The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-01-29
| CANNING CLAIMS
 MARRIAGE RECORD Thirty-seven Ceremonies Cele- brated in 75 Minutes ON CHRISTMAS DAY Boy Explorer in MOngoIia-Nidow of Sailor Loses old Age Pension
 On Account of Marry
 ing Foreigner
CHRISTMAS DAY


 ing Foreigner
 London, January 21.-(Special.) )-The record for marriage belongs to the town Of Canning. Tn that quaint place there Is an increasing fascination about a Christmas wedding and the consequence, last Christmas was a greater rush than ever, 37 marriages being celebrated in 75 minutes, by the vicar of St. Luke's and his curate. Despite all the persuasion of the vicar, these 37 couples insisted upon being married on Christmas after calling of banns. Canon Buckley would have spread the weddings over several days, but Canning refused. and only one copule postponed the ceremony.
 Five brothers belonging to the Sheer ness family of Penney have lived to eel ebrate their golden weddings. Mr. and Mrs. R. D. Penny reached the anniversa- " last Wednesday and MT. Penuey is the last of the five brothers to attain this distinction. Excepting in the case of the eldest brother, who is 90 years of age and has celebrated his golden wedding, the wife of each brother is still alive.
 At the recent conference at Ayr the Scottish Miners Federation unanimously declared that workers cannot obtain the value of their labor and disputes be avoided until the means and instruments of all material production, distribution, and exchange are owned and controlled the amendment of the mines act so that miners should have the right to appoint by ballot local pit inspectors to be paid by the state.
 Members of the labor party say they have been given to understand ttet1 the salary which the gover''r'- ,. proposes to pay to all M. P.,,s is $500 year, and that the rrc, sal will be retrospective. so that 7 aries fall due at the opening of sAe new parliament. The government bill will, therefore, be introduced early in the session and passed rapidly through all it's stages.
 The first case under the miners eight hour act was heard at Newcastle, Staf- fordshire, recently, when Frank Hall, as sistant engineer, and Thomas Dobson, at the Silverdale collieries, pleaded guilty to abetting and conniv- ing with William Myott, pump-minder. and others in a violation of the act.
 The act provides that pump-minders should not be below ground over nine and one-half hours per day Some of those employed at Silverdale collieries, however, urged Hall to allow them to work double shifts, and 1t was alleged de- fendants connived at this. Dobson was fined POS and costs, and Hall los and costs.
 A boy explorer, IS years old, who is in Mongolia is one of the latest novelties. 1T wish I could be home for Christmas That is the only note of regret in an letter received a few days ago by the mother of Orlando Hobbs, a Swindon boy of 1e. who is in the heart of Mongolia experimenting excavations for his employer, Zuicho Tachibana, Jap anese explorer. Tacnibana is secretary to Count Otani, abbot of the Shinsu The two had already made an expedition into central Asia, and on set ing out for second they took Hobbs with them as assistant surveyor.
 An English woman 45 years ago mar ried a sailor in one of the seaport towns. The sailor deserted her and during all these 45 years since the assertion the woman has lived hard working life, but she cannot obtain her old age pension now because. having married a foreign er~she has lost her English nationality.
 twill you please give mother a nut to put a spider in, as babys got the whoop- ing cough?' This extraordinary request was made to a Tiverton shopkeeper re- gently by a little girl, whose mother be- lieves that if she imprisons live spider in nutshell and ties it round her infants neck the whooping cough will disappear when the spider dies.
 This Is one of the many amazing beliefs still prevalent among credulous people in the west of this island.
 There was a touching illustration of the truth of the old saying that music hath charms to soothe the savage breast" at Wormwood Scrubs jail. It was during an entertainment provided by the mem- bers of the Western District Choral socie- ty, which took the form of selections from Handel's Messiah" So deeply af- fected by the music were the prisoners that in many cases tears could be seen tricking down their cheeks. The in- mates filed into the church in an orderly manner. A proportion of them were com paratively young. There were a number of visitors and these, with the S16 pris- cners, brought the congregation to well over 1000 The prison chaplain announced form of shortened even song, which was commenced by the singing of the hymn, Praise the Lord; Ye Heavens Adore Him." Then followed a portion of the service for the day, the men chanting the responses in a sonorous bass
 The tragic death of Thomas Nesbit, who was found murdered in a railway car r.age. recalls the fact that the mystery surrounding the deaths of Miss Money, whose body was found in Nerstham tun- nel in September, 1905, and Miss Camp, who, in February 1S97,->was murdered while, travelling between Hounslow and waterloo, has never been solved
 Miss Camps body was found on arrival of the train at Waterloo. and all that could be established was that the mur- der had apparently been committed be- tween Putney and Wandsworth stations. But the assassin has not yet been brought to book, and although, in the case of Miss Money the verdict of the jury, after a prolonged inquest. was to the effect that her death was caused by a train, but that the evidence was not sufficient to show whether she had fallen or been thrown out of the carriage, the general opinion was that the latter was the case; and although the police made every eff fort to discover the murderer, he is still at large.
 They were more fortunate in the case of MT. Gold, a retired merchant, who in 1881, while travelling to Brighton in an express train, was murdered between Merstham and Balcombe tunnels The