GENERAL CABLE NEWS

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 15123, 14 October 1912, Page 9

GENERAL CABLE NEWS

FROM AUSTRALIAN PArER!

SIS CORNTHWAITE RASON. Tire Bankruptcy Court in London is at present investigating the affairs of Sir Comthwailo Rason, formerly Agcnt-Gene-rni for West Australia. A statement disclosed that the liabilities amounted to £8000. and that the assets were a negligible quantity. Bankrupt, however, has an annual, income of £1200, derived from the fees he receives as a director of various companies.

LOYAL THREE HUNDRED Three hundred Englishmen living in Seattle, most, of whom have adopted American citizenship, travelled for five hours as- far as Victoria, British Columbia, in order to assure the Duke of Connaught (hat they wore still animated by a feeling of affection for the British Hag and throne. The Duke shook hands with every member of the party, and chatted to them for a while, expressing the liveliest sentiment of admiration at their action.

MEDICINE AS A PROFESSION. Dr. W. Hunter, dean of Charing Cross Medical School, has pointed out that tho cost of medical education is rising, wliilo the number of students entering the profession is steadily decreasing. He declares that the small number of young men now embracing medicine as a. profession reflects the feeling of instability created among the medical fraternity by recent legislation.

USES OF RADIUM. Dr. Lazarus Barrow, director of tho Cancer Research Laboratories in London, says that in the not very far distant future radium will be utilised, not only to combat cancer, but also for tho treatment of bacterial diseases. It is uncertain at present whether its nee is entirely destructive of flesh tissues. Large, doses might destroy where smaller doses would stimulate.

CAREERS FOR WOMEN. In a paper read by her before the National Union of Women Workers, Miss Dorothea Baird (Mrs. H. R. Irving), the well-known actress, said that, the stage was the only career in which women started on an absolute equality. Mrs. Irving further stated tliat in* England nearly every profession -was overcrowded. but that in the colonies women would find full scope and an interesting life if they had the courage to break away from old associations.,

PRISONERS AS FARMERS. The provincial Government in Ontario is now turning a largo area of land into a prison farm, on which every form of husbandly and various industrial enterprises will bo undertaken. This idea of prison labour being employed on farms and orchards is chiefly intended as a social experiment, but it is also designed deliberately to produce sound economic results.

GREAT NEED OF THE PRESENT DAY

In an address before the Church Congress at Middlesborough the Dean of Manchester (Dr. Welldon). declared that one of the great needs of the present day was to invest government in tho eyes of the people with something like divine sanction. It was impossible to help seeing that reverence for law and authority was decaying. He added that tho character of citizens was of supreme interest to the Church, for it was religion that created good citizens, who were worth more than Dreadnoughts.

PARLIAMENT OP PRIESTS. The prediction that the fourth Duma would be largely composed of priests has been borne out. The laymen in the House are outnumbered by the clerics by two to one. The newspapers sarcastically remark that tho electoral law will either have to be altered or the Premiership ceded to tho procurator of the Synod.

MIRACLES ON TRIAL. la tho course of a. discussion on miracles at the Church Congress at Middlesborough tho Ilev. Stewart Headlani, a •well-known clerical author, urged that miracles should not bo disbelieved because evidence regarding them was bad. But nu other grounds belief eeemed difficult. . The performance of a miraclo only meant supremacy to an extraordinary" degreo of the .spiritual force in the world over the more material force. Canon Kennedy, alluding to the criticism of Jesus and "the Divine performance of miracles, said that the critics, even if they had satisfied themselves that they had got.' rid of the story of a miracle, were unable to got rid of the miracle of tho storv.

SHELLEY LETTER BRINGS £155. An original letter written by tho poet Shelley, stating that ho was not responsible for Byron's religious beliefs, was disposed of in a London sale-room for £155. An' autograph letter of Washington's fetched £15, and 18 lines in Thackeray's handwriting was sold for £10.

FROZEN LIVE ANIMALS. The results of experiments carried out by Professor Bachmetleff, of Moscow University, have proved that animals may be frozen alive and resuscitated without being "harmed vitally. Tho process is called anabiosis. Tho professor showed that by slow, careful, warming, frozen butterflies could bo restored to life, and that cold-blooded insects would live again if their body temperature did not fall below minus lOdeg. centigrade. Experiments with mammals were nearly all successful, and a refrigerated bat was kept inanimate for a long time, and then completely restored to vigour.

JAPANESE GIRL STOLEN. Henry Young, a former law student, and Saito, an interpreter, have been imprisoned at, Seattle without being allowed bail, on a charge of abducting Hana Sato, a Japanese girl, 20 years old, for immoral purposes. Tho prosecution alleges that Young, who posed as a Government official, and the Japanese, compelled the girl to go to San Francisco, where she was to be" sold for 500dols.

MILLIONAIRE DROPS DEAD. A millionaire member of a firm in Moscow dropped dead on being told that his brother had decamped with £75,000 from the funds of the firm.

AN INTERNATIONAL COURT.

