LONG FLIGHT BEGUN.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 57, 8 March 1932, Page 7

LONG FLIGHT BEGUN.

Frenchmen Leave for New

Caledonia.

VIA AUSTRALIA,

(Received 12 noon.) PARIS, March 7. A French pilot, M. Cliarles de Yerneille, with M. Meuch as his pilotmechanic, and Captain Max Deve as wireless operator and navigator, has left Le Bourget on a flight to Noumea, via Darwin, Rockhampton, and Brisbane. M. Meuch has previously flown from Paris to Madagascar.

This flight was planned last December, but owing to bad weather was put off. It is the flrsit attempt to fly from France to France's colony of New Caledonia, to which the capital, Noumea, has recently given its name. The island was discovered by Captain Cook, and annexed by France in 1853, being used ae a convict settlement.

The three airmen are using a Couzinet 'plane, powered with three British engines developing 300 h.p. It is a lowwing monoplane, and has an unusually high cruising speed. The route of the flight will probably be that of the French Air Mail Company as far as Saigon (Cochin China), thence to Sourabaya, Bima, and Darwin. The crossing from Brisbane to Noumea is approximately 800 miles. Captain de Verneille recently' flew from Paris to Addis Abbaba (Abyssinia). PATHETIC FIGURE. COL. BRINSMEAD'S RETURN. - SYDNEY, March 7. Colonel H. C. Brinsmead, Director of Civil Aviation in Australia, who was seriously injured in the Dutch mail aeroplane smash near Bangkok, Siam, on December 7, reached Sydney to-day on board the Nieuw Zeeland. Colonel Brinsmead was a pathetic figure of his former self. He is a partial cripple, and his eyesight and speech are affected, but he is able to whisper. He is much improved by the sea trip from Java and expects that in a. few months he will be nearly right. Mrs. Brinsmead met him at Brisbane. . A large number of airmen cordially welcomed the patient at the ship's side. An aerial escort was provided for the vessel prior to berthing. SHOPLIFTING LOSSES. ALARMING GROWTH. LONDON, March 3. Thousands of pounds are being lost every year by big stores in this country through the plunderings of shoplifters. It lias been revealed that shoplifting' has increased to such an extent in the past two or three years that the managements of many of the huge shopping centres in London and the provinces are at their wits' end to know how to deal with the menace. Inquiries at one big West End store disclosed the fact that more than £5000 has been lost in the past 12 months through stolen goods. Another store put its losses through shoplifters in the same period at approximately £3500. Throughout the country, it is estimated, the losses every year total more tliaii £50,000. CHESS PRODIGY. ALEKHINE PLAYS 300 AT ONCE. PARIS, March 3. In a mammoth chess tourney, Alexander Alekhine, the Russian chess champion of Alie world, engaged 300 players at 00 boards simultaneously, winning 37 games, losing six and drawing 17. At each board Alekhine encountered the combined skill of five players. He averaged three seconds for each move at the beginning, but the intervals became considerably extended as the problems increased. The tourney finished in the _ early hours of the morning. u