STRUCK BY LIGHTNING

Waipukurau Press, Volume XXVIII, Issue 116, 11 May 1932, Page 8

STRUCK BY LIGHTNING

MISHAP TO AIR LINER

SAFE RETURN TO CROYDON LONDON, May 9. Imperial Airways’ giant liner Horatius, flying across the Channel with 13 passengers, while at an altitude of 2,000 feet among the clouds over Tonbridge was struck by lightning. The pilot cautiously returned to Croydon, where the passengers were transferred to another liner and continued the voyage to Paris. The liner departed from Croydon in heavy rain and encountered a severe thunderstorm. Suddenly a purple flash ran up the trailing aerial, destroying the wireless and blowing out two windows in the pilot’s cockpit. Fragment of flying glass slightly split two of the lower propellers. The pilot, Captain Jones, had a narrow escape. The door communicating with the cockpit and cabin was blown open. The passengers, including four women, were reassured by the crew and remained perfectly calm. Trenchant Criticism Patients who fail to pay their hospital accounts, although, they have the moans, wore trenchantly criticised by Archbishop Julius in an address 1o the Friends of St. George at Christchurch. “I don’t suppose they are the poor patients,’’ ho said referring to the position of St. George’s Hospital. It is a low down thing, to do. I suspect that many of them are the well to-do people. That has been my experience. They want the best of everything, the best rooms and the best serv ; ee, and when they go out they say they will send the cheque to-morrow. You sing for it. It is a cruel thing. I will say no more. I would get hot if I did.” Carillon Music “What do you think of the carillon?” is tho Wellington equivalent at the moment of Sydney’s “What do you think of tho bridge?” It is a question that is variously answered, one reason being that the music from the bells is not exactly what was expected. The idea prevailed that there would bo beautifully balanced part music, playing in perfect tunc, with sonorous and dignified effect. But this is not what happens, as many among the enormous crowd realised on Anzac Day when the carilloneur played tho first air on the bells —the National Anthem. Near ut hand it sounded disjointed, unmelodious ami shrill, while some of the bells were obviously out of tune. This impression was not removed by tho performance of tho subsequent carillon pieces, “O God Our Help,” and “Land of Hope and Glory,” and though the recital in tho evening was good in places (like the curate’s egg) and it was far from being entirely harmoni ous to the perceptive and discriminating ear. The Scientist’s Burden On returning to Christchurch fop a brief spell in the city, Guide Alf Brustad, of the Hermitage, Mount Cook, spoke in eulogistic terms of Professor Arthur H. Compton, Professor of Physics at the University of Chicago, who was at Mount Cook recently for the

purpose of making experiments in connection with solar radiations. The professor, said Air Brustad, in addition to being an authority in tho scientific world, was an athlete of considerable ability. He had acquitted himself well on the difficult and treacherous mountain slopes 7000 ft above sea level. Air Brustad said tho load of scientific equipment which the professor and his colleagues used in making their observations was one of the heaviest burdens ever carried up the slopes of Alount Cook. With Guide Y’ic Williams he had led the party, several experienced climbers assisting in the task of packing four hundredweight of gear up from the Ball Hut. The packs, which averaged 501 b or more, were carried up and down in relays. So cheery and goodhumoured was the leader of the expedition that the whole party worked with a will. “Wo should all like to see Professor Compton back at the Hermitage some day soon,” said Air Brustad. “but without his heavy instruments. Once in. a lifetime is too often for a job like that!”