NEWS BY MAIL

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXI, Issue 19048, 27 June 1924, Page 8

NEWS BY MAIL

“DANGER AGES” IN TRAFFIC. THOUGHTLESSNESS OF THE TWENTIES. 175 KILLED. THREE MONTHS’ TOLL IN LONDON. “ Thoughtlessness amounting to recklessness” amid the perils of street traffic is th e characteristic of people in the early twenties, and over-con-fidence the cause of many accidents to persons of twenty-five and upwards. This opinion was expressed by Aiderman J. J. Bisgood at a meeting of the London Safety First Council yesterday. There had been 175 fatal street accidents in the quarter ended March 31, and the proportions in relation to the age of the victims, he said, were roughly as follows: Under fifteen one-third Fifteen to sixty .., . . one-half Sixty upwards . . . . one-fifth TWENTY PER CENT. “UP.” These proportions did not vary largely year by year. Altogether there were 16,691 accidents. The fatalities had increased 20 per cent, over the total for the same quarter last year, and 52 per cent, over that of 1922. The council again urged that the issuse of driving licenses should be conditional on the applicant proving his efficiency in an actual test on the road. The grant of motor-cycle licenses to boys of fourteen was also condemned. Boys of this age, it was declared, were incapable of the restraint and physical nerve-power necessary for driving a high-powered motor-cycle. BLIND GOLFER. V.C.’s PROWESS ON THE LINKS. ARDENT CYCLIST AND FISHERMAN. LONDON, May 8. Captain Towse, the blind V.C., can still, in spite of not having seen a golf ball since the Boer War, put up a good fight on the links against a sighted player. At his home at Goring he has an 18hole putting course, and frequently plays a round there. He is equally at home on the tec. At St. Andrews he once drove across a green over 300 yards and his average drive is about 200 yards. “But the approaches bother me,” he told a Daily News representative yesterday. “That’s where blindness lets me down. I have to ask how far away the hole is, and I find that I am seldom given the right distance. People say 100 yards when it is really only 60 or 20, and then, of course, I get into trouble.

“On the green,” he added. “I can manage pretty well. The caddie taps the tin with a club, and the sound the distance. To get to know the line I walk over the green between mv ball and the hole.”

When Captain Towse had his sight his handicap was 3, and he was a particularly long driver. In the early days of his blindness he often played foursomes at St. Andrews with a professional who had previously been his caddie. “We took on ail comers.” said the captain, “and we never lost a match.”

Sighted players sometimes miss the ball altogether, but Capt. Towse never docs. “They tell you to keep your eye on the ball, but there cannot be much in that,” he said with a laugh, “because I haven’t got an eye to keep on it, and yet I manage to hit every time. ’ ’

Capt. Towse also rides a bicycle. He finds the way by resting his stick lightly on the handlebar of another cyclist. But he prefers horse-riding. “The difficulty is,” he said, “to find anyone who will ride with me. Every one in these days wants to motor.” The sport he most enjoys is fly fish-i-ng.

GROOM’S FORTUNE. £BO,OOO FOR INMATE OF ALMSHOUSE. LONDON May 6. News has been received by George Squires, aged 75, of the Almhouses, Northgate, Newark, that he has inherited some £BO,OOO, left by his uncle’s widow, a Northallerton woman. Squires, who has four daughters and six sons living, was formerly a groom at Newark. The fortune was left by a woman named Boss, who was married to a sea captain. Squires was told of his good fortune some weeks ago by a friend, who saw something about it in the newspaper. A London lawyer interviewed him, and examined various papers, including the marriage lines of his mother, a Miss Boss, who married a Mr John Squires at Newark Parish Church. Squires and his father acted as carriers between Lincoln, Newark, and Grantham. Squires ran away from at the age of 16, and went to Sheffield, where he worked as boots at the Victoria Hotel. He had heard of the existence of the woman who had left him the money, but knew nothing of her. She made his mother »n allowance of £lO a month. The lawyer told him he was confident of getting the money for him. NO. 10, DOWNING-ST. IN DANGER. DINING ROOM FLOOR TO BE STRENGTHENED. LONDON, May 3. The floor the large dining-room at No. 10 Downing-street, the historic residence of the Prime Minister, is in danger of collapse. Workmen from the Office of Works made the alarming discovery yesterday when they started to repair cracks in the ceiling below. Hours of rapid work have, it was stated last night, considerably lessened the danger, but workmen will be engaged throughout the week-end strengthening the whole floof. There was grave risk of No. 10 and No. 11 Downing-street collapsing barely two years ago when the masonry round one of the windows of No. 10 was seen to be cracked. ' BUILT ON MUD. Investigations showed that the foundations were insecure, owing to the soft soil, described as “simply marsh and mud,” on which they rested. Excavations were made on each side of the original walls, and stout steel

girders, bedded in concrete, were laid parallel on each side. The walls were then pierced, and short cross-girders were laid so that the walls were supported on a kind of steel grid resting on the parallel girders. It was stated that this would make the foundations absolutely safe for evef. LIBELLED BY 23 MEN. £1,750 DAMAGES FOR A RAILWAYMAN. LONDON, May 3. One thousand seven hundred and fifty pounds damages were awarded to Percy Brett, a Great Western Railway “chargoman,” in Mr. Justice Rowlatt’s Court yesterday for libel, slander, and conspiracy by twent • three of his fellow jvorkmen at Swindon. A dispute had arisen because Mr. Brett’s gang in 1919 reached an unprecedented figure in their earnings. A [meeting of chargemen passed a resolution containing the alleged libel, and in consequence Mr. Brett was removed by the management to a subordinate position. -«. 'She judge said a great many people held th j view that they were injured if there was an excessive output, but it did not matter to the jury whether that was or was not economically sound. Mr. Stuart Bevan asked for a stay of execution, suggesting that the damages were excessive, but Mr. Justice Rowlatt advised him to go to the Court of Appeal. £24,000,000 BONDS UNCLAIMED.' AMERICAN CIVIL WAR ROMANCE. IN A CITY SAFE. LONDON, May 3. Bonds with a nominal value exceeding £24.000,000 issued by the Confederated States of America between 1861 and 1865, have been lying for more than forty years in the National Safe Deposit, Queen Victoria-street, E.C.4, unclaimed by the holders. When the American Civil War opened the Confederated States began issuing their bonds, which eventually reached a total of more than 540,000,OOOdols., in exchange for produce and material. A number of these bonds eventually drifted over to England, but there was also an issue of £3,000,000 in London, Paris, and Amsterdam. There were originally about 200 British holders, but many of them are dead, and it may be difficult to find the remainder. Five trustees appointed in 188 3 are also dead, but their successors met yesterday to seek power to distribute the bonds.

MORAL CLAIM. Mr. Edwin Syer, of Messrs. Gull and Buck, stockbrokers, who presided, said: “We do not claim anything against the United States Government as it is to-day, but we still have a moral claim against the southern states, who were members of the Confederacy. “We are confronted by the fourteenth amendment of the United States Constitution, which prohibits the southern States accepting any liability contracted during the Civil War. This was made a condition of their re-entry into the Union.” Mr. Syer said to a Daily Express representative: “If some international tribunal were to investigate the matter, I believe that the bonds could be distributed to those of the surviving holders who could be found. I do not known what we shall do with the others.”