds, “there is ample opportunity for laying aside this amount in small instalments.” The only other sum required from parents is 20 mai'ks (325) a month for their boy’s personal expenses during the ■ two and a-quarter years of his training.