NEWS BY MAIL.

Hokitika Guardian, 5 January 1921, Page 1

NEWS BY MAIL.

U.S. BRIBE CHARGES

NEW YORK, Nov. 4

For some weeks the New York World lias been promising surprising revelations in connection with the building “ring,” which is blamed for the delay in the erection of dwelling-houses, of which no vacant ones are available in New York, but that the revelations would be as staggering as those now being made before the Joint Legislative Committee at the town hall was scarcely expected. The Building Trades Council, which controls all the workmen, is really a

‘‘one-man show” run and ruled by Mr Robert P. Brindell, who eight years ago was a chemist’s clerk. With 2s a month from each member he now enjoys £6.000 a year plus perquisites which may amount to any sum.

Yesterday Air Ephraim Levy, a big builder, explained reluctantly that he had paid £5,000, “which was to he paid to Mr Brindell and, I think, his committee.” The go-between in this transaction was Air George Backer, a wealthy builder and estate agent engaged by AllLevy to superintend his £400,0(H) job. After payment, a strike by the men on this job was called olf. Mr Bracken, in the witness-box, admitted receiving the £5,000 in two instalments, which he paid to “a couple of strangers. He added they were members of the “Grafters’ Union,” that they “might have been burglars,” and looked like ex-working men. All the documents in Mr Hcttrick’s office had been seized by the authorities. BRIDE HUNTS THIEVES. BERLIN, November 4. A young bride while motoring to join her husband at Lilian was robbed of her entire tiioussean, jewellery, and motor-car by highwaymen, who held her up in a forest near Alemol, outside tln i north-east corner of East Prussia.

Determined to rout out the gang, she searched resolutely through the entire district and came across one of the robbers at a local railway station. She had him arrested, and his confession led to the capture of his confederates and much stolen property, including the missing trousseau. A BRILLIANT BOY. NEW YORK, November I. Edward Rochic Hardy, 12 of New York, who is the youngest hoy ever in Columbia University, is said to he a master of 12 languages. His hobby outside languages is Assyrian and Babylonian history, during the study of which he mastered ancient hieroglyphic tablets.

*John Stuart Mill began to learn Greek at three and could read Latin and Greek easily at eight. Macaulay wrote a “Compendium of Universal History” before he was eight. FIFTH AVENUE MANSIONS. NEW YORK. November 4.

Millionaires and other wealthy citizens who cherish ancestral homos in Fifth-avenue, the best residential thoroughfare in New York, and other fashionable districts, but live most of the time elswhore, are more than embarrassed by the action of the Socialist members of New York’s Board of Aldermen.

On behalf of the “homeless proletariat'' — for the housing shortage is more acute in New York than anywhere else in Fifth-avenue and in Murray Hill quarter (an exclusive residential district between Madison-square and the Grand Central terminus) and in Riverside drive, beside Riverside Park, overlooking the Hudson, there are some 250 mansions occupied only by caretakers. These have from 20 to more than 100 rooms t >nch and could house, according to Du* aldermen. 10,000 people. The Socialist aldermen have introduced a Involution empowering the board t<> declare Ibe bolding of empty house property that can be used as dwellings a public nuisance and providing huge penalties for the recalcitrant.