In the course of a lecture Sir William P.ann Kennedy, one of tho Lords of Appeal, advocated tho creation of a permanent international court in which could be gradually evolved a recognised system of international law. If the Powers agreed to the establishment of such a tribunal its cost, ho said, would not amount to that of a modern battleship.

BOY MURDERS HIS MOTHER. John Whitaker, 12 years old, murdered his mother at Pocatello, Indiana. The boy had been asked to help do the family washing, and when he refused his mother thrashed him. "You won't do that again to me," said the boy, and picking up his father's shot-gun he fired both barrels pointblank in his mother's face, killing her instantly. Whitaker then rode away, carrying the gun with him.

SAFETY AT SEA. During the debate in the House of Commons regarding the proposed regulations affecting life-saving appliances—following upon the loss of tho Titanic—it was stated that there had been a vast reduction in tho loss of life, notwithstanding the enormous expansion in the tonnage of the White Star Company's fleet, which had carried 7,000,000 passengers out of Liverpool without losing any of them. It- was claimed

that rafts were better than lifeboats. Mr. R. 0. Holt, M.P.. a member of the firm that owns the Holt line, of steamships, argued that if it became imperative to improve ship construction so as to> attain greater safety the. charges would be thrust upon tho shipowners, who would inevitably pass them on to the public. Lord Charles Bcresforxl contended that it was of the utmost importance that a ship' should be built to float at long as possible after an accident, because of the value of her lifesaving appliances depended upon this.

LITTLE GIRLS MURDERED. George Spendler, a labourer, Iras confessed; to the police at Detroit, Michigan, to being the author of a number of fiend-ishly-inspired murders of liltlo girls. Spendler first confessed that he murdered Helen Brown, 11 -years of age. three years ago. While under arrest he confessed to having also murdered Matilda Reis, whose body was found near her home last Tuesday, and a negro girl, whoso mutilated corpse was discovered a month ago.

AN ACCUSING FINGER. A burglar was traced bv the Swiss police hi a peculiar manner. He had broken into a- store in Berne, and had forced open a sate. The door closed again accidentally, cutting off Ids little linger. Afterwards the burglar went to a hospital for treatment, but in the meantime tho police had found the finger ii? tho safe, and were watching the infirmaries in anticipation of the man seekjng assistance. He was arrested, and the finger as found to correspond exactly with the stump on his hand.

REVOLUTIONARY FASHIONS. Robespierre fashions for the winter are now all the rage. Every fashionable showroom is displaying models of dresses which are designed on tho fashions which were in vogue, at the time of the French Rcvolut,°?" "Robespierre" blouses, overcoats, and collars are being worn everywhere in fashionable quarters. Even men's clothing has been affected by the craze. Waistcoats are cut low, and are of brilliant colours, making the wearers look like the dandies of the 18th centurv. Robespierre was one of tho leaders of the French Revolution, and was noted for the carefulness of his dress, which never varied. He wore a- bright blue coat, white waistcoat, short yellow breeches, white stockings. ,and shoes with silver buckles.

SUN FIRES A WOMAN'S DRESS

-An extraordinary occurrence is reported from New York, A woman was standing m tho porch of a chapel in that citv when the rays of the sun, passing through the lens of a, lamp that she was holding m her hand, scorched a hole in her skirt. Realising that'her dress was on fire, the woman rushed into the street screaming, but her rapid flight- onlv served to fan tho flames, and make her situation much worse. Some bystanders who hastened to the rescue finally succeeded in smothering the burning garments, but not before the unlucky woman was badly burned about the bod v.

SELF-OONFESSED DEFAULTER, The police at Oakland (San Francisco) have in custody a man for whose arrest a warrant was issued in New South Wales some months ago. and whose case possesses some, rather sensational features. The fugitive surrendered himself to the. police. and subsequently made a. startling confession. He declared that lie had robbed the Commonwealth Government of £15,000. In the early part of the Year he was a clerk to the Roval Australian Artillery in Sydney,'and while employed in that capacity took £5000 from the office safe. He further asserts that he afterwards cashed a draft for £10,000, and then fled from Sydney. He came to San Francisco to escape a woman, but had not been there very long before he suddenly found himself confronted by her while strolling leisurely through one of the city street*. She threatened to expose him and all his misdeeds. The alleged defaulter says he thereupon decided to surrender himself to the polio?. The military authorities in Sydney have no knowledge of the extensive" frauds described in the foregoing message. A warrant has been issued for the arrest, on a charge of desertion, of a man who was formerly a drive; m the Royal Australian Artillery, and who is believed to have gone to America; but whether this person is identical with tho one who baa been telling tho Oakland police of all Che thousands of which he robbed tho Commonwealth Government, remains to be seen. There is not tho slightest doubt that the story cabled has been related to the American police, and the only explanation that suggests itself is that the man who has been telling it either wanted to make a sensation or to trump up a charge on which there would be a chance of his being extradited to Sydney. There has never yet been. ! £5000 in the safe at the barracks, while no official there could possibly embezzle such a sum as £15,0(^0.