GENERAL NEWS.

Western Star, 18 December 1928, Page 3

GENERAL NEWS.

AMERICAS: PEACE CASUALTIES

American citizens are killed by accidents at home in peace time twice as fast as they were killed W, the war time. In' the past year 95,0000 were killed and ten millions injured by accidents. Among the accidents 23.000 deaths and three million injuries occurred during' employment in industries and the motor-car was responsible for a l&rge proportion of the remainder. School children killed numbered twenty thousand. MIXTURE OF OLD AND NEW The great bell of Rouen Cathedral whose history goes back eight centuries, is now to be ruling by electricity, a strange mixture of old and new. The hand apparatus which the new electrical installation supersedes was set up five centuries and a-half ago a creaking contrivance of wheels and ropes. A man had to climb five flights of stairs to ring it for fifteen minutes every night with straining muscles and bent back. Now it is rung by; touching a switch. PRESERVING THE PAST 'I was reading the other day of a wanderer in Kent who seemed surprised at finding over 50 pillar-boxes with the letters V.R. still attached to them, although Queen Victoria had been dead nearly 50 years, says- a writer in a London paper. 1 fancy that such is .general throughout the country. Th© Queen reigned so long, and so many were put up that the task of putting on a new cyphe r when King Edward ascended the Throne was too big. Even in West London there is, still a large number of boxes lablelled V.R.

A FAMOUS LIFEBOAT. The favourite lifeboat Storm King' has been sold for five kroner, about five shillings,. Thirty years ago she was the most famous lifeboat . in the world. She was a new type built by a Norwegian skipper, who with only one comrade sailed her from London to Australia in 188 g. The Storm King’s voyage proved that the new type of craft was safe in the roughest seas, yet_ the merchant navies of the world did not ask the Norwegian to build them more Storm Kings. The boat was too heavy, and so in spite of his heroic voyage the poor man’s venture was in vain.

THE CHILDREN’S MITE At a Sussex village recently the Harvest Thanksgiving Service was being held, and the children of the Sunday school were asked to take gifts of flowers, vegetables and fruit which later would go to the hospital where the children of the village are taken to when they are ill. In the class of smallest children were four-year-old girl twins, and. in a basket of fruit came their gift to the hospital in the form of a large red savings-box The little folks had insisted that was whait they wanted to give. When it was . opened it was found to contain their lives’ saving:, of 414 farthings—Bs 7sd. They had cast in; a;U the mites they had.

‘ALFRED THE KING. A party of Boy Scout* has recently been making a tour of places associated with King Alfred. Among l the places visited was Winchester, which iwas the scene of much of King Alfred’s, life—the place wheife he settled and where he died and lies buried.

The scouts were, received at Winchester by the director of education for the city. During their visit the boys had laid a laurel wreath/!,1 tied with black and white ribbons, at the foot of the statue of King Alfred which was erected in 1.901, on the thousandth anniversary of the. King’s death. The wreath bore the inscription .'Alfred tlie. King from the latest of his followers.’

POOR BOYS AT ETON. "■ It is, an outstanding grievance that many of the schools endowed in bygone days for the education of the poor have been diverted to the education of the well-to-do. Of Eton at any rate, this cannot be said, for Dr Alington, the headmaster, states that all the, money bequeathed for scholarships at Eton goes to poor scholars and none of the rich boys have any share in it. Arrangements have been made by which the poorest boy can go into Eton free of all fees, whdther for. teaching or for board. Even the case of the boys who cannot afford to pay for clothes and books is met. Of course it costs vastly, more to 'keep a boy at Eton to-day than it did when. the scholarships w.ere first bequeathed-

CHIEF SCOUT AND HIS DOGThe Chief Scout, Sir Robert Baden-Powcll, being a great lover, of animals, especially, dogs of a sporting! nature was delighted in >a recent gift which he received. After attending a great rally of scouts from the five counties of Shropshire, Herefordshire, Worcestershire, Gloucestershire and Monmouthshire, he received in . commemoration of the evenit a beautiful Labrador puppy which be has christened ‘Shawgun,’ taking the initials of the counties participating in the gift with an A added for euphony. Labrador retrievers are , on e .of the most popular breeds of sporting" dogs ijri Britain at present. Of many well-known kennels, of breed of dogs Perhaps the King’s is the bestknown. .