WORLD’S HAPPENINGS.

Waikato Times, Volume 103, Issue 17385, 23 April 1928, Page 14

WORLD’S HAPPENINGS.

INTERESTING ITEMS. POLICEMAN IN WHITE. As an experiment the policeman on point duty at the junction of Cannon Street and Queen Victoria Street, London, one day recently, was clad in a long white macintosh and was wearing white gloves, so that his signals could plainly be seen from a distance. It has not yet been decided whether all point duty police in the City shall wear this new uniform. One argument for its more general use is that other officers in the vicinity are enabled more clearly to see the man in control than when he is clad in the blue. CAREFUL DRIVERS’ BONUS. A big insurance company in England has decided to reward careful motorists by their increased insurance rates on small cars. They are increasing their premiums by £2 5s per car on 8- and 9-h.p. vehicles which are garaged within a 10-miles radius of towns with a population of 250,000, but the increase will not apply to clients who live in those cities if they have not made a claim within the previous year. BURIED OR STUFFED. Mr J. C. Loveday, for 60 years a master at Taunton School, presiding at Iho old boys’ dinner, claimed to be the only schoolmaster who had heard arrangements made regarding his death. “I was sitting in the library,” he said, “and some boys were sitting outside. One of them said: ‘1 wonder what will happen when he dies?’ “Another boy said: ‘I should think we would get a half-holiday for the funeral; but a third boy said: ‘There will not be a funeral.’ ‘What will they do, then? asked a fourth. ‘Oh, they will have him stuffed.’” (Laughter).’ LIFE OFFERED FOR SALE. For Sale. —A healthy man offers himself to any recognised research laboratory for experimental operations. The New York Times prints the above advertisement from a perfectly healthy man, who wants to sell himself for vivisection purposes. • lie is willing to place his life in the hands of some recognised research laboratory, for any purpose they see lit, he says, if they will pay him a regular weekly wage of £lO for the rest of his life. “If they kill me, they will not have to pay any more,” he states in his announcement. ATE 32 EGGS IN TEN MINUTES. In an egg-eating contest at Colorado Springs, Colonel J. M. Tribble, 41 years old, left ail contestants far behind when he crammed 32 hardboiled eggs down his gullet in ten minutes. Marshall was second, having stowed away 21 eggs, and Rudolph Stark finished third, with 18 under his belt. QUEEN’S PORTRAIT GIFT. A signed portrait of the Queen in Court dress is now the proud possession of Queen’s College, Harley Street, London. c It was presented by the Queen when, accompanied by Lady Ampthill, she paid a surprise visit to the college. The Queen was interested greatly in the domestic science department, and especially in the cooking and needle work. While having tea in the library a bunch of pink roses was presented to her by the youngest member —Miss Stephanie Pyacke, aged 11. A "MONSTROUS CHARGE.” Without calling on the defence, a jury at the Old Bailee, London, I'.umd Julius Kennard, aged 28, a civil engineer, of Cricklewood, not guilty of assaulting Miss Irene Harvey, a shorthand typist, aged 17, of Hornsey, m an omnibus. The defence was that he merely touched the girl by accident. judge Atherley Jones, K.C., discharging Kennard, said without imputation upon the girl it was really monstrous that such a charge should be brought, based on such slender material. “AH of us,” he added, “would be in terrible danger if we were to be subjected to charges of this kind. 1 hope it will not piejudice his position that he has been in the dock.” Members of the Jury: Hear, hear. Sir Henry Curtis Bennett, K.C., defending said Kennard has been for nine rears in one employment, and taught in an L.C.C. evening school. CROSS-TALK SERMONS. Pulpit dialogues were held during Lent at St- Aldan's Church, Mansfield, Nottinghamshire. The appointed preacher outlined his subject, and then another person from a second pulpit interrupted and asked questions. The first preacher replied, ami the “sermon” proceeds iu the form of a dialogue. The first subject taken was Ine future life and the doctrine of Purgaorv The preacher was the Rev. 11. W. Quarrell, and Mr E. G. Phillips, a grafnmar-school master, was the qU Mr l 'Quarrell said to a reporter that this method removes the reproach that the pulpit is the cowards castle, the attention of the congregation is maintained and people have found this novel discussion instructive. FERTILITY-CONTROL VITAMIN. Dr. S. G. Willimott, at the Ralston Literary' Institute, London, said that a new' vitamin, known as Vitamin “H,” had been discovered by a Californian professor which controlled fertility in animals. Dogs deprived of it were not reproductive, and it bail been definitely established that it was able to control the, reproductive capacity of the female. It was found in certain oils and in lettuce. H did not follow that this vitamin would affect human beings, but there was the possibility.

SLEEP-WALKER SHOT. The wife of an American dairy farmer was found shot dead by the road-side clad only in a nightdress, with a suit of boy’s clothes clasped in her arms. The police think that the woman, v/ho was known, to be a sleep-walker, was driven by her subconscious mind to go 4o her little boy, who was spending the night at the home of a relative. They believe that as she was walking along the road a passing motorist was startled by her white-clad figure and, in a superstitious terror, drew a revolver and fired at her in the belief that she was a ghost. BIGGEST METAL ’PLANE. A successful trial flight was made recently at the experimental station of the British Air Ministry at Martlesham Heath, Suffolk, by the largest all-metal monoplane built in England. This machine is the Beardmore “Indexible.” Driven by three RollsRoyce engines developing a total of 2100-h.p., the machine weighs, when full loaded, not far short of 20 tons. The diameter of its pneumatic-tyred landing wheels is Bft 6in. RAKE’S PROGRESS. “A Rake’s Progress” was the description applied by Alderman Blanchard at Sheffield City Council to the Socialist expenditure. The second budget of the Socialist majority gave estimated capital expenditure for the ensuing year at £2,786,7G3. Of this £997,062 is to be spent on new schemes, including £14,500 on baths and municipal wash-houses. Alderman \V. F. Ward ley (Independent Labour) declared: Some of us are going absolutely mad on expenditure. We go to conferences galore. Distance and expense and the numbers that go mean nothing. Some of us must have a summer outing at somebody’s expense. The estimates were passed. DYING MAN IN CINEMA. When the lights were turned up at the close of a performance at the New Royalty Cinema, Brixton Hill, London, a man was found sitting in a huddled position unconscious. A member of the audience drew an attendant’s attention to the man, and a doctor xvas called. He w r as then found to be dead. The man was later identified as Mr Alexander Parlour, of Stockwcll. FAINTED AT WHEEL. Mrs Alice Mahoney, of Alderbrook Road, Balham, fainted while driving her motor car in Norbury, England. The car continued out of control for some distance and crashed into a tramway standard. Mrs Mahoney was taken to Croydon Hospital, with a fractured forearm, cuts to the face, and internal injuries.