HOME AND FOREIGN NEWS

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1802, 19 September 1906, Page 18

HOME AND FOREIGN NEWS

TRAIN LEAPS A PRECIPICE.

One of the most thrilling accidents in Wegtem American railway history occurred on July 23 on the shore of Diamond Lake, thirty miles from Spokane. The Great Northern Railway line there runs over a series of ledges and through a number of tunnnels along the face or the cliffs skirting the lake. From the railway edge a precipice falls a sheer 70ft. to the water’s edge, and continues 500 ft. beneath the surface, the lake being one of the deepest on the American continent.

The west-bound express was „ from a tunnel and running at full speed round a curve, when the engine jumped the rails, which are said to have been displaced by heat expansion. It struck the cliff side, and then, rebounding, plunged over the precipice, dragging the tender and the express and smoking cars after it, and disappeared in the depths beneath. The rear cars were wrecked, but fortunately kept their foothold on the line ledge. Seven of their passengers were severely injured, and more than twenty suffered from cuts and bruises, but in this section of the train there was no loss of life.

Of seven people on the engine and in the cars which plunged into the lake no sign or trace remained. The still waters closed over them as they sank to the depths, where divers were unable to descend. The dead are mostly the train and mail officials.

Jl coroner on the sale OF PAX TENT medicines.

An inquiry into the cause of the death of a child who had eaten part of the contents of a bottle of Easton's syrup tabloids was held at Wandsworth t on July 21. The medical evidence went to .show that the tabloids contained strychnine in such quantity that one tabloid would be enough to kill an infant of the age of the deceased —eighteen months. The deputymanager of the well-known firm of Burroughs, Wellcome -and C 0... the manufacturers of the tabloids, testified that each of them contained one thirty-sec-ond of a grain of strychnine in combination with iron and other non-poisonous ingredients. The tabloids were not put up in regular poison bottles lest patients should be afraid to use them. Easton’s syrup was recognised by medical men as a standard tonic. A medical man testified that one quarter of a grain of strychnine might prove a fatal do<se for an adult. The jury returned a verdict of accidental death, the coroner in conclusion mating the extraordinary remark that as the State derived a big revenue from the sale of patent medicines —although these tabloids were not such — that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would be alarmed at the notion that peosple should give up their U6e and always consult doctors.

OF CHINA ON THE RAND.

According to a statement made bv Sir Richard Solomon in the Legislative Council of the Transvaal on July 25, the avjrage number of Chinese labourers in that country for the year ending June 30 last was 47,000. During the same period there had been among these men 13000 convictions for offences against the laws. 1130 of these being for desertion, six for murder, and eleven for attempted murder. A cordon of 400 police were employed to surround the mining area, the annual cost of this vigilance being £25,000, with an additional £II,OOO for the guarding of the compound cells. Despite the control exercised and described in Sir Richards' statement, Chinese labourers still frequently escape into the surrounding districts, and since June there liave been many additional murders and outrages, these being indeed of more than weekly occurrence. . On July 22 two murders were committed, and there was also one attempt to murder.

AGRARIAN STRIKES IN FRANCE.

Tlie Paris correspondent of the “Times” telegraphed on July 30: The organisation of agricultural labourers. from regular farm hands to harvesters, into trade unions has been a remarkable phenomenon of social evolution during the present in Prance. Throughout that region of the old province cf the lie de France known as .ua Brie the fields, have been witnessing of late an unaccustomed sight. Wandering bands of from 200 to 300 strikers, now with a red flag at their head, now with the tricolour and with drum, trumpet, and accordion, have been scouring tire countryside, traversing long distances between the villages and the farms and forcing the labourers still at work to join them. These bands are escorted b v the local gendarmes, with whom they joke, along the way. Carters and cowherds who receive llOOf (<£44) a year, shepherds who have a wage of llOf (£4 Bs.) a month, day labourers who receive Bf. 25c. (2s. Bd.), the women getting If. 50c have combined in a trade union which claims from their employers respectively 1330 f. a year, 130 f. a month, and 4f. and 2f. a day. These demands seemed all the more excessive to the cultivator# as the Belgians from ever the Flemish border are wont to accept terms which self respecting French harvesters think derogatory. At harvest-time especially, and notably in the beetroot country, French labour is inadequate to cope with the situation. The unionists accordingly have done their beat to make the Belgians join their movement. In many cases the latter left the fields and took part in the meetings. The speeches of the leaders of the union were translated to the Flemish labourers, and in several cases they were induced to join. The employers finally, in the instance above mentioned, agreed to give the carters 1250 f. (£SO) a year, the shepherds IEOf. ■ month, they being obliged to feed their

