News from All Quarters

Auckland Star, Volume LI, Issue 3, 3 January 1920, Page 15

News from All Quarters

■ m t German manufacturers cannot cope with j FRENCH FLAGS BACK IN ASHES

Accompanied by an officer and a guard dC eoldiers with fixed bayonets, a tiny brown paper "parcel arrived recently in Paris at the -French Army .Museum. It contained the ashes of tbe 70 French flags captured by the Germans in 1870 and burned at Berlin in July last in defiance of the terms of the Peace Treaty. DINING BY NXTMBERS. As a further economy in coal the city government has altered Vienna's age-old custom of the midday meal hour. Households in even numbered houses must dine at 11.30, and those In odd numbered at 12.30 p.m. As most of the houses are very dark at midwinter, even at midday, lighting Is necessary, and it is hoped that by this measure to avoid the excessive pressure on the power plants between 12 and 1 o'clock. BEATING THE PROFITEER. France will soon be an unpleasant country for food profiteers and speculators generally. Drastic measures are being taken by the government to put a stop to the abuses under which the unfortunate consumer was bled white for the benefit of the hoard of unscrupulous speculators. Offenders will be liable to Imprisonment up to two years, as well as loss of political , and civil rights, and banishment from the city or town wherein the offence was committed. - REVOLT Or THE RICH. The Paris "Matin" reports the formation of a co-operative society for the rich only. M. Charles Namur, the promoter, at a meeting held in the Avenue Hoche, in Paris, jdeclared: "We have had enough of throwing money away. We do not wish to be accused any more of forcing up prices." It is proposed, therefore, to establish co-operative fa-rms for the breeding of cattle, as. well as co-operative dairies and other undertakings on tho same lines, managed by the rich exclusively. NXX-RO KILLS WHITE WOMAN. Mrs. Arthur Giles, au Englishwoman, aged thirty-eight, was stabbed to death in. a busy street in Brantford (Ontario) by a. negro named George Jones. The negro chased the woman out of her house, folI lowed her into tbe street, and innlctea I wounds with a long knife. He had been, ! paying attentions to the woman, and tbe I police allege that the pair eloped six weeks ago. After the murder the negro was .eaten into insensibility toy a bystander before tha | police arrived.

MOTOR BANDITS SEIZE £4000. In broad daylight a daring highway rob- v bery was carried out in one of the main streets of Havre recently, and more than £4000 stolen from two railway cashiers, both crippled in the war. They were walkbig along the Rue Jean Jacques Rousseau when a motor car containing four men, one dressed as a soldier, stopped at the edge of the pavement. Two men got down from it, fellln. one of the cashiers, and seized •his cashbag. Before the passers-by had grasped what had happened tbe two robbers were back in the car, which set off at fuU speed and turned the corner. THE SIMPLE RUSSIAN. On the extraordinary charge of showing too much zeal in spreading [Bolshevik ideas, tho president of a Russian Soviet, <M. B-kromoO", has been Bhot. He raised a fund for "the purchase of __itente Imperialist statesmen," forced local supporters to contribute, and claimed that be lad bought _1. Clemenceau for £15,000, President Wilson for £20,000, and tbe Berlin Foreign Office for £3,000. It was found that the fund was a swindle, and that BakromofC had printed .private paper money of tbe face value of £530,000, -which tie had applied to his own nse. A MARVELLOUS SHIP. •From the authentic details which are at last available about tbe Hood I should describe her as bavin, been designed on the "all-in" policy, says "Clubman" in the : "Pall 'Mall Gazette." She has the main. armament of the Royal. Sovereign and Queen Elizabeth—eight 15in guns—with approximately tbe speed of tbe Renown — 31 knots. As for her armoured protection, it is better than any preceding battleship , or battle-cruiser, In which there is an indic_- : tion of lessons learnt at Jutland. , As a machinery achievement, however, ; the Hood is a marvel, for the drive of her , geared turbines is no less than 144,000 horso1. power, as compared with the 23,000 of the .. Dreadnought and the 60,000 of the Queen , j Elizabeth, while even that of the Maure- ' tanla is only 68,000. There Is certain to be '. great interest -manifested all over the world 1 jin her trials.

foreign orders for motor cars. According to American Red Cross statistics, the devastated regions of France have lost more than a mUlion inhabitants. A French airman at Madria has looped the loop 624 times in a flight of 2hrs 49mln 9 sec, thus beating the previous "record" of 455 loops In one fllghtf At Fakenham, Norfolk, a grooer was i fined £5 for selling an olive oil substitute which, on analysis, was found to be refined | paraffin, artificially coloured. It was stated -that the price charged worked out at £3 2/ a gallon. MASSAGE SCANDAL. In order to* suppress the "serious social evil attaching to so many West End massage and manicure estabUshments," the Public Control Committee advise the London County Council to make an effort to strengthen their powers of control. By ■September last 1119 persons or companies had been registered in London. A WIFE'S FRENZY. When Lilian McKay, thirty-four, was picked up after attempting to throw herself under a London bus, a tragedy only being j averted by the smartness of the driver in I swerving, she declared, "For God's Bake ■ let mc end It." j At Thames poUce court she admitted making previous attempts at suicide on account of being Ul-treated (by her husband. She was remanded. SOLDIERS' RUSSIAN WIVES. "Some of our men," said an officer just home from Archangel to a "London Evening News" correspondent, "lost their hearts to Russian women. A few married them, and It was touching to-sec the women's joy when they knew they were coming to England as British wives. "Women who had retained some of their riches would beseech some of onr men to marry them. There were two or -three cases where women offered men £3000 and £4000 to make them their wives." "ENFANTS DE LA PATRIE." Over 12,000 applications have been ra-celved for the ninety aUowances of £1,000 each, for which a fund has been opened by a Paris milUonalre, M. Cognacq, the owner of one of the large department tores. These allowances are intended as ewards to the parents of large families— chere there are at least nine chUdren of he same father and mother aUve. Some ethers claimed to have had twenty chilren by the same wife, and there are a ound dozen of fathers of eighteen chilren. Those who have had only nine or en will stand Uttle chance of getting any f the allowance. DEATH SENTENCE ON MOTHER. Strongly recommending her to mercy, the ury at Liverpool Assizes found Sirs. Ellza>eth Williams (35), wife of a horse trainer n Wales. guUty of the murder of her ihree-year-old son. Mr. Justice Avoir >assed sentence of death, but said the lury's recommendation would lie forwarded :o the proper quarter. Prisoner was arrested at Bangor, and It was stated that after leaving her husband md going to UphoUand, near Wlgan, where jbe was employed as housekeeper, she Irowned her chUd in a quarry at Skelmerslale. "I thought of committing suicide myself, bnt my heart failed," she stated, irhen arrested by the police. !

