ADDITIONAL CABLES.

Evening Star, Issue 15074, 4 January 1913, Page 12

ADDITIONAL CABLES.

The following cables appeared on December 24, 26, and 27 in Australian paper* employing the. independent Press cable service:

A law has been passed by the French Parliament adding 10 regiments to the French armv.

An outbreak of plague has occurred-on the island of Mauritius. Twenty-one deaths from plague took place in one week. The Colonial Office has communicated with the Oversea. Dominions.regarding the creation of a bureau of entomology. Over 200,000 insects have already been collected, and 60,000 of them are actual or potential disease-carriers. It is proposed to organise a system for the prompt identification of injurious insects, and to publish a monthly periodical. Portugal is becoming more and more perturbed every day. Political prisoners are now compelled to wear hoods covering their heads and faces, holes being cut for the e.yee. The President has asked the Premier to permit the banished priests to return, but the Premier, believing that the priests are hostile to the Republic, has refused readniission. He has promised reform in the matter of the hoods.

Despite the prevalence of storms the French submarine Volta travelled 800 miles without stopping. The whole of the journey took place' under water. The manoeuvres which recently took place in the North Sea demonstrated that submarines would have much the better of an engagement with torpedo boats, although the seas might bo heavy. The naval authorities consider that the guarding of the channel is assured, even if the rest of the squadron is absent. Nine men who were working near the furnace of an oil-driven steamer at Nev-castle-on-Tync met with a terrible accident on Christmas night The men were getting ths boilers ready for a trial run, when a withering sheet of flame burst out of the furnace and enveloped them. All were severely burnt, and had to be taken to the hospital. Their condition is serious.

In response to requests by the Berlin 'Tageblatt' for their views, a number of medical men, business men, and artists agree that a man,at 50 years of age is no older than at 40, and is much mjre useful. A party of lumberjacks camped on Lake Bemidji, near Brainerd, on the Mississippi River, turned the Christmas holiday into a period of brutal passion. The men had been drinking wood alcohol, and had worked themselves into an insane fury. Two came to blows. They seized their lumber axes and hacked at each other like maniacs. The duel inflamed the onlookers, and they took sides, so that the struggle developed into a desperate hand-to-hand battle. Every'man used his,lumber axe whirling it in his alcohol-maddened strength like a small stick. . Every blow caused death or a frightful wound. The snow-covered ground was red with blood. Fourteen men were killed outright, their heads being split open by axe-blows, and many others were seriously wounded. The Archbishop of Canterbury has issued a circular letter stating that a special committee has been constituted to arrange a conference to consider questions touching the faith and oider of Christian communities throughout the worici. Tin, American Anglican Church is working in concert with the proposal, and it is hoped that other denominations wiil join in. There are indications iii Canada that th» Liberal party will have a majority in the Upper Chamber, and may reject the naval proposals, ine country is overwhelmingly in favor of the policy, and the Government are determined to press the grant for the three battleships without any modifications.

Ihe biograph craze has been responsible for many things, and the clever burglary now has to be added to the list. A Parisian"suburb was the scene of the comedy. A party of men accosted a constable outside the villa of a well-known banker, and produced a letter authorising them to take a moving picture, and askinothe guardians of the law to prevent the public disturbing the actors. The officer acquiesced, and the photographers, with their cameras, took up their positions. Two men, dressed up as burglars, placed a ladder to one of the windows, clambered up, broke, the glass, and got in. Other men, clad as policemen, got ready to apprehend their friends as soon as they came out, and when the two burglars appeared with sacks crammed with spoil a realistic struggle took place in the garden between picture thieves and picture police. Real officers who had come up to witness the scene stood by and vigorously, applauded, giving the supposed mock policemen hint's as to the best way of getting jiu-jitsu grips on the miscreants. This sort of thing went on for a while, and then the biograph men packed up their traps, bade the genuine police farewell, and went away. The following morning the banker complained to the authorities that £6,000 worth of valuables had been stolen from his villa.