CONTINENTAL SENSATIONS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLI, Issue 16, 16 July 1910, Page 15

CONTINENTAL SENSATIONS.

HOAX ON A GOVEKHOB. Much hilarity has been caused. in official circles in St. Petersburg by a practical joke played on one of the Russian provincial Governors by a subordinate. The Governor, an excellent and amiable mas, detested his wort and invariably refrained from reading the various documents and correspondence lie signed. Among Ms correspondence recently was a letter to the Premier, M. Stolypin, which had been drafted by a waggish subordinate. The Premier was not a little astonished to read that the Governor declared that Ms official business was silly .work. The Governor was not, the letter with his Excellency's signature said, in the least interested in the development of the province and never read the official documents. HJs Excellency strongly , advised M. Stolypin to follow his example, and to devote himself to playing bridge, 'Hvhich is much more interesting than etupid politics." M. Stolypin's reply was to telegraph to the Governor asking him to resign. FBENOH DETECTIVE'S LUCK. The greatest collaborator in police investigations is the '"man in the street." Thus, in the affair of the two soldiers condemned for ."the murder of Mme. Gouin, no trace seemed to exist of the assassins until the merest chance came to the aid of authority, enabling it to put hands on 'the collar of guilt. The two soldiers murdered their victim in, a railway -carriage between MeTun and ■Paris. In that train travelled a man who recognised the culprits as former comrades of Jiis in the regiment. He was struck by ■their peculiar manner, by the haste which they exhibited to get away to take the train back to 'Melun. He thought of this when he saw the account of 'the murder, and to condemnation. "Vidocq," at the Theatre Sarah Bernhardt, extols the "flair" of the detective; but the vast bulk of detection would be useless in France (as probably elsewhere) without that anonymous friend the Press and that other nameless aid—good luck. Death by shooting eeercs too good an end for Graby, the soldier condemned in L'aifaire Gouin (as the tragedy is called). But such is the fate reserved for him unless he is reprieved -by the President on Account of youth and supposed lack of premeditation. •However, the sentence, as it stands, has received the cordial eu-pport of "the public, which is tired of ±he leniency shown by sentimental juries. The condemnation of two soldiers lor so foul a crime has (says *he Paris correspondent of the "Pall Mall") called attention to the presence of Apaches in the army. One of the ill-starred "reforms" of General Andre was to do away iwith the special •battalions for the criminal conscript. Statistics, 'however, .prove -how necessary segregation is: military crime shows a frightful recrudescence. LOVERS' STJICIBE. Astonished at finding the corpse of a man floating on the surface of the Seine, two boatmen tried to pull it to the shore with their hooks, and were still more astonished to discover the corpse of a woman, tightly fastened to it with a rope. They dragged the two bodies up the bank with some difficulty, and informed the police. An inquiry disclosed the fact that both had probably committed suicide. The man was twenty-seven years ox age, and was until recently a shop assistant with a very good salary and the prospect of promotion. He had been engaged to a girl some two years ago, but before the marriage took place he fell in love with another girl. He tried to break oil his engagement to marry the second one, but his people, it is said, objected, and insisted on keeping his engagement -with the first. He yielded to Uielr wishes, but at the end of two months he left his wife and went to live wii.li tlio other girl. At the same time, he gave up Ills employment, and it was not known for some months what had become of him. It Is supposed that, unable to find another situation, he and the girl, for whose sake he had left his wile in. complete destitution, committed suicide. THE PIK-ATB QUEEN. •In the steamer Amiral Ponty there arrived at Marseilles on June 2, with a party of 31 Anamite pirates and malefactors, a remarkable woman, one of the wives of the redoubtable pirate De Tham, who 'has given the French so much trouble in IndoChina. ■Co-'Ba, as the woman pirate is called, exercised (says a Paris telegram on June 3rd) a dominating influence over the pirate king and his followers, a power she even preserved throughout the voyage, which the prisoners made in a specially-constructed iron cage built amidships. The other prisoners, on (receiving their rations, immediately handed them to Co-Ba for distribution, and she laid down iron regulations for the prisoners' life on board. Her word was always scrupulously respected. €o-ißa, a small, hard-faced woman of about 30, enjoyed the reputation of a witch among the pirates, and she ferociously hated tlie white men. When the prisoners landed it was she who marched proudly at their head, taking not the slightest notice of the crowds who watched the debarkation of the prisoners on their way to the lie de Re, in the Bay of Biscay. TERRORISED VILLAGES. The inhabitants of the environs of the Flemish town of Courtrai, on the French frontier, are (according to a Brussels dispatch of June 2) in a state of terror owing to a succession of atrocious crimes. A few days ago a four-year-old girl disappeared and was found murdered in a wheat field. On the following day another girl, aged ten, suffered the same fate in a neighbouring village. Oα June 1 a boy of ten disappeared in the same 'village and was afterwards discovered unconscious in a wheat field. After being carried home he revived and said that a man, about thirty years old, with white shoes and a velvet coat, had suddenly seized him, gagged him, and carried him into the wheat field. The boy fainted, and it is supposed that his assailant beard someone coming and fled. A PRINCE'S EXPENSES. Prince George of iServia, the former Crown Prince, who has been spending three months in a small garrison town as a punishment for his alleged ungentlemanly behaviour towards the Prefect of Police, has been recalled upon the advice of the physicians, and has been advised to go to Vichy for a four weeks' cure. Prince George was to leave last evening (says a Belgrade special correspondent on June Ist), but in the course of yesterday he had a controversy with his father, the King, who did not want to make him an allowance of more thaxi £1 a day, and as a result his Royal Highness remains here, refusing to go away at all. Some of the papers are sharply criticising the King for being so severe with him, and cay that it is ridiculous for the King to ask Prince George to manage with £4 a day wlitn he has the expenses of his aide-cie-enmp and a servant as well, especially after Uls Majesty has accustomed, the Prince to a much blgser allowance when he was here in Belgrade without having any special expenses at all.