dogs, the male day labourers 3f. 50c. a day, and the women 2f. The success of the union in this case helped to extend the strike in the region of Brie Comte Robert. The Belgians have been on this occasion less amenable; but the latest news is that the employers have agreed to recognise the agricultural union, and that they granted a notable rise in wages. This interesting movement has lasted only about a month, but it lias already shown the farm labourers all over France wnat can be done by organisation. An exceedingly instructive article in the "Temps" points out that the Brie agricultural labourers are the best paid in France, but that the cost of living in the district is exceptionally heavy. The daily expenses of an average peasant family at Mormant, for instance, a family composed of father, mother, and two young children amount to 3f. 78c. The receipts of the father are at the maximum, year in and year out, 900i'. (£36), which makes about 2f. 50c. a day. Thus the labourer runs steadily into debt until the children are old enough to work. He then begins to buy off his debts until the boys have to go to the regiment. When they return© they marry and are no longer "able to help the old people. The father and mother, therefore, have once more to put their hand to the plough. The local justice of the peace lias to deal annually in the commune in question with from 20 to 25 cases of old people requesting to be supported by the community. It is not surprising if the birth rate steadily falls in this district.

SOME LONDON MEAT REVELATIONS.

Some revolting allegations respecting the trade in tinned meats were made (says the "Daily Chronicle") during the hearing of a case before Mr Francis at the Lambeth Police Court on July 27. James Tyrrell, a. "preserved provision" merchant, of Wells street, Camberwell, was charged with having heen found in the possession of a quantity of diseased meat.

j.yrrell, said Mr Elliott, who appeared for the borough council, was not regarded as the principal offender. He was only a middle-man, who conducted business from a private.house, and supplied local grocers. They w T anted to reach the persons who were responsible for foisting this diseased food on the poor. The case would be a basis for proceedings which have been instituted against Tyrrell's supplier, a Hornsey, man, who in turn was agent for a firm which manufactured tinned meat, and were also bone boilers. Mr Kea*rslake, an inspector, stated that he had visited a shop in the Borough, and had found bad tinned meat. Inquiries showed that it had been supplied by Tyrrell, and a visit was paid to his house.' Under a lean-to roof at the hack of the house, witness found 401 b German sausages, and 21b polonies, 15ilb of saveloys, and two tins of opened brawn, or spiced beef. In a stable were six tins of collared head of beef. The sausages, continued the inspector, were encrusted with mould, and were sour-smelling. The collared head was softening, and liquefying; in some parts it was black. He examined the spiced beef to see what was inside it, and noticed the extraordinary colour, obviously due to arilline dye. Dr. Bousfield said he made a bacteriological examination, and found an abscess cavity in a piece of the brawn, from which he took a soft, pulpy substance, containing the ordinary bacteria of suppuration. The animal itself, Dr. Bousfield told the court, had been diseased before it was killed. The meat had also been dyed. James Tyrrell then explained his way of business. He is a merchant, not a manufacturer, and has been in Camberwell ' for twelve years. He buys meat from various manufacturers, and sells it to retail shopkeepers. Fourpence-half-penny per pound was the price he paid for the brawn. He said the meat was never Intended for human consumption, as far as lie was concerned. In the ordinary course of business bad meat was sent back to him by his customers, and he put it under the lean-to roof until the manufacturer’s carts came to fetch it, when he was credited with it as "returns. Lins was the custom of the trade, and the van called once or twice a week. "Do you seriously mean to .say that a van call© one© or a wc©k to ictcli bac-K the bad meat?" asked Mr Frapcis, tne magistrate. ies, sir, it is the custom of the trade, was the reply. ~ . , , ~r "Once or twice a iveelc ! ejaculated Mi Francis, with a horrified expression. Mr Elliot drew from Tyrrell a further statement that lie actually returned e\ery week a lot of food unfit for consumption. , , , Since the Chicago scandals, however, he added the manufacturers: had stopped taking "returns." He didn't know what became of the meat after it had been sent back to the consignors. . The magistrate postponed fins decision with regard to Tyrrell until the hearing of the case against the Hornsey agent.

