COMMONWEALTH NEWS.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 14 August 1928, Page 5

COMMONWEALTH NEWS.

CANE GROWER MURDERED

(United Press Association —By Electric Telegraph Copyright.) (Australian Press Association.) BRISBANE, Aug. 13. An Italian cane-grower named Pnttanic lia,® l>een shot dead bv an unknown assailant near Innisfail. The motive is unknown and the murderer haw decamped.

CONVICTION FOR MURDER QU ASHED.

ADELAIDE, Aug. 13

The Court of Criminal Appeal quashed; the conviction of Johann Thiele for the murder of his wife, substituting conviction for manslaughter. Thiele was sentenced to life imprisonment with hard labour.

WOMAN IMPRISONED FOR ASSAULT. BRISBANE, Aug. 13. For wounding the wife of her ''over, Edith Eileen Ramsay, a single woman, aged 34, was today (sentenced to four years’ imprisonment with hard la,hour. The prosecution stated that Ramsay was enamoured; of the victim’s husband’, and when lie was away working •she attacked 'her with a razor and- a hammer.

IMPORTATTON OF CHINESE. DARWIN, Aug. 13. Mr H. G. Nelson, member of the Federal Parliament for Northern Territories, makes startling allegations concerning the importation of Chinese into Australia, asserting that high oflicatalhs are ■implicated and that the Customs Department has obtained sworn declarations concerning the charges and has forwarded them to headquarters.

CLVII,, COAL CONTRACTS INQUIRY. SYDNEY, Aug. 33. The civic coal contracts inquiry was resumed to-day, when evidence was called in .support of the allegations of Byrnes, Ltd., that regular monthly payments were made to an officer or officers of the City Council for six or eight years from 1914. 'The hearing was- adjourned. SEQUEL TO’ INQUIRY. SYDNEY, Aug. 13. Arthur Herbert Albert, one of the prominent witnesses in the recent graft cases, clid not defend his wife’s suit for divorce, which was granted to-day, on the grounds' of misconduct with Martha Gordon, another graft case witness, and Albert’s, secretary.

AN OLD' MAN MURDERED. Reoetivod 10.30 a.m. to-day. ADELAIDE, Aug. 14. Fred Brooks, aged sixty years, was murdered by the blacks of Cent ral Australia in the Alice Springs area, llis head was partly buried tin a rabbit burrow. The aborigines to-kl Brooks’s black boys to say nothing. The murdered man left Alice Springs on June 13 on a dingo .sealijwiig expendition.