NEWS FROM ABROAD

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 254, 26 October 1937, Page 5

NEWS FROM ABROAD

IN TERESTING TIT-BITS. The Servant Problem. The Minister of Labour (Mr. Ernest Brown) is to tour Britain on an inquiry into the domestic servant problem; although he will deal with other unemployment problems, his chief interest will be in finding the cause of the domestic servant shortage. Accompanied by Ministry officials, he will talk with mistresses, servants, social workers and employment exchange offcials in many towns. Great Britain is divided into nine divisions by the Ministry, and Mr. Brown will visit them all. “Perfect” servants and “perfect” mistresses will be able to give him their advice. I New Calendar in 1939? The “Desborough Plan” of Calendar Reform, which is advocated by the British Chambers of Commerce, will be considered by a specially appointed committee of the League of Nations with a view to the possibility of introducing it in 1939. Three “Recipes” For a Happy Life. Mr. Henry Keatley Moore has died in a Croydon nursing home four days before his 91st. birthday. When he celebrated his diamond wedding five years ago he gave three recipes: “For a perfect courtship; play piano duets, and then you can always get the parlour to yourselves. For a successful married life; do not want all your own way; if you do you will never get any of it. For a healthy old age; keep busy; if you sit around all the time you may get gout.” A Band Banned. Permission to build a practice hall has been refused to the local brass band by the authorities of Billericay, in Essex, apparently on the ground that brass-band playing is an “offensive trade” like soap-boiling, or fishfrying. The band has appealed to the Minister of Health. Creator of Bulldog Drummond. Lieut.-Colonel Cyril McNeale, better known by his pseudonym “Sapper,” the author, died on August 21 at his home at Pulborough, Sussex, aged 49. Sapper’s most famous work was the novel, “Bulldog Drummond,” which enjoyed enormous success in its original form and subsequently as a play and a film. Drummond, the chief character, figured in other books by the same author, and thousands of readers have been absorbed in his adventures with Carl Peterson, a “crook” gang leader. Wheels of Prosperity. Private cars are being bought in greater numbers than at this time last year. The latest returns show that in one month over 30,000 new cars were put on the road, this being 5750 more than a year ago. New Uses for Old Mills. Many Lancashire cotton mills which had been idle for some years are now the homes of new industries set up by foreign firms which formerly exported their goods to us. Three French firms are making tinsel thread, silk velvet dress goods and silk plushes and velvets in former cotton mnis at Burnley, Accrington and Blackburn. An Anglo-Austrian syndicate is engaged in rayon-creping at Oldham, and other continental firms have established chemical works at Eccles and Glossop. Lions As Music Critics. The mayor of a small South African town recently found himself cornered by lions in the Kruger National Park. He was saved by a native who produced a mouth organ and played one | of his favourite tunes on it very loudly. The lions listened for a few moments and then slunk away.