DRAMATIC CONFESSION IN MURDER CASE. William Wright, charged with the murder at Miss Annie Coulbeck, at the village of Oaistor. near Grimsby, confessed to the I !»llce that he strangled her. When Wright | was charged at Grimsby, Inspector Wbatton read this statement, which, _c said, the prisoner had made to him:— "I had a lot of drink and went to her house, and asked her where she got tbe brooch she was wearing. She said it was my mother's, and I told _er I did not think it was. I said I thought it was from a "fancy" man, and she said, "I am sure It is not. Bill." I strangled her, and left her dead. I put the lamp out and went home." THE CHAMPION BIGAMIST. The Australian soldier who confesses to having married a wife in each of the eight sectors where he was stationed seems to be a serious rival to Jacques Notler, one of Napoleon's "braves," who, charged with bigamy at the age of twenty-five, admitted having married —so far as be could recollect—over a score of women, French, Itallan_Dutch, and German. His practice, he said, had been to marry a wife wherever he was stationed, and, as tbe result had been at least as many children as he had years, he contended that he was worthy of the State's praise rather than its censure. Notler was sentenced to two weeks' imprisonment and ordered to regard the first woman he bad married as his wife, but he appealed to Napoleon for permission to choose for himself from among tbe crowd.

A COLOGNE INCIDENT. t An officer jnst returned from •Cologne for - a few days' leave told mc a curious story !i yesterday (relates a "PaßMali Gazette" < •writer). He was" travelling In a tramcar < for a short distance in tbe city in which • were also seated four British soldiers. 1 The car became fall, and several women 1 were unable to find seats, but instinctively : he and the four British soldiers stood up,: and requested these women to take their seats. I' The sensation tils little act of ordinary courtesy to the weaker sex caused was ' quite extraordinary, but the officer informed mc that it developed into a state of excitement when one seat again became vacant, and he called out to one of the soldiers, "Ton sit down, lad, I'm getting out at the next stop." Tbe puzzled Germans simply conldn't understand it, an officer giving np bis scat to a private soldier was beyond their comprehension. BURIED SHELL DETECTORS. I wonder how many people are aware of the methods employed by the salvage authorities on the various battlefields of France and Flanders to locate and dig up unex--ploded shells, says tbe Paris correspondent of the "Pall Mall Gazette." Professor Zutton, a French scientist, has iuvented an instrument known as the Zutton Scales Machine, which Is able to exactly detect the resting place of any unerploded shell. Electricity is the vital force used for shell detecting. When the detector is laid upon the ground in the vicinity of an nnexploded shell the apparatus becomes excited, and a telephone arrangement attached to it starts to ring. It is hoped in time, by means of the detector, to gather np every one of tbe thousands of buried shells which failed to explode, and. which are, while they remain undiscovered, a menace to the agricultural workers, and the people of the recreated towns, which were destroyed by the Huns.-

"COUNTESS» AND HER ADMIRERS. The arrest of a burglar on a large estate near Sondershausen In the Harz Mountains, has led to the discovery of a remarkable series of crimes perpetrated by a gang ot clever adventurers. The ringleader of this aristocratic ring is the "Countess Colonna," titled as a result of a mysterious adoption, who, however, has changed her name and title almost as frequently as she has changed her gowns. She bad been closely connected with numerous burglaries In the fashionable West End of Berlin. Her accomplices are her brother, a lieutenant in the flying service, another army officer, a modiste known as "tbe Baroness Kelly," and a locksmith. j The countess proved an adept In enticing well-to-do men to her flat, while her accompllces broke into the houses of her admirers. Furniture, carpets, and objects of art to the value of several thousand marks were thus stolen. She also directed the ransacking of apartments, the occupants of which she knew to be out ot town. WEDDING OP PARALYSED OFFICER. The story of ft wedding in a hospital was told at a Westminster inquest on Meat. Bucban Metcalfe Liddell, 40, Royal Naval, Reserve, who died In the Empire Hospital, Vincent Square. Westminster. Mrs. Helen Liddell, tbe widow, said Ser hnsband told her that on Jtriy 23, 191S, when at Zanzibar, with other officers he left his ship to dine with friends ashore. At tie friend's honse at Zanzibar, coming; from a bright light into the darkness of a balcony, be stepped over what be thought was a plant and fell, landing on a cement floor loft below. He fractured bis spine. He was eventually brought home. Sir. Oddic (the coroner): When be returned to England you married him'? —Tes: we were married three weeks a-:o In hospital. Can you be married like that In hospital? —Yes, by license from the Arc—bishop of Canterbury. Dr. Alexander Campbell said death was due to a broken spine and paralysis. A verdict of awMental death was retnzned.