SUFFERINGS OF A RUSSIAN LADY PRISONER.

The Press Association correspondent, writing from St. Petersburg under date July 17, says that a letter written by Mdlle. Spiridonova while on her journey to exile in Siberia is published by the Russian papers. It was thrown near Cheliabinsk from the window of the carriage in which Mdlle. Spiridonovna was travelling with other exiles, and was picked up on the line by some workmen and forwarded to the Moscow address indicated. It contains the following passages: — . . we are ever going onward, onward; it seems as though this terrible journey would never end. Should these lines by a miracle fall into your hands, tell S. that those at home must not mourn overmuch. I am not alone; I have for fellow passengers other unhappy beings who will share my lot. We are suffering together, the same heavy weight is on all our hearts. We gaze for long hours

through the barred windows, but hardly ever speak. Wo have, confided our sorrows to each other, we have mingled our tears; now we are almost silent. . . . The • white posts marking the versts pass quickly before our eyes. Tim train of the condemned is bearing us to Siberia, ever further from our country. As we near Siberia the air is becoming colder, and the ice is gathering around my heart;. I wonder whether on reaching ray prison I shall be given a barrow and forced to fill it with earth. I shall never be able to! I shall fall to the ground at the first attempt [Mdlle. Spiridonovna is supposed to oe a consumptive!, and that will probably excite the fury of my jailers. . . . A. comrade told me that one of my judges said that it was not worth while hanging me; it would not be long before I died once the jail had closed around me. That is probably what will happen, and so I will bid you farewell, my friend. I bequeath to you all that remains of me—my love for our unhappy country. Fqllow the same path, do not fear to suffer, for suffering is life. That is what lies on my soul. On my body are only the grey garb and the little white veil of the condemned, and for these it will not be difficult to find heirs.'’

STRUCK BY LIGHTNING AND WRECKED.

The Cunard liner Campania from New lork, which arrived at Queenstown on July 27, brought intelligence of the total loss of the British three-masted schooner Stanley Joseph, and the loss of her entire crew, consisting of sixteen men. xne vessel was engaged in fishing on the Grand Banks with other ships, when a terrific storm arose. An attempt was made to reach port for shelter, but in heading for the land jn the height of the gale the Stanley Joseph was struck by lightning and dismasted. In her disabled condition she was utterly unmanageable, and the violence of the wind and seas drove her on to a reef of rocks on the Newfoundland coast, where she was battered to pieces, not one of the crew escaping. The Stanley Joseph belonged to Nova Scotia.

FIGHT WITH A LIONESS

From Nairobi, British East Africa, comes the account of a terrible struggle between a hunting party of Englishmen and a fierce lioness. The hunters were following the tracks of the lioness on horseback, when the beast sprang on its pursuers from the long grass. Mr Goldfinch, one of the party, was first attacked, and was badly bitten on the thigh. Mr Lucas was able to get in a shot, but this only helped to infuriate the lioness. Turning on Mr Lucas, it felled his pony and threw him to the ground. Before he had time to recover himself the beast pounced on him, inflicting fearful lacerations on the forehead and right cheek, and embedding its teeth in his right arm. Mr Goldfinch, seeing the danger Mr Lucas was in, dismounted from his pony and shot the animal.

