NEAR AND FAR.

Evening Star, Issue 15140, 24 March 1913, Page 9

NEAR AND FAR.

At the Prohibition Convention at Palmerston North it was agreed to urge each electorate to push the democratic pledge campaign so as to have at least 10,000 pledged voters by the opening of Parliament, and that all the energies of the party should be concentrated upon this issue, it being of the most urgent immediate importance to the cause. A death compact was recently carried out_ under terrible circumstances in Paris. A woman named Carriers had for five years suffered terrible pain as the 'result of a spinal complaint, and to end her sufferings she came to an agreement with her husband, a laborer, that he should kill her, and then commit suicide. They seut their 17-year-old son to sleep with a relative, and during the night the husband strangled his wife in bed, and then hanged himself in an adjoining room. The tragedy was discovered by the son on his return home in the morning. An incident similar to several which occurred during the "rational dress" campaign of the late Lady Harberton, occurred in New York on'the morning of February 5, whom the waiters at the fashionable Plaza Hotel refused to serve a lady attired in riding costume. The lady was Countess Eienora do Cisnero, who had been riding in the park, and who on her way back stopped at the Plaza for a cup of tea. Wearing a neat riding costume with a divided skirt, walked into the grill room, but the waiters declared '[that they could not servo anyone so habited. The manager supported his subordinates, and the countess depared considerably annoyed. A test case will probably be take n to ascertain whether hotelkeepers have any right to dictate to their patrons on matters of dress, and society people are greatly interested in the result. The Lower House of the Wyoming Legislature broke up (says a> Reuter message from Cheyenne) after a disgraceful general fight with fists over the rival claims of two presiding officers. Following a heated altercation one pitched the other from the platform. This was the signal for the supporters of the -respective claimants to rally round their leaders, and the turmoil which followed resulted in manv black eyes and torn collars. After" threequarters of an hour one of the most respected members of the Legislature, while trying to act as peacemaker, received a kick in the stomach, which stretched him _on the floor. This caused the belligerents to pause, and the House adjourned. The controversy which gave rise to the trouble remained undecided. Lucie Aliaigre, a French girl, aged 20, recently murdered her mother, at Annecy, because she would not allow her to become a nun in a convent. The crime was premeditated and carefully arranged, so that for months the police misled. The fact that the daughter, though visiting the cemetery every day, never approached her mother's grave gave a clue to the mystery, and finally she confessed. On •January 30, after a long trial, the young woman was found guilty, and sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment. The accused, who looked like a mm in her severe black clothes, swooned on hearing her sentence. Captain George Rutherford, of Blyth, Northumberland (England), master of the 'Newcastle steamer Medomsley, relates in a letter to the owner an extraordinary experience while in the neighborhood of the Dardanelles on the morning of December 16. He says that, while awaiting admittance to the Dardanelles, "we unexpectedly found ourselves in the middle of a naval battle between Turkish and Greek fleets. There were seven steamers hove-to 'when the fight started. We were all lying with our steam back, and watching the men-of-war chasing round us, when suddenly they started to fight. They gave us.no warning, and for fully an hour their shells were bursting j within a ship's breadth of the Medomsle,v, and shrapnel was dropping like J hailstones over the cargo boats. Every- j body found it advisable to got under i cover. One shell bursting near the Medomsley blew a fragment down j through the hatches of our hold. This lasted an hour. Then the Turks went | back into the Dardanelles. We then made to enter, for safety, but they ' would not allow us in for about two hours, keeping us back by firing cannon shots across our bows from the shore forts. Two huge balls again fell near the MedomsloyV bows, we being the first to cuter the Skaita."

In the Supreme Court at Mastertou last w-eek a case, was heard in wJnon William Henry Jackson; headmaster of the Mastertou District High School, claimed from Douglas Moore Graham, printer and publisher of the Wairarapa 'Daily Times,' £6OO damages for alleged libel. Three distinct actions were brought against the defendant newspaper; firstly, that defendant falsely and maliciously published an anonymous letter stating that plaintiff was ineligible to be a member of the Trust Lands Trust, being personally and financially interested; secondly, that defendant maliciously and falsely published a. leading article asserting that the plaintiff had no business to be a memoer of tho said Trust Lands Trust, the position being anomalous, hj not illegal, as he was directly interested in the discussions taking place on the said Trust; thirdly, that defendant made a malicious reference to plaintiff in connection with the School Committee, stating that plaintiff was unduly influenced. The hearing occupied the greater part of two days. The jurv. after a retirement of three and a'-half hours returned a verdict for defendant on the first and third counts, and for plaintiff on the second count, with -£°o damages. The question of costs was reserved. Ten days were granted, on the application of defendant's counsel, in which to apply for a non-suit or a new trial. A Remuera resident, says the Auckland Herald,' reports having observed what he took to be an airship in the avis* of l'riday evening. Mr James Hemphill, who resides with his son-in-law m Brighton road, Remuera, states that on 1< nday, at about 6 p.m., he was on the balcony of his house. His attention was attracted by an object in ' the sky towards Tiri—due north from where he was watching. He observed its-movements for a full halfrhour the mysterious object, which Mr Hemphill is convinced was nn airship, alternately rising and falling. He watched it through a pair of glasses, the supposed airship being easily visible except when hidden for a few minutes behind a cloud. Mr Hemphill, who savs lie was unable to make out any details of : the aerial craft, called his grandson to watch it, too. When he returned, subsequent to fetching some other people, to witness the unusual sight, the object had "disappeared.