CONTINENTAL CRIMES AND SENSATIONS.

Auckland Star, Volume XL, Issue 253, 23 October 1909, Page 15

CONTINENTAL CRIMES AND SENSATIONS.

WOMAN'S REMARKABLE CAEBEB. The Naples police have Just arrested a woman 'Whose life is an extraordinary romance. Maria Magllesco is a music hall singer by profession. She was born at Algiers, her father being a wealthy shipowner, and her mother an Arab woman. After a vagabond existence she disguised herself in masculine attire, and became a banderilla in Spanish bull fights, throwing darts at the bulls. One day she was" badly injured, and had to seek other means of livelihood. She became a lion-tamer, but was terribly mauled. While at Nice, where she 'Was singing at a music hall, she bought for a few shillings a picture which turned out to be a Giotto. She sold it for £8000, and doubled that amount at roulette. Later she lost every penny hy gambling, and she has now been arrested for attempting to pawn jewels which did not belong to her. A PRISON CELL TELEPHONE. While some prisouers in Helsingfors gaol were engaged in executing work on the prison roof, one of them, a professional electrician, noticed that telephone wires passed close by the windows of his cell. Obtaining—nobody knows how —a telephone apparatus, he managed -to make a junction ■with the wires, and obtained a local telephone directory. He commenced calling up on the telephone all his friends and acquaintances. When these chats at Inst tired hi:n, he began to "call" the entire prison administration, up to the Governor. The telephone worked for about a fortnight, but was. finally, accidentally discovered by a a warder, and removed. MAULED BY A LION. Sketching a lion's likeness is a dangerous job even when he is behind an iron grating. A student who is soing up for the Ecole ties Beaux Ails, iv.ris, nnd wnnts to bo au animal painter, was in the Zoo the nther morning, where he hiis permission to draw the beasts. He sits between the railing which keeps off the public and the cages. While he was absorbed In sketching a sleeping lion, the latter, "apparently annoyed because I was rooking

one foot which I had crossed over my knee." the student says, suddenly woke up. put a paw out, and dre-w the offending foot through the bars up to the- knee, and while the lion held It with one paw hp stroked It with the t.ther. Unfortunately, lie put his claws out, and the caress wns pninful. For some seconds the art student was in an unenviable position. The lion had got his leg as in a vice, and at any moment lie might take it in t,, his head to put it in his mouth. At last visitors, by combine,i efforts, pulled the student out of the animal's clutches. He Is now In bed. his leg being badly torn. To show bow the lion scratched, the student's mother keeps her son's hoot to produce to visitors. It was a stout boot, but the linn, with a few dips of his claws, hns reduced It to a few strips of jugged leather.

MATRIMONIAL DRAMA. Too old at 50, runs the motive attributed to her hiisbnnil liy an unlucky wife In Paris who hau , attained thai age, for his desire to sever the nuptial bond. The num. who Is 28, had put In an application for a divorce, anil, as is usual under these circumstances, the couple had been convoked by with a view to an attempt at reconciliation. The meeting, however, far from producing tin- wlshed-for result, had a tragic ending. Every effort at persuasion having proved ineffectual, the pair were leaving the office when the woman, in a frenzy of despair, whipped out a revolver and flred point lilank Jat her faithless partner, wounding him hi the arm. The man bolted down the staircase, while Flic was seized and led off to another ollice, I that of the Police Commissary, who asked j her what had induced her to behave In such I a manner. Sobbing, she replied. "I married him before he started for his military I service, aud I have never let him want fnr J anything. Now he finds mc too old. He wants to leave mc anil to obtain a divorce. I have avenged myself, and I do not regret what I have done." The bullet was extracted without difficulty at the infirmary at the rrefecture. but the wife is detained at the depot, with leisure to pander on the misfortune of being united to a man who is now little more than half her age. STUDENT LYXCHBD. A young law student, aged 17, named Alberto Manrlque, son of a member of Parliament, was lynched rec-ntly for shooting a dog at Astudlllo, in the province of Valencia. Manrlque was cycling from Krninlatn to his home at Astudillo, when on the road npar Santoyo a huge dog leapt at the bicycle mid tried to bite Mnnrique, who drew a revolver and shot the dog dead. The noise of the revolver attracted the attention of the neighbours, who turned out of their houses, and. after noticing the dead dog. ran after the bicycle, stoning the young student as they ran. Manrlquo received a wound In the head that forced him to stop, and the crowd then seized him and brought him back to the spot where the dog lay. After showing him his deed they beat him to death, and left him on ' the road, where late a carter on his way to Astudlllo picked up the dead body and handed It over to the authorities, where it was Identified. The police are pursuing the culprits. TREASURE IX THE ZUYDE'R ZEE. The Dutch await with curiosity the results of a work undertaken In the Zuyder Zee. On October 0. 17!«>. the 'English ship of war ,Lutln sank in Dutch waters, carrying with it to the bottom thirty millions of gold and silver In bars that the British Cabinet was sending to Hamburg to help at a financial crisis in the Hanse towns. The cargo, insured for nearly twenty-five millions, was entirely lost. The Dutch Government, urged by France, tried to recover the wreck, but a violent storm covered the ship with such a thickness of sand that it had to be given up. After the restoration of European peace rhe King of Holland abandoned his rights to his lEnglish colleague, who ceded them to the Company of I.loyii The company made a new attempt in 1820, and its efforts were not unsuccessful, for they drew from the ship l»S bars of silver and 120(1 ingots of gold, a total value of two nnd a-half millions. Probably fran<*s are meant. The company of Lloyd has entered into a contract with another society which to-day undertakes the work wirh the help of a new apparatus, invented by an engineer named I.ake. This apparatus is composed of a floating bridge, at the keel of which are ■fixed the instruments for diving. They consist of a number of pipes which can pump up in 24 hours 40.000 tons of sand. At the extremity of these pipes one finds the room of the divers, all built of metal. This chamber rests on indented wheels placed In action hy a motor of a particular system, in such a manner that the divers can remove their room like a carriage, and roll it at the bottom of the sea, which makes the wort easier and quicker.