News from All Quarters

Auckland Star, Volume L, Issue 200, 23 August 1919, Page 19

News from All Quarters

War time prohibition has decreased crime in 'ChJeagw SO per cenit, according to a statement made by Chief of .Detectives James L. iloaney. AMERICA'S BIG BATTLESHIPS. The United States Navy is to have the two biggest battleships in 'the world. This was revealed when Secretary iDandnls awarded a contract to the Newport News Shipbuilding Company for battleship No. 53, to ■displace 43,000 tons, and to have 10----inch guns*. A contract for another bartJtlefhip of the same type is to be allotited shortly, says the "United .Press." Battleship No. 53 will cost £-4,200,000. A BRINK IN COURT. John O'Brien, of Dublin, after being remanded at Mullingar, on a charge of larceny by picking the pocket of a man at Mullingar races, requested the magistrate to direct the police to fetch him a pint of stout. He said he would pay for the stout out of the money which he claimed was his own. The magistrate acceded to the request, a policeman being dispatched for the liquor, which O'Brien enjoyed. ENGLAND'S WAR MILLIONAIRES Tho enormous fortunes made in England during the war are responsible for recordbreaking prices which sellers of antiques of every bind are realising in London auction rooms. A mysterious portrait, which recently appeared in one auction room, a nil was said by someone to have been by Franz Hals, quickly brought £12,000. Its tmthentlcity has even now noit been established. A Reynolds portrait, which to the present had not attracted much attention, was easily sold for £14.000. THE SEALED PACKET. When Marie Ernest, late of the Queen Mary Army Auxiliary Corps, was eomniitte'l for trial at Peterborough on a charge of obtaining £uO by fraud, it was alleged that she secured food and lodging l>y representing that she had £4,000 invested in a Russian company. She was also said to have stated that a sealed packet she left with the landlord contained nti insurance policy for £2,300. When opened by the police, however, the packet was found to contain only empty envelopes and love letters. CONDITIONS IN BELGIUM. Belgium is now in a position to feed any number of tourists who may come to vUtt the country, owing to a great improvement in the situation during the laat few months. «ays a correspondent. Prices are far above tho pre-war standard, but supplies generally are plentiful, except certain kinds of nvilU and meat. Belgium is now well provided for as regards bread, potatoes and wheat. Incidentally, alcohol is a drug on the Belgian market, owing ito the semi-pro-hiihtion measure which is in force. In January it cost one-half franc per litre (about a quart), but now the price is 10 centimes. In many places it is being dumped into the rivers. HUNS AND SHELL SHORTAGE. An artillery officer back from the Rhine tells mc that German military men are much interested in Lord French's revelations of the shell shortage early in the war, snys Clubman in the "Pall Mall Gazette." That shortage was no secret to the German General Staff: what they never understood was bow our men were able to endure the hurricane bombardments of high explosive shell to which they were subjected day after day, and yet retain their moral. Until the summer of 1915 German batteries rarely troubled to dig themselves in, knowing, as they did, the British guns had no ammunition tc spare for counterbattery work. The German output of shells in the first vine months of the war was about eight times as large as our own, and four times as large as that of France. SWORDS OF HONOUR. The practice of giving swords of honour such as those recently presented to Beatty and Ilaig came into vogue in the city, as it were, accidently. says a London paper. In 1797. when Admiral Sir John Jervis won the Battle of St. Vincent, the Corporation wished to do him honour, but he had already received three years before the Freedom of the City and a gold box. It was therefore resolved to award him a sword valued at 200 guineas, and, writing from the Victory, in the Tagus, to accept the gift, he said: '"The sword they inteutl to honour mc with I shall prize beyond expression, and be at all times| ready to draw in defence of the rights and (Privileges of my fellow citizens." And a sword of honour lias been a regular token of the city's appreciation of our warriors ever since. TWO YEARS TO SWEEP UP MINES. The publicity department of the German Admiralty states that it will take at least two ye:irs to clear tho North Sea and tire .Baltic from minefields aud drifting mines. It claims that the work is proceeding with all speed, twenty units tieing employed on the task with, in all, 334 vessels and 14.0110 men. It is also stated that the most important trade routes have been cleared. The "Hamburger Xaeurlonten" is entirely discontented. It says that accidents to steamers and fishing boats are of almost daily occurrence. "With regard to the most important sea route—that from Heligoland '. to the South Doig,r>r—the Hamburg-Ameri- I can Lino recently asked the German Ailmir- I nlty if it could "be regarded as safe f or the steamship Imnerator, and was warned ; against it. •

