IMPERIAL AND FOREIGN ITEMS

Press, Volume LVII, Issue 17317, 1 December 1921, Page 8

IMPERIAL AND FOREIGN ITEMS

■' • ■** — r ~—~ . . '■'■■ The Brussels correspondent of "Tito. Times" says that the response to! peal for tho restoration of Library has exceeded all expectations.? Twonty-five thousand volumes have al-; ready been received, and 45,800-more are promised from France. With prir. vate gifts France's contribution will exceed 100,000 volumes A bandit named Pierre RJsboff brutally attacked a woman with a hammer ill her apartments at Nice. He then barricaded himself in the' building and fought the police for 24 hours. He killed a telegraph messenger and a policeman with a revolver. The file brigade tried to dislodge him with hoses, and finally the police hurled gas bombs into the building. The bandit then surrendered. Mr J. H. Thomas, M.P., general secretary of the National Union of Railwaymen, has brought an action for libel against the Labour Press Limited, and. the editor and publisher of the newspaper "Communist.", Counsel for Mr Thomas said that by words and oartoons the paper had alleged that Mr Thomas was a traitor movement which he professed to lead, and that ha was deliberately vrying to betray those who trusted him. The alleged libels related to tho coal strike negotiations. Advices from Madras state that the Government in a communique refutes a Press report that tho Moplah prisoners mentioned recently, .in tho throes of asphyxiation bit each other so severely in all parts of the body that some of the corpses were mangled beyond recognition. It ha? ascertained that the statement is entirely false On the other hand all the medical officers who examined the corpses agree that there were no external marks of violence excepting a few scratches.