NEWS AND NOTES.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXXVII, Issue 150, 17 July 1903, Page 1

NEWS AND NOTES.

1 The Fremantle (W.A.) Harbour Board ! showed for the half-year ended June 30th • a net profit of £22,517, after paying all . initial working expenses and cost of main--3 tenance. 5 Not very long ago an agent purchased some imported plants of Odontoglossum crispum at the rate of la 6d each. Finding no buyers for his remaining dozen or ; two of plants, he placed this remnant in > the hands of a grower. One of these '■> plants turned out to be a horticultural i gem "of the first water, and was sold for } £1006. r For seriously assaulting his wife, who • had the day previously come out of the lying-in hospital, by throwing a chair at ' her and damaging her eye, and beating J her about the body with a poker, William Baker (thirty-five), a coal porter, ' was sentenced at Guildhall (London) to ' twenty-one days hard labour. Detective . sergeant Bareham said that he had ascortained from the neighbours that the prisorer's conduct towards his wife was most brutal. [ Mine. Gerschoff, the wife of a Bulgarian ' officer stationed at Kaibilari, on the Turko-Bulgaiian frontier, and who was 1 then only 22 years of age, was of such ' surpassing beauty that her fame spread throughout the neighbouring districts. One day; whon her bnsband wob away at the manoeuvres a number of Turks enter- ; ed the house, which was at some distance i from any other dwellings, seized Mdnie* Gcrschoff, and carried her off across the Turkish frontier. A sorvant witnessed the capture, but was unablo to do anything but alarm the police, who were powerless as soon as Mdme. Gerskoff had been conveyed into Turkish territory. Theßtflgflrion G-overnmont took the matj r«r mi"/ but MmU Gewchoff had disap* peared, ana H9 trHeeg tff bet could bd fOuuu #is now knoWll &** *&* iretS conveyed to Conßtan^nC"] 6 ; and B< > ld *° a wealthy Turk fof .£2OO by the brigonoo who hfld kldtftpped her. Bho became ftn inmate -of the Turk's harem, and fem&itiod in a Bondage Iwse, . thttn death for seven years, tilt the 1 chnncft visit of ,& Russian female doctor to the harem gave her an opportunity of escape. This lady had been summoned to attend another inmate of the harem, and Mme. Gerachoff i confided hor Btory to her. The lady ' doctor, at the risk of her own safety, helped Mme. Gerschoff to escape, and took her to the Eussian Consulate in Constantinople. The Eussian Consul put her on the K\issian steamer Oleg, which landod her at the Bulgarian port of Burgas, whore the authorities took charge of her and sent her back to her home. There is a growing demand for bicyclea in China, and the United States Consul ftt Newchwang, in his report just issued, calls tho attention of American cycle manufacturers to the new market for their wares. Au amusing feature of the report is the warning that there is no demand for meu'B bicycles, but only for the ladies' type of machine, as the native 1 costume demands a dropped frame. The modern pneumatic bicycle, it 6eouis, ha» three great disadvantages oil Chinese roads ; the pneun fe-ic tyro is peculiarly subject to puncture, and is hard to repair ; the pedals are hung too low, and strike obstacles, such as stones and rough ground j and the chain gets full of grifc-