GOOD PROGRESS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLVIII, Issue XLVIII, 29 May 1914, Page 5

GOOD PROGRESS

(IT NIAGARA PEACE CONFERENCE

ONLY I XTERN'AL QUESTIONS LEFT for discission. (Press Association. —Copyright.) (Receive,-1 Mav 29. 8.15 .a.m.) WASHINGTON. May 28. Good progress is being made with, the negotiations at the Niagara Falls, and it is expected that a peace protocol will be opened within a- week. The delegates attended a garden party which the Duke of Connaug-ht gave at Toronto. It- is understood that only internal questions are now under discussion, and that there is a. likelihood of these being disposed of by a series of recommendations to the incoming Provisional Government.

A GERMAN" GUN-RUNN'ER DETAINED. VERA CRUZ. May 28. A. 'German eteamcr lauded arms for the Mexicans. General Funston thereupon arrested the vessel as having no manifest. It is not expected that further action will be taken, as the United States agreed to the suspension of hostilities during the Peace Conference. It- is expected that the vessel will merely be fined for being without a manifest. 11 CERT A TO RE DEPOSED. FI! ESH ELECTIONS TO BE HELD. (Received Mav 29, 12,30 p.m.) / NEW YO.R K. May 28. The Peace Conference lias arranged to transfer the executive power in Mexico from Huer'ta to an unnamed provisional president acting in conjunction with fiiui' Cabinet Ministers:. Th-e.se "will arrange new elections. The United States pledges recognition .thereof, thus simplifying the task. AMMUNITION SHIP PROM JAPAN. (Received Mav 29. 12.30 p.m.) NEW YORK. May 28. A Japanese cruiser is reported to be convoying an ammunition shin from Japan to Mexico. Huerta ordered arms and ammunition from Japan months age;. It is understood that American warships will not interfere. The career of General Villa, who is the military genius of the so-called

"Constitutionalists" in Mexico, is an appalling record of torture and murder. 'He was born at Las Nieves in the State of Durango, about the year 1868. He is wholly uneducated, 'being nnable to read and barely able to sign his name. .About- the year 1882, whfcn only 14 years of age, he was sentenced to a. term of imprisonment for cattle-steal-ing. On his discharge, he settled in the mining camp of Guanacevi, where a few months later he underwent another sentence of imprisonment- for homicide. When he came -nut of prison for the second time he organised a baud of robbers, which had their headquarters in the mountainous region of "Perico," in the State of Durango, and were the terror of all that district-. In the year 1907 he was in partnership with one Francisco Reza, stealing cattle in Chihuahua, and selling them in the United States, and then stealing horses and mules in the United States and selling them in Chihuahua. In consequence of some disagreement he shot and killed Tieza in broad daylight, while sitting in the plaza in the City of Chihuahua. He joined Madero's revolution,, uniting his band with L'rbina's column. In Janu ary, 1911, he was at Casas Grandes, Chihuahua, where, he killed Carlos Alatorre and Luis Ortiz for refusing to pay him the money he demanded for their ransom. Aftei; the triumph of tlx« revolution, Villa, in November, 1911, obtained a monopoly from the then Governor of Chihuahua for the sale of meat in the city of Chihuahua. which he procured by stealing cattle from the neighbouring farms. In t'lie early part of May, 1913, Villa, with 75 men, assaulted' a train at Baeza State of Chihuahua, that was carrying bars of gold and silver valued at ICO.OOO pesos, killing the crew and several passengers. Towards the end of the month Villa's 'band t-ook the town of Sta. Rosalia. Chihuahua, shooting all prisoners and treating the principal officers with terrible cruelty. Villa has s'hot in Chihuahua 150 non-combatants, the gTeater number being poor people, who could not leave for want of means, or because they thought they ran no risks, as t'hey took no part, in politics. All the people in any way connected with the Government, had left before Villa entered tlie citv.