PLEA FOR A VIGOROUS 'SOUTH AFRICAN POLICY.

Mr William Watson, the poet, m a letter to the "Speaker/’ writes: It is ardently to be hoped that the statement which the Prime Minister promises to make on July 31 respecting the new Constitution of the Transvaal will be of a kind to reassure those Liberals who, like myself, are conscious of no special obligation of allegiance to a Liberal Ministry except .such Ministry prove itself a veritable instrument of Liberal ideas and Liberal principles. To some of us the word Freedom is a greater word even than Free Trade, and we rejoiced in the accession of our party to power, largely, I had • almost said because we took this event to mean* the early rehabilitation of the tradition of liberty in a part of the earth where that tradition has been violated with a pre-eminent wantonness. Up to the present moment, however, though we have strained our eyes in a constant look-out for some signal of that rehabilitation, out vigil has heen scantly rewarded ; and as the barren days slip by we begin to realise that our patience, if not exhausted, is at least exhaustible. Nor do we derive much comfort from the spectacle of an Imperial Government still receiving its version of South African affairs, and its official advice thereupon, from the very source which supplied the late Government with the kind of information their policy required and the particular variety of political wisdom which their intellects were capable of assimilating. To-day the real Liberalism looks forward to a South Africa in which the light of human sympathy shall succeed to the fiery flambeau of conquest. This is the Liberalism which asks above all things for courage and consistency in its leaders, and I devoutly hope that it may not ask in vain.

MURDERS BY KAFFIRS,

During the Boer rule in the Transvaal an incident which led to representations by the Englisn Government, much official correspondence, and grievous complaint against the police control exercised by President Kruger's Government, was the murder by some unknown person of a Wesleyan clergyman's wife. That subject and the Edgar affair were used >again to emphasise allegations of the insecurity of life in the Transvaal. Since the passing of the Government into the hands of British officials murders by Europeans, Natives, and Chinese have been frequent, but in no instance has the ruling power assumed such responsibility for these deplorable occurrences as it formerly assumed to lie with th© Boer rulers. One of the latest examples of the dangers which attend life among naturally lawless races is the death of three persons, who, while on a cycling ride in the neighbourhood of Johannesburg, were set upon and foully treated by a party of drunken natives. Among the victims of this outrage was the Rev. George Maddi-

eon, a Wesleyan minister, who went from Nottingham to Johannesburg not long previously. In attempting to rekslie one * of hig friends Mr Maddison received a stab in the neck, which resulted in hi* deacn on July 20—his thirty-second birthday. Who is responsible for the sale of drink to natives and indirectly for tha outrages they commit while under its influence? 1

WILL TOWER HIGH AMONG THB

NATIONS

The following is an excerpt from a letter recently written by Sir Robert Hart, Inspector-General of Chinese Customs, to a friend in England: "Peace has revisited the Far East, and it is to be hoped the next ten or twenty years will see progress of the best kind all along the line in China. Until now we have simply been feeling the way and preparing foundations, but now the new generation is going to build, and China's pagocia will tower high among the nations. I shall not se© the roof on in my. day, but I shall always have the satisfaction of having spent half a century at work in this - country, before which a splenic! future is opening up.

BRIDEGROOM DIES AT THE ALTAR.

A sensational ending to a wedding ceremony occurred recently at Lindau. a small town on the Swiss-Austrian frontier. A man named Buhler and his newly made bride stood before the altar, respectfully listening to a few final words of counsel from the pastor. Suddenly the bridegroom, who had been complaining of the heart, sank at the feet of hia wife. It was thought he had merely fainted, but a doctor who happened to be one of the friends present found on advancing to give aid that the matter was much more serious. Efforts to restore animation failed, and it was soon patent to all that the bridegroom was dead. A stroke of apoplexy had carried him off instantaneously, and instead of the bridal vehicle that was to have taken the couple from the church, an ambulance waggon was called and carried ome o corpse.

