WORLD’S HAPPENINGS.

Waikato Times, Volume 97, Issue 15271, 22 June 1923, Page 2

WORLD’S HAPPENINGS.

’ LIGHTNING STRIKES KNIFE. While a woman named Allison was cutting up meat at a butcher’s stall in Grimsby market during a thunderstorm, lightning struck the long knife she was using. The woman received a shock and was blinded for 15 minutes. GO THOROUGHBREDS BURNED. Sixty stallions and brood mares, valued at £250,000, were burned to death at New Jersey, U.S.A., in a fire which destroyed two stables at a Rancocas stock farm owned by Mr Harry Sinclair. Incbcape, a noted racer and prize stallion, was one of the horses which perished.

CUNARD £394,587 PROFIT.

The Gunard Steamship Company’s annual report shows —after providing for depreciation of ships and plant, income tax, corporation profit tax, debenture interest, and a proportion of •discount on debenture stock —a profit Of £394,587, to which- has to be added £199,890 brought in, making a tptal of £594,477. AIR MAUL TO PERSIA. The first aeroplane seen in Teheran since the withdrawal of the British forces- in 1921 arrived recently from Moscow, by permission of the Persian Government. The object of the journey is to test the possibility 'of establishing an air mail between -Russia and Persia.

£2O INCREASES TO £233 16s.

A depositsOf £lO was lodged in the London Post Office Savings Bank in 1824, the customer adding another £lO in 1851. Recently the only surviving member of his family produced the deposit book, and drew £233 16s, including the accumulated interest.

CONCERT BY CONVICT 562. “I am a living proof that a man can come out of the cage and lead a straight life,” said an ex-convict composer and tenor singer who under tWS designation of “ Number 562 ” gave a succescful song recital at Newport, Isle of Wight.

, £SOO TERRIER.

A fox-terrier which is stated to be the most thoroughbred specimen in the world lias been sold at Turin Dog Show for £550. The dog belonged to Signor Bugatti, head of the motor car firm. This is not an unusual price for a fox-terrier. A few years ago £750 was paid to a Mr Turner, of Blackburn, for a dog of this breed. Allowance should, however, be made for the depreciated exchange value of the lira in the present instance.

TRAP FOR THIEVES. The stpry of a detective-sergeant’s ingenuity was told at Marlborough Street Police Court, London, when Charles Lanyon, 2G, of no occupation, was charged with stealing £6 from a drawer in a writing table at the Dean Hotel, Oxford Street, W*. ( Detective-Sergeant R. Hawkins said that last February £43 was missed. He had a trap set, and Lanyon was caught taking the £6 at 3.30 a.m. The trap consisted of a silk thread attached to the drawer in such a way that when the drawer was opened a bell rang in the porter’s room. Lanyon was remanded, and Mr d’Eyncourt, the magistrate, commended Sergeant Hawkins for his work. SILENT DEATH. 'Hie trial by a military court of 15 Egyptians charged with conspiracy to murder a number of Englishmen was resumed at Cairo. One of the accused admitted that he invented a catapult ,to hurl a steel arrow with a poisoned tip, to be used at night, whicb eliminated the risk of detection by the sound of shots. The prosecutor related a gruesome story of the servant of a prominent Englishman who warned his master of his danger. The gang entertained the servant to a meal, and invited him to walk in the Mokatlam hills with them. There they brained him with a crowbar. A witness to-day deposed that two of the gang in 1919 told him that they were employed by the Zaglulist (extreme Nationalist) Executive to organise demonstrations. £40,000 TAX CASE. At Chipping Gampden, Gloucestershire, a number of charges of defrauding the Inland Revenue were brought against Charles Butler, a timber merchant, of Draycott, Blockley, Worcester. Mr F. N. D. Preston, for the prosecution, said the charges were of delivering faked accounts and false returns. The total proilLs shown by accounts from 1915 to 1920 were £3394 but revised accounts showed the profits to be more than £16,000. The Inspector of Taxes was not satisfied, and after further investigation Butler disclosed a banking account into which enormous sums had been paid. Butler’s accounts in reference to his income were hopelessly inaccurate. He paid no excess profits duty and no super-tax, and the total unpaid taxes amounted to £40,248. It was only fair to say, added .Mr Preston, that since these proceedings were begun, Butler had sent a cheque for that amount. The case was adjourned. GUINNESS BONUS SURPRISE. The directors of Messrs Arthur Guinness, Son, and Co., Ltd., the brewers, made a surprise announcement recently. They propose to increase the capital of the company by the creation of 2,500,0.00 new ordinary shares of £1 each, and to transfer £2,500,000 from reserve to ordinary capital account, issuing to the ordinary stockholders whose names appear on the register of the company on May 28, 1923, new fully paid-up ordinary shares, to be subsequently converted into ordinary stock, for an ainounl representing one-half of their holdings, thus increasing ihe ordinary paid up capital of the company from £5,000,000 to £7,500,000. The new capital will rank for dividend and bonus (excepting Ihe interim dividend already paid) ralcabiy with the present slock in respect of tile current year ending .Tune 30. I 'l’he stock closed at 468-70. Notices summoning the necessary meetings to give effect to the above arrangements will shortly be issued ■to the stockholders.

