1958-07-26 — Page 3

THE CHINA MAIL,

SATURDAY, JULY 26, 1958,

Interesting

Stories

World

Paga

ITALIAN TOWN OF RAGS Going gay at

Kings Of Old Pants And Dirty Shirts

AL

Prato.

LMOST every inhabitant of this town of 60,000 deals in rags, Prato, located 15 miles north- west of Florence, is an industrial town using its 190 industrial plants 120,000 tons of rags every year. In fact, "City of Rags" is what the Italians call Prato.

Prato in doing very well in its industry, specialised in the treatment of rats which arrive here from almost all parla uf the world.

Smell And Dust

has "King" of old dirty shirts.

pants and

The Pratesi started dealing in rags as early as the 12th century but it was another kind of work, then, They just used to buy and sell them, a sort of simple trade. But then much, much later the British started sending to Prato secondary cloth to be treated the Prato way and then reshipped to| The raw

includes Britain material

to be sold on cheap anything from old suits to old

markets. nightgowns, "Cardinal's robes, Bags, uniforms or hats, Thiz terrine made of old stuff is sorted out and then after receiving the specia] Prato treatment, becomes English wool" and is destined 10 Hood

the domestic and the cheap international markets.

Immediately the Pratesi got a new idea. Why should not they collect anything old, give it the Prate treatment-which Inciden- tally is a secret--and then sell. the stuff at home and abroad? The First World War helped

Old rogs Dre everywhere them in carrying out their idea. Proto and the air in filed with Between 1915 and 1910 Pratu's

the smell and the dust of them.rag industry supplied the Italian Business is booming and Prato Army with 8,000,000 blankels

MAYORESS'S

GOLD CHAIN WENT TO A WEDDING

And What An

and 7,000,000 metres of green groy cloth for the uniforms then worn by the Italian soldiers.

Soft Wool

At the end of the war, worn or

A

No Hands !

FRANKFURTER eating contest took place recently in a restaurant in Old Compton Street -In connection with the opening of the Soho Fair.

All contestants had to have beards and the object of the competition was to see how many frankfurter sausages the competitors could eat without using their hands,

Two of the competitors plotured during the contest. Peter Heyman, of Ghana (left) and Peter Golf, a chemistrý student of London, who won the com- petition. Keystone, -

By Gum, There Is

Trouble At G.U.M.

Moscow.

surplus uniforms returned agaiBY gum, there's a scandal at Gum! Moscow buzzes. Rac-

to Prato to be transformed into soft "wool."

keteers in Russia's most famous shop, which stands in Red Square opposite the Kremlin, have been buying them. the Protest again supplied the selves cars out of money fiddled from the customers.

During the Second World War,

cloth for the Army. And again after the war all the surplus left by the Italian, German and Ailled armles flooded Prato. Some of the uniforms carried the holes of the bullets or were smented with blood, But the Since the end of the Second World War praetenlly all the Pratesi went io work on rogs.

Uproar It Caused! Peatest did not curn.

PROUDLY,

London. Bermondsey Mayor W.H: Wardell ushered a group of visiting students to his office.

"Here," he sald opening block, velvet-liged box, "s" my chain of office."

Apparently they are doing all right,

have as many of them

Prato now imports rage from abroad. even from the United States.

become "kings of rags,

The Pratesi say that the old stus which arrives, from the

Admiringly, the studenta look-Anglo-Saxon enunteles is still in ed at the gold chain,

good shape and mach better The Mayor picked up a simi-than that which arrives from 1nr box.

the Lalin countries. Further-

in more, they say that

old clothes coming from rich coun- "My wife's chain is in this tries it is possible to find money one." he said,

IT WASN'T

It wasn't. The golden chair worth £40 was gone.

That started a chain reaction of sleuthing. The Secretary was called. She sent for the Mace- bearer, The Mace-bearer was on vacation, Bermondsey's pawn- shops were checked. The in- vestigations drew a blank.

:

I'M SORRY

Then an unidentified coundl employee arrived with the

chain.

"I'm sorry" he said diffident- fy, "I lent it to a relative to go to a wedding.",

The Council's general poses commlitee

and valuables. One of the Prato rug dealers said that in an over- from the coat which arrived United States he found U.S.$400 and In a pocket of a woman's dress. he found a ring 250,000 lire (HK$2,400).

Smuggling

worth

ران

LAYS OWN TOMBSTONE

Cremona. Grave-digger Luigi Bonvini, 66, laid his own tombstone lust week.

Bonvini was lifting a heavy tombstone on a

when scaffolding

he lost his balance and fell from

a height of 10

fect.

