IRISH TIMES ODDITIES: A WEALTHY BEGGARThe Genoa police have arrested a 68-year-old beggar. He had plied his profession for the last 40 years, his favourite point of vantage being the quays, where large liners land their passengers, writes Allen Foster.
In his hovel was found a sum of 200,000 lire and the title deeds to a fine old palace in Genoa and a summer villa in the countryside, as well as bank books showing that the beggar had considerable sums to his credit in two different banks.
A fire which broke out in one of the converted huts at Springtown, Derry, is believed to have been caused by the heat of the sun on the zinc exterior. Before the outbreak was extinguished, about 20 square feet of the hut had been destroyed.
The rays of the sun, focused through a bottle that was lying on the ground, set fire to a hay rick in a barn belonging to John Mullane, Cornishill, Headfort, Killarney.
May 16th, 1950
BOY WALKED UNDER WATER TO SAFETY
A five-year-old boy Borge Tellnesset, from Oesterdalen, Norway, fell through ice on the Glomma River yesterday, but walked 100 yards under it and was rescued.
Leif Proen, a smallholder in the district, told the press, that the boy was walking across the river when he fell through the ice.
He started to walk on the bottom of the river and was partly carried by the slow-moving current.
People going to his rescue tried in vain to cut a hole through the ice. They finally succeeded in directing him to a hole, where he was picked up.
February 28th, 1950
Hugh Robinson (29), got a 110,000-volt shock yesterday when a ladder he was carrying touched an overhead cable at the new Londonderry power station.
His rubber gumboots melted on his legs, and his employers said later that Robinson, a labourer of Enagh Lough, Londonderry, would have been killed instantly if it had not been for the wooden ladder and his gumboots. Last night, Robinson, a single man, was reported at hospital to be "ill."
January 30th, 1962