£250,000 STATION. The Great Western Railway has decided to rebuild, at a cost of £21)0,000, Newton Abbot Station, Devonshire, which is regarded as the key to the west country. Oswestry Station, which has recently passed from the Control of the Cambrian Railways, is to be improved at a cost of £61,000. New stopping places are to be built in selected beauty spots to give holiday makers a better opportunity of exploring the scenery. “BREACH” AT 67. At, Middlesex Sheriff’s Court Mrs Ann Reynolds, 61, a widow, sued Alfred Parslow, 67, a widower, for damages for breach of promise. Both live at Warrington, near Tring, Hertfordshire. Parslow had allowed judgment to go against him by default, and it was only a question of damages. Mrs Reynolds said she earned her living by taking in washing, and received 4s a week relief. Parslow was a farm labourer earning 30s a week, and he bad spoken to her about having “a little fortune.” He gave her £2 to go td London to get the marriage license and asked her to provide the wedding breakfast and he would pay. She did so, and spent £4 on clothing, but the wedding never took place. The jury, on which there were three women, assessed the damages at £2O.

PRINCESS’S HUSBAND AS ABLE SEAMAN. Mr William S. Leeds, husband of Princess Xenia, daughter of the Grand Duke George Mikrailovich, is working his way as able seaman on board the Ellerman cargo steamer Marengo (6302 tons), which left Hoboken, New Jersey, for Hull. It is stated that he embarked as the result of a bet of £2OOO. His wife and valet, who went ahead of him, are said by Mrs Henderson, Green Leeds, his aunt, to have arranged to meet him at Hull. Mr Leeds is the son of Princess Anastasia of Greece, the widow of Mr B. -Leeds, who married Prince Christopher of Greece at Vevey in Switzerland in 1920. Mr William S. Leeds is now 21. He married Princess Xenia in Paris in October, 1921. His father was an American metal millionaire.

40-KNOT MOTOR-BOAT.

The Monaco motor-boat meeting was brought to a close in splendid weather. Owing apparently to some misunderstanding of instructions, only three boats were timed in the nautical mile and kilometre straight line speed trials. The Excelsior-Breguet, owned by Mr T. A. Clarke,, did the mile in lmin 28 4-ssec, equal to a speed of 404 knots. The Czecho-Slovakian competitor, Vienna 1., did the mile in lmin 34 3-ssec. The world’s record for its class will be officially claimed from the International Motor Yauchting Union for the speed over a mile made by the Italian 14 metre racer Baglietto 1., which covered the mile in lmin 524 sec, equal to a speed of 32.1 knots. This is the highest speed ever attained by a skimmer only 16ft long, and with only a small engine.

4000-YEARS-OLD CITY. At the foot of Mount Colima, in Mexico, remain's have been discovered of a city which James Philomon, a Scots engineer, believes to be more than' 4000' years old. Mr Philomon has just returned to Mexico City with the news of his discovery. The Government is so impressed with his report that it has decided to send an expedition of scientists to the site. It hopes to find important and instructive ruins there. Mr Philomon, it is stated, was searching for natural cement at the base of Mount Colima when his attention was attracted by traces of an ancient buried city. Piercing the uppermost layers of numerous strata of lava was the apex of a pyramid which bore evidence of having been ■ buried by successive eruptions of molten lava in the course of 4000 years. Fifty feet below the top of the stratum the engineer found evidences of -a later civilisation, while near the edge of the lava bed Was a long cave containing strange utensils, a few precious stones, stone idols, and wonderfully carved, wooden images'. ' The walls of the cave were decorated with numerous hieroglyphics. Mount Colima is an active volcano 12,765 feet high. BROADCAST TO A MOTHER. Mr Frank Carr, the patient at the Middlesex Hospital, London, to whose bedside his mother was called by a wireless appeal, broadcast from the London station of the British Broadcasting Company, died at the hospital tlie following morning. His mother was present when he died.

Mrs Carr lives at Thimmings, Witwick, Ampthill, Bedfordshire, and the story of the summons to her dying son’s bedside was told in the papers. As the telephone was not available, and Flitwick unreachable by train, while there is no Sunday telegraph service, the hospital authorities had recourse to wireless, and a message ; was broadcast. As a result about 30 cars were offered for the conveyance of Mrs Carr to London. Meanwhile a Bedford “listencr-ih" took her to Luton, where she caught a late train for London. There Mrs Carr was met by a reporter, who escorted her to the hospital.

LUXURIOUS SWINDLER. Carl Schindler an enterprising "man of 27, has just lmd a delightful month in Berlin which has cost a number of business firms 350,000,000 marks (about £2300). Schindler posed as agent of an important Breslau firm, took a suite of offices, engaged clerks and typists, and managed to get a large quantity of goods which he paid for with postdated cheques or bills of exchange. The goods were sold or pawned and on the proceeds the young man lived in a luxurious UoLel, hired a motor car, and with a woman companion went to fashionable restaurants. He has disappeared, and business firms who unwittingly financed his holiday are anxious to discover his whereabouts.