The tombstone fell after him. crushing him to death.-U.P.I.

The Man In

The Red

Velvet Suit!

Eastwood.

The whole sud conspiracy has tion and the Research Institute been unveiled by an asaíduous of Trade and Puble Catering. inventor and former employee Excellent references followed. of the shop by the name of The Committée on Inventions Vassily Kruglov.

declared Kruglov the inventor.

"So now," says Izvestie, "do The racket was gloriously away with bookkeepers using simple, Says the newspaper the abacus. Put Kruglov Izvesti, reporting the scandal: machines "Gloomy, third-quality stuffstores.

arrives at the store's warehouse. "Warchouse racketeers, see- Ing no strangers around, the stuff first quality and

in all department You will save millions In economies,”

MAN WHO

KILLED DOG WITH MALLET IS FINED

London. THE death of a collie dog brought 47-year- old George Simpson into court last week. Because it died from multiple in- juries and in "ex- cruciating agony."

It was beaten over the head with mallet, its skull was fractured and it was half strangled. the magistrates' at Chatham were told.

Prosecuting for the ISPCA. Mr John Williams said that a woman living in a house over- looking Simpson's homo Mountbatten Avenue, Chatham, saw him gripping the dog be tween his knees, holding is collar with one hand and kitting It on the head with a mallet.☛

In agony

There were four or five heavy blows, and they made the woman feel infat, sale Mr Williams.

A man living near heard what | he described as the sound of z dog in agony and saw Simpson dragging the Ump body of the dog into a garden shed.

Simpson admitted to the police that he had killed the dog. He said he had tried to quieten It first na' it had almost gone mad, then gave it a "rabbit punch" but hart nothing in his hand.

After 物 -post mortem examination he told

a police officer who pointed out that of savage there was evidence brutality that he had hii the dog two or three times with a pleca of wood.

No time

"I did not hit the dog in But so far only the workers temper," he said, "was-only label { of

the

thinking of the children." Consumers Pushkin

A veterinary pues Co-op are using the muching-

surgeon, Mr Lewis, sald that it on to the sales people. The this "blow against

the knights Derek George difference

from the of regrading." resulting

for whatever time the dog fe mained conscious It must have regarding is pocketed by the račketeers according

bren in excruciating ogony.

Simpson position and merit."

was fined £30, with' £15 17a, costs, with the alternative of six weeks' ruči if the fine 'was not paid 'st opce, He said he could not PAY and was taken from the cour) by the gaoler.

to

New Machine

their

Izvestia,

Back in 1854, Vassily Kruglov invented a now "bill machine" stop the racket and repair the holes in the net. This machine, says

the two-legged "pounced on

warchosse rats as effectively ar arat-trap whenever they, put their hands in the customers" pockets,

Bad Luck

Came With

The Drum

GORDON HOLMAN

London,

"The bookkeepers approved. UTINY almost

İM

It made their work casler, But, threatened in « British

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He was banned from keeping Neede financial support for the

a dog for five years and told by Aho chekman Mr F. C. Lawrence, "I trust that by the end of that time you will have a little feeling for animals,"

at this point, Kruglov's boss in cruiser because of an ya» The Man With

Gum's machine-calculating sta-

camo

Was

A roplica of tion and a deputy chief book-lucky drum. keeper

and Droke's famous drum forward claimed the invention was prosented to the pro-war Devonshire. For from bring- theirs also.

wrolę

was now aplit

The Royal Elastic Eye!

But the Pratesi went too far. WHEN Som Shaw, a 20-

Weet-old labourer, walks the prite

The prize that Kruglov had ing good fortune, it became At a certain moment some of them thought they could import down the street people turn threeware This pair then such an omon of bad luck also other things in the bales to stare.

magazine article that oventually containing rags. Valuable

refused to But it isn't because Sam him- describing the Krugloy machine Marines jects, foreign currency, and some seit looks different than anybody and not even mentioning him, hands on it.

even narcotics, were else; It's simply what he wears. pur- say

"Kruglov, andlamayed, pro- Triple D50, Captain Eric recommended smuggled in the bales on rags,

Sum is probably the only man tested 10 the Inventors'. Bush, who was commander in that the employee “be retired on

Gum they the ship, tells the story of the Police, however, got wind of alive who owns and wears Burdau. Back at pension."--UPt.

the clandestine imports and 10- red velvet suit,

managed to arrange testa which fear aroused by the drum, in his day whenever 4

Sum, who works as a £10 a discredited the machine, and in book, Bless Our, Ship (George shipment arrives at the Prato station, a week labourer, saved about £60 no time at all Kruglov found Allen and Unwin, Ltd., 215.),

Then he himself dismissed in the course published last weeks, polleeman inspect the bales to to buy a motor-cycle.

of staff reductions. only it on the idea of the suit, make sure they contain

It cost him £40. Bal be 15...

