STORIES FROM AMERICAN PAPERS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIII, Issue 179, 27 July 1912, Page 17

STORIES FROM AMERICAN PAPERS.

FATE OF WOMAN MAYOR. The death is announced, as the result i of an. accident, which occurred while she ] ■was cooking the family dinner, of Mrs , Mary D. Lowmann, the flrst woman to be elected mayor of an American town. Mrs Lowmann has twice been mayor of Oska- , loosa, Kansas. She was a faithful and accomplished housewife and mother, and as an administrator furnished an example to the whole country of the beneficial effects of efficient and honest municipal government. She and her subordinate officials, who arc all women, made Qska-loosa — on this all the Kansas newspapers agree—the cleanest town in the United Stales. It was while preparing dinner for her children that her dress caught fire. She had received fatal Injuries before kelp came. DOCTOR HYDROPLANES TO PATIENT. ■Dr. Alden, of nammondsport, New York, is the first American medical man to tree an aeroplane or hydroplane to convey him to the bedside of a. patient. The doctor was summoned to attend a. boy named Petrle who lhad been badly injured by a fall, at a small village on Lake Keuka. one' of the string of lakes below Lake Canadlgua, and there being no boat handy, he at first declared that It was impossible for him to reach the spot. A telegram from the boy's parents showed that the case was urgent and that the patient was at death's door. The doctor then .remembered that one of his neighbours had been experimenting with a hydroplane, and ho asked him to convey him across the lake. This the owner of the hydroplane readily agreed to do. and the doctor -v»aa transported aoross the sheet of water, over two miles In extent, and arrived juet in time to operate and save the .boy's life. SPANISH TREASURE SWINDLE AGAIN. At the hands of the proprietors of a fashionable hotel in Valencia, wJiexe he was a guest, an American has very nearly fallen a victim: to the burled treasure swindle. The story of the proprietors was that a certain French banker had fled from Prance after defrandlng Ms clients -of £l«0, 000. He had, however, ouarrelled with another banker and killed him, and had been condemned to imprisonment for life. The American received some spnrloni documents relating to the place where the treasure was hidden, and eventually the swindlers stated that, In exchange for 9000 pesetas, the supposed banker would disclose the whereabouts of a box containing £160,000. The swindlers were cleverly caught by the police, who sent ttusa a telegram signed by the American, accepting their offer, and: the satire ttoe making an appointment. MILLIONAIRE SHOT US MOTOR CAR. The bodies of Mr Charles Toliver and his wife, wealthy residents of San Diego, were discovered on the evening of May 26 on tie threshold of their suburban house riddled with bullets. They had been shot as they were alighting from their motor car on returning home from a Sunday evening ride by a man who had previously taken the precaution of tying the -watchdog to a distant tree. The man, who was arrested late the same nlgiht and confessed the crime, is named Lewis, and was formerly private secretary to Mr Toliver. Lewis recently brought an action for damages against his employer, alleging that Mr Toliver h«l alienated the! affections of his wife, a strikingly handsome woman, aged thirty-five. Lewis lost his puit. "Tee," he said when arrested, "I killed him because he ruined my home." Lewis explained that he had not intended to 'harm Mrs Toliver. no opened Q-re while the \ couple were still in the motor car, and the first shots strnck Mrs Toliver, who was | over sixty years of age, Jα the mouth and ■head. S'ho stagsered into the -house and fell dead at the telephone while vainly endeavouring to summon tie police. Meanwhile Lewis, who was armed with two pistols and a dagger, poured shot after shot into his former employer. Though dreadfully wounded. Mr ToDver succeeded in reaching The house, where with arms stretched out and facing the murderer he fell. Lewis then, according to his own statement, knelt down and plunged his dagger into the old man's body. Lewis left tie house unmolested, jumped Into a iramway car, and rode bjom-e, where be was subsequently arrested. BOGUS MIMES SWINDLER. W. T. Wlntemute, a prominent New York broker, was charged on Tuesday, June 4, with swindling 700 people by selling them valueless mining stock. The accused man was arrested by the Post Office authorities nearly two years ago on the charge of using the United States moils in this fraudulent stockbroking business, and hp has been fighting the indictment ever since. The majority of the victims are British, and include the Countess of Tankerville, who with a friend lost 50',000d01. (£10.000). Altogether Wintemute is alleged to have j obtained nearly l,500,000do!. (X'iOO.OOO) from | confiding investors who did business with ■ him at his different offices. The Pcwl Office j inspectors raided his office on Battery Place j 03 receipt of complaints from these people. | I A MONSTROUS COMBINATION KILLS A MAN PER WEEK. According to Mr. William Flynn, chief of the Secret Service of York, the American metropolis beats Paris and every other city for organised gangs of criminals, ami London, by comparison, is the most virtu - ■ ods city in the world. He considers that < the apaches of Paris are mere puling in- - rants by the side of such monsters in crime ' OS tie I/npomorello band of blackmailers, 1 counterfeiters, and assassins, with head- < quarters in New York. This gang he de- _i scribes as a sort of American ".Mafia," which. to his personal knowledge, is guilty ' of Kixty murders. "On an average," says : Mr. I"!ynn, "they kill one man a week, and there is no villainy they will not commit. Usually yon find the victims of this gang in a barrel or hid in ,a drain, but I have ascertained that they have a private burying ground, the locality of whirih I hope to discover." Klynn says this terrible gang Iras influence with both political parties in ! New York, and it is impassible to combat it. A decision to investigate New York's Secret Service prompted Mr. Flynn's ontbnrst, to which the American Press yivos great attention. Mr. Flynn i--> indignant, because he says such an inquiry must Injure the names of five membere or tJie Lnpomorello baud who have l>een working for him as investigators, and subject them : to assassination. "1 would sooner rot in prison," says Mr. "FVynn, -"Sbetoie revealing -tielr-names."' •, ..- ■■ (. *fet ' —". ■ „ ' — ■