LUGGAGE THAT VANISHED.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18897, 20 December 1924, Page 22 (Supplement)

LUGGAGE THAT VANISHED.

AMERICAN WOMAN'S DRESSES £850 DAMAGES AWARDED. A rich American woman, Miss Gladys Waterbury, who left her luggage at a London hotel while she went to Paris and returned to find that her belongings had been handed to someone else brought an action in the Court lately. The plaintiff, who is a daughter of Mr. John Waterbury, the New York banker, was awarded £850 damages ' and costs against the Hyde Park Hotel, Ltd., for negligence. The luggage had been handed to a man who produced a note purporting to come from Miss Waterbury. The man was later sent to prison for theft, Miss Waterbury giving evidence. Miss Waterbury said she vaiued the contents of two hold-alls at £100. They included valuable lace, lacquer cigarette and match boxes, picture frames, and letter cases. Mr. Joy, K.C., cross examining: Rumour has it that when American visitors are out shopping over here prices have a tendency to rise ? "Yes, ' I suppose they do," replied Miss Waterbury. Mr. Joy: I expect you do the same to us over there ?

Miss Watcrbury: Oh, we are treated like that at home as well as abroad. In reply to another question she .said she was very unbusinesslike in regard to money matters; "but this," she added, "has been a good lesson to me." Mr. Joy: I see you charge £30 for eight pairs of old shoes. Miss Waterhury: Shoes were very dear just after the war: 1 could not Ret this kind I wanted for less than £5 10s. a pair. I had quite 15 silk jumpers, for whirl) I paid £4 4s. or £5 ss. each. Mr. Joy said that the question raised was of enormous importance to hotelkeepers, who did not. profess to be experts in the handwriting of people who stayed there or to know their faces.

out of service last year she was hard put to it to hold her own with those giant vessels, the Majestic and Leviathan. So when she was laid up for turbine repairs, it was decided to change her bunkers into oil tanks and replace the fireman's shovel by the oil spray. -, ,

This change does not mean an increase in horsepower, which still remains at the original 70,000, but it does mean that the steam pressure can he maintained uninterruptedly from port to port. There is no fall of pressure, as in the case of coal burning, when half a dozen boilers at a time lose their steam while the firedoors are open and clinkers are being cleaned out of the grates. Rebladed and oil-fired, the breaking of her long-standing record was to be expected, and an analysis of her record trip of 5 days 1 hour and 49 minutes to Cherbourg showed that, under favourable conditions of wind and sea, the Mauritania was due to cut the time below five days. On the third day out the Mauretania averaged 27.04 knots, and on the last day she ran the 189 miles from Bishop's Rock to Cherbourg at an average speed of 27.72 knots, the tide, of course, being in her favour. Word later came of another record, made between New York and Plymouth, of 4 days 21 hours and 57 minutes. On this occasion letters mailed in New York were delivered in London within 6 days.