CONTINENTAL ITEMS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIII, Issue 305, 21 December 1912, Page 17

CONTINENTAL ITEMS.

GI&L WHO CAUSED A BATTLE. Giovanni della Pletra and Salvatore N'appi, of. Liderl, Southern Italy, were rivals for the hand of the Tillage belle, Catherine Ga-staldi, and decided to fight a duel to settle their claims. They met in the open country the other morning, each supported by his friends, and In a short time the battle became general. Delia Pietxa and a brother of Nappl were killed, and several others wotroded. OUTRAGE IN FRENCH POST OFFICE. Four men armed with revolvers on Friday, (November S> night at ten o'clock ruehed into the post office at Bezons, seven miles from Paris, in the department of Seine-et-Oise. Three young women who wer* employed in the post office immediately <ook to flight, shrieking. Hearing the cries of the clerks, the postmaster hastened to the scene, and ■was received with several revolver ehots. Two bullets struck him in the breast, and he fell dead. The robbers ransacked the post office and carried away their booty in taxi cabs. It is believed the men came from Paris. SEveral arrests have been. made. DOING MOTHER. An unusual elopement took place the other day (says a Berlin correspondent), when a bridegroom carried off the daughter of his betrothed on the morning that had been fixed for the wedding. Hermann Thleman, a locksmith, aged twenty-eight, became engaged some month* ago to Frau Anne Schmidt, a middle-aged widow, who owned a small but thriving business. It was in the shop that Hermann first saw Fran Schmidt, and it -was the* eventually that he proposed to her. On being officially recognised as he fiancee he was introduced to the home circle, and there he met Fran Schmidt's beautiful seventeen-year-old daughter, and fell in love with her. Accordingly they helped themselves to * substantial sum from the money safe in the shop, and when Frau Schmidt rose on what she supposed was to be her wedding day she found a letter from the lovers saying that they had gone away to Vienna to get married. FLYING TO JUSTICE. Some day—when Mr Kipling's "night mall" Is running—we may have a speed limit of the air, and the Air Police will time the scorcher aviator from the top of a cloud. But in the meantime you may fly as fast as ever your wings will carry yon, and most aviators do. Only it is probable I that no one has flown so fast as M. Chomet did yesterday on so piquant an errand, writes the "Daily Telegraph's" Paris correspondent under date of November 6th. M. Chomet who motors as well as flies, forgot, the other day, that he was motoring and not flying, and was summoned In consequence to appear at the Palais de Justice. When he consulted his watch, yesterday, he found he could not possibiy manage to reach Paris by land unless he sinned once more by excess of speed, and Just at that moment he had scruples on the point.

He walked twice round bis garden, and then he had an idea. Other people fly from Justice; he, M. Chomet, would fly to Justice. His hydroplane was at hand, and so was the Seine. M. Chomet promptly committed himself and It to the deep, skimmed tJong the waters, then rose in the air. Near Paris he descended again, flattered along the Seine till he reached the taw Corrts, made a chic landing amid the bravos of briefless barristers, entered the tribunal, was solemnly fined, and departed gaily to the accompaniment of more bravos. A MYSTERY OF THE'BOXS BE BOULOGNE. The mystery surrounding the strangling of a woman on the night of November 1 in the Bois de Boulogne has been solved in dramatic circumstances. The woman, Juliette Souavin, was discovered by two women who. passing through the wood, saw a man kneeling on the ground frantically scraping ont a grave with his bands. When observed he disappeared in the woods.

Oα the day following the Baron Gedelia (trustee to the family of the lnte Dnc and Duchesse de Bellune), who lived in the district, committed suicide. By his body wae a letter stating: "I killed myself at 3.40 on November 1, 1912."

Tue baron's funeral was just about to take place when Dr. Hocbard, the police surgeon, ordered, a postponement. He bad been unable to sleep, he said, owing to a. persistent impression that the circumstances of the baron's suicide ought to be cleared up. Medical proofs established that the baron's statement of the date of his death was inexact.

The scratches on the baron's nans and fingers, the doctor thought, pointed to some connection with the murder of Juliette Souavin. Later it was established that he was with the woman in the Bols de Boulogne on the night ol her death. The couple are supposed to have quarrelled, and in a moment of anger the baron is believed to have strangled her. Then, driven insane by fear, he tried to scratch a grave in which to hide the body, but took refuge in Sight when disturbed. ANCESTOR WORSHIP. M. Paul Richard, of Paris, is a polite young man, and knows bow one ou&ht to behave, especially in tbe presence of Indies, so when about two o'clock on a recent morning he was asked for a light by an individual who had two young women oa his right and left -tie tendered his matoV box with elegance. In a moment his arms were seized, and the two women were making an exhaustive inventory of the contents of his pockets. When M. Richard recovered himself he set off in pursuit of the trio, whose arrest, with the aid of a conple of policemen, he managed to achieve. At the police station tbe gentleman who wished for a light proudly declared his name and condition as "Acnille Wattean, descendant of the great French painter." "Keally," said the commissary, in a tone of polite scepticism. "Do you doubt my word?" said Achille, in a sudden fury. "Then 1 give you ocnlar proof," and before the commissary could protest the prisoner tore off his clothes. His whole body was a network of tattooing. The most charming pastorals of the master, including the "L'Embarqtiement pour Cythere," were carefully picked out on the rather grimy epidermis of his self-styled descendant.

"Do yon think,*' he cried, "that I would have endured all the hours of torture represented by this for a mere whim? No; I wished to render homage to my renowned ancestor as far as In—he might hare said on—me lay." Then Achille burst Into tears. He was stm weeping as he mounted til* steps of the Black Maria, for It Is to b« reared that AchlHe, the ancestor worshipped was not entirely sobw-