Agures it was worth it.

New Order "Since I have got this suit the

The 'Honest"

Pick-Pocket

In A Bus

Milan.

ntation.

colour. noticed."

London.

ал-

sake of poor children

Please address communica tions:-Secretary, Hongkong Society for the Protection of Children. P.O. Box 250B

Hongkong.

DOCTORS Watched old Please send us your unwanted Loys.

Henry Kingsland took out his handkerchief and cautiously blow his nose. Three months after the drum

He miled broadly. “It's a bit was taken on board Devonshiro painful but no so bad," Kings- there was a gun accident inland told doctors. which 10 Royal Marines were Now for dieaven's sake, don't killed.

الے

Emailly worned

of the doctors BALLOONED

** Smörgling has ended, but the rags Industry is flourishing ever girls have gone for me in a big "The director of Gum, Com- moro. Between 70 and 120 way," he said. "But I didn't buy rade Kamenev, and the traco Quick Action treight cars, according to sen- those gatmemis to impress the union compililee of the shop Later. Tyrkish soldiery Arad sons, arrive daily at the Prato opposite sex. I really like this were aurprisingly calm in ac-on whale from the ship, The whole thing ninated when It makes me sort of cepting his exile," says Izvestia. killing an officer and wound-Kinland fell off his bike and

"Soon the Inventor and sing two more,

bumped his nose, He blow it The important feature of this As he walked away from his machine were forgotten. In

was diler a man had tedand his left eye ballooned N "honest" pick-pocket kind of business lo that the sup-house neighbours drew their Gum."

tallen from aloft that quick out like a tennis ball." A handed back Paket he be

But Kruglov was resoluto and ply of raw material never ends, blinds.

Doctors found he had cracked "They'll got used to it," he persistent. He had his machine action had to be taken by the

Devonshire's captalis. here when he recognised his Ing worn out-UPI.

muttered-UPL

listed by the magazine Inven-

........................

victim as the lawyer who obtained an acquittal for

him 'two months ago.

Lawyer Adamo Degli Occhio, found his wallet missing when he stopped out of a Mdon boa. But less then one minule later: somebody tapped hâm gently on his back.

CONJUROR'S RAT CREATES UPROAR

London, WHITE rat owned by the A conjuror June Mariin ea. Apologise, sir, for not

Raymond caped from the having recognised you," "the Revie Car in Drower "Btreet pick-pocket told the well-known and hold up West End tramo attorney, "but that bus wasˇJusti

too overcrowded. This is your} Tha rat suspeď from his onge

wallet. I cannot rob the lawyer who won my ocqultial two

months ago.

In the dressing room, déchog.

out dy a vida'akit and out into The growląd atrast.

Women screamed, ́an Ahp") rati

souttled among street barrows and then took refuge on a window 'all!.

Jem Marin and showgirls from the theatro want In pursuit

but could not catch jk Barrow | boys throw nbørsten up to the Fatau traffic camo;to a stand" atijl. Extra police' were sum-

a

tiny bone at the top of the Told that We whole ship's one, which was blocking the company was talking about the nostril and deflecting air into unlucky drum, he said: "We'll his eye. He was warned not to blow bila nose and not to sneeze, and it at onco.

The test plowed be could But the Marines who were paruled to do the job refused blow his nose, gently. But B | ki_touch"^If

will. be' another two weeka bei Sald que: "You can send me foro Kingsland can anocre safe- moned and the payṣmant to detention If you like, dr. ly-UPL became crowded with aight-but I'm a married than with e

family and I am not touching

i

Plantyne.

Mize Merlin produces, the rat that drum-not for a pension." Among the anons of equipos.

during her performanós: after Finally two Volunteers, were whiteline" arrived at the now alah made a number of found.

was £750,000 Queen Elsabeth Hos drun While mlos Vivantah24903 propped in ground-sheet and i pital; st: Blandyry. Wymoniously is Whán khi hát: 'wan pventually: hurriedly, Jakes pahore,

*nahiny naw: bicycle, she got down from the windaw. Blij 22 will exists us ship's matron, Miss A NiWalion, will it was Idund to haya dleden trophy and a new, Devonshire. und if on her pussie pype: 300 China Mall. Specie),"

being built for the Navý,

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