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Timaru Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 2977, 14 June 1899, Page 4

A German actress named Lola Banzolla committed suicide on Sunday, 19th March, with melodramatic effect, whilst playing before a crowded audience at Cili, m Styria. She suddenly drew a revolver, and exclaiming, " 'Tis love which kills me!" shot herself m the breast. Indescribable emotion mastered the audience at this sensational interruption of the play, and numbers of them sprang on to the stage, from which the mor-tally-wounded actress was shortly afterwards conveyed to a hospital. A peculiar revenue prosecution is reported from a London police court. Mr Francis gave an important decision affecting a custom that has sprung up recently among tradesmen m Sonth London of presenting customers making ■purchases on Sunday with a glass of beer. Five Wandsworth tradesmen, four of them being butchers, and the fifth a " hosier, were summoned, at the instance of the Inland Revenue Commissioners, .for selling beer by retail without a license. Mr Simpson (who supported . the summonses for the Commissioners) described the cases as peculiar and important. The defendants were m the habit of giving beer to their Sunday customers, and the Inland Revenue contended that such a gift was, m fact and m law, a sale. Evidence was given by Excise officers to show that m every case, except that of a butcher named Martin, the defendants would not give the beer to customers unless the latter first made some purchase. Martin, however, made no such condition, but offered a glass of beer after the completion of a purchase. Mr Francis observed that the cases were clearly within the Licensing Act as " a transaction m the nature of a sale," and, therefore, illegal. He dismissed the summons againat Martin, but fined every other defendant 40s, and intimated that heavier penalties would be inflicted m future oflencea.