NEWS BY MAIL.

Hokitika Guardian, 27 May 1929, Page 3

NEWS BY MAIL.

j. INVENTION BY CONVICTS. SPARE-TIME Work in gaol. NEW YORK, April G. Two' convicts in Baltimore GaolFrank Alters, a- member'of a notorious murder gang, and Raymond Scott, a highwayman—have employed their solitary' leisure in the invention of a hydraulic power- plant which is said to produce electricity for almost nothing.' ;** j They received tlie news in their cells yesterday that the Government has grunted them a patent. \ Scott, who had large experience in electric power p.ans before he ,took to highway robbery, ; supplied .practical knowledge. Alters, ‘who had made hydraulic*/ '.power a hobby' was tlie theorist. Both worked during the day in the prison furniture factory. At night they experimented in their cells, being allowed to pass books, plans, and. blue prints back and forth under supervision of the warders. When all the blue prints were ready they sent "them to a Washington attorney, who had a working model made, securing the convicts a patent for the device, which, they assert, will reduce the electricity bill of the gaol from £14,000 to £2OO a year. COFFIN IN CRUISER. FRENCH HONOUR TO LATE MR HERRICK. PARIS, April G. France paid .a la,st moving, tribute to-day to Air Myron T. Hetrick, the late American Ambassador. The route along which the cortege passed from the American Embassy to the American Cathedral was lined with infantry, cavalry, arid artillery. 1 General Pershing, Commander-in Chief of tiie United States forces during the war, delivered at the Embassy a sh'M*t farewell address. No Ajnerican hr* said had over interpreted better the feelings and thoughts of the French people than Air Herrick. .M. Poincare, the Premier in a speech delivered with marked emotion, recalled -Mr Herrick’s long diplomatic career in Paris. He declined, said AL Poincare, to assume the role at the outbreak of the war of acting for German nationals in France, and instead took upon himseJF personal responsibility for protecting the citizens and. monuments of Paris in the event of a German occupation. M. Poincare, M. Briarnl, the Foreign Minister, Senor Quinones de Loon ;jj e Spansih Ambassador, General Pershing, Mr Owen T. Young, chairman of the Reparations Conference, and Mr J. P. Morgan, the banker acted as pall bearers. This evening tlie coffin was escoited from the American Catherdal to Montparnasse Station, where it was placed in a special train for Brest. ___