Announcement is made by Maxmilian ■Harden, the famous German editor, .that he declined a handsome fee and large royalties offered him for a motion picture play dealing with the career of the former German Kmperor. Sir Charles P. Lucas, at Bishop's Sto'rtford College, said that he favoured the erection of a war memorial cross in every town and village in the kingdom, and he would set apart one day in the year when the cross should be decorated with flowers and a simple service of praise and thanksgiving should be held around it. SUICIDE AFTER. BEING SAVED. Determined on suicide, as a result of ■chronic insomnia, Walter John Lyons, a visitor to Brighton, threw himself into the sea from the West Pier. He refused to seize the rope which was thrown to him, whereupon a pier employee jumped into the water and saved him, and he was taken to hospital. During the absence of his nurse Lyons jumped from the balcony and was killedBEATH FOR A REMARK. A terrible tragedy occurred in South Town Road, Great Yarmouth, recently. A girl named Gladys May Lupton, aged 17, made a remark while passing a man. He at once attacked her with a razor, and cut her throat. She died in a few minutes. The man left with another woman. Later an ex-soldier named Hugh Stanley Jolly, belonging to Liverpool, and working at Yarmouth, was arrested. A HORNPIPE HYMN. The story of the popular Advent hymi "Lo, He Comes With Clouds Descending," is worth recalling in any discussion on our hymn tunes, says the "Daily Chronicle." Apparently it began life as a drawing-room ballad about 1770, and shortly after was being danced as a hornpipe at Sadler's Wells. Authorities differ as to whether the hymn .' came between the ballad and the hornpipe, . or last of all, but at any rate the tune I proved itself suitable for both. CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS. "England has iad a row over conscientious objectors. England's chief worry Is ! not how they were treated, but how soon they will be released and the number confined. The Home 'Secretary has announced that there are still 235 objectors in prison, all of -whom will be released at the expiration of their twenty-month sentences. As soon as an objector completes that length of time in servitude he may go. There lhave been many more hundreds of them imprisoned since England entered the war. tout they are mostly all free now. SLUMP IN SMUGGLING. Either British Customs officers are less detective than they were, or as a nation we are losing our dash, says a London paper. Last year only 7,503 seizures of smuggled goods were made, and the beggarly amount of fe.OSG was recovered in penalties. It would be almost a blank day in New York if they didn't earn as much as that. Here the smugglers' opportunity is more restricted, though it is wider than it was. ■ Tobacco and spirits are still the mainstay. ; but matches, musical instruments, cine- ! matograph films, clocks and watches are ■ also among the contraband. BRITAIN'S CRIPPLED SOLDIERS I According to the "Evening News"' the list of crippled men in the British Array is little short of appalling. The "News'" gives the : following ngures on casualties and illness: — Twenty-four thousand soldiers lost a limb by amputation, 128,000 suffered injuries to a leg or an arm. not, however, necessitating amputation: 30,000 suffered from neurasthenia; 60,000 suffered from chest complaints, including tuberculosis: 39,000 were treated for rheumatism. 54,000 suffered from heart disease, 10.000 suffered from deafness. It also is pointed out that only 2SO men died from typhoid and similar fevers, aue ■to tlie inoculation .method, while 11.690 cases resulted fatally in the French Army before inoculation was begun. AMERICAN DEAD TO BE BROUGHT BACK. Three-fourths of the American dead in France will find their final resting place in American soil. Answering an inquiry from Senator 'Chamberlain as to the wishes of relatives, General (March, chief of staff, said it was estimated that replies from relatives* thus far received showed not niorp than 25 per cent, had expressed a preference that the soldier's body remain permanently in 'France. With more than four million soldier dead of Allied and enemy countries buried in French soil, General March said, that nation was desirous of proceeding slo-wiy with the task of exhuming those that arp to go to their lands. A TERRIBLE SCENE. While a majority of tbe witnesses feinted from the horror of the seent 1 , two men, Joseph .Rogers and Clarence Rollins, died a terrible prolonged death on the gallows ait San Quentin prison on .Tune 20. owing to bungling mechanism, says the San Francisco "Bulletin." Rogers kicked so wildly that his ■shop? flew off OS life body, showing beneath hii death capped face, contorted in agonies. He was suspended for fifteen minutes before he <iif>d. Rollins died a minute sooner. Rogers and 'Rollins paid the supreme penalty for 'the murder of Charles Allen, a saloon keeper, last JuJy. 'Entering Allen's saloon, they ordered a drink, and as Allen I was bending over preparing it they struck , him on 'the head w.ith an iron bar. They jthen slashed his throat Securing all the money tlioy could find the two went on a dirunken debauch -that lasted a week. When the money was gone they pawned Allen's watch, through which they were apprehended and convicted. WONDERS OF BIG BERTHA. Lord Monlton, lecturing at Cambridge, told somp interesting facts about Big ; Bertha, which shelled Paris from over 70 ! miles away. The wholp details of the gun and powder necessary to accomplish this fern were at onrp worked out. and the gun would have been manufactured if it had possessed sufficient military value to warrant the work and expense. i In its flight the projectile from Big j Bertha must have reached a height fonr i times as great as Mount Everest (the world's hizhpst mountain*. [ It owes its long range to th, : fact that during two-thirds of its flight it wns passing through regions where the air irez ?o ' rarlQed that Us resistance wa s nezliciblp. and finally the distance passed over by the projectile was so srreat that if the Germans had taken the trouble to aim at any particular building they must hav e allowed nearly balf a mile for the fa<*t tlmt during I the flight "the rotation of the earth wonld :to that pstent rarry tlip target further •towards tlip p:in than it would <- a rrr the