TEN YEARS OF FRAUD

The story of another little provident society wrecked by the dishonesty of a too greatly trusted, official was told at a meeting in London on July 26 of creditors and contributories of the United Service Share and Purchase Society. The statements disclosed a deficiency to creditors of £1,092, and to contributories of £30,000 odd. The difficulties of the society arose from the action of the late secretary, Mr W. Cann, until recently a first-class clerk earning ,£4OO a year in the assistant-secretary's department in the General Post Office, who, from the statement of the Official Receiver, appears to have pursued a systematic course or defalcation and falsification, of accounts, at all events from 1835, and probably earlier than that, since his appointment dates from 1888. Practically the whole deficiency is believed to be due to this cause, together with over-payment of dividends amounting to £SOOO. The paid up capital was £29,090, and the shareholders have to find a further £1092 to meet the creditors' claims.

The company was the outcome of a provident desire on the part of the major branch of the General Post Office staffs, Mr H. Dewsbury being chairman from its foundation in iBB2 until the date of the meeting. Its object was to enable members to purchase Civil Service Supply Co.'s shares, but in 1888 its scope was enlarged to include other "good gilt-edged securities." Mr Cann was appointed secretary in that year. According to the Receiver, the directors and auditors placed such faith in Mr Cann that he ivas left to carry on the business in his own way, they taking his word for the amounts borrowed, the securities held, and the loans outstanding. He resigned this year, and in early February failed to turn up at the office one day. A hurried investigation allowed that the outstanding loans, said to be £44,000, really stood at £30,000—£14,000 deficiency—and that the company's borrowing power had been exceeded by this amount. At Mr Cann's home in Wandsworth documents were found showing that securities put down at £B,OOO were non-existent or had vanished. The next that was heard of Mr Cann was by a letter handed to the directors by a lady other than hie wife, and to whom he wrote from Texas. In addition, bock debts showed a probable deficiency of about £3OOO, accounting for the missing capital. The Receiver explained the hideous tangle to meetings both of creditors (who will get 20s in the pound) and of contributories, and intimated that steps might be taken to induce the Treasury to apply for Mr Cann’s extradition. The directors came in for criticism from the despondent . shareholders, and the only explanation Mr Dewsbury could give was their implicit faith in Mr Cann.

A MILLIONAIRE’S TOMB

How solicitous the American millionaire is concerning the bestowal of his body, after death as well as during life. The Jate Russell Sage was, it appears, fearful that his grave might he violated, as was that of a formerly deceased millionaire, A. T. Stewart, and to defeat the skill of the resurrectionists he made extraordinary provisions for the safe-keeping of his earthly remains. In accordance with his own instructions, Mr Sage's grave in Troy Cemetery is a_ unique sepulchre. Its bottom- is made of layers of chilled steel weighing six tons. The sides are of the same material and construction. This mass of armour rests and is bolted into a heavy concrete forindation. massive lid covers the cavity, and is furnished with a self-locking mechanism, clamped inside ■ with twenty points and bolts in such fashion Lint it cannot be unlocked from the outside. The weight of steel employed is over t tons, more than a ton of which goes to form the lid, and the cost of the tomb was over £SOOO. An easier aim cheaper wav of securing immunity from y ie attention of ghoul* would have been toi

Mr Sage to insert a clause in his will prohibiting the payment of any money to such designing pensons as might desire to take temporary possession of his remains. It is certain that none would lift a body to which no money was "hanging, but probably Mr Sage's sense of his own importance did not permit him to see things in such a light. One wonders what the antiquarians of ten thousand years hence, will trunk of this 20th centurf 1 tomb, and the great man whose dust it encloses. He’ll be classed as nothing less than an ancient Emperor of America "for sure ”

A JAPANESE COURT-MARTIAL. The manner in which the Japanese Army and Navy authorities deal with oliicers and men who in a hopeless case take the last chance of life left to them may be good for the maintenance of an extraordinary high standard of duty, but in the eyes of modern Europeans it seems somewhat absurd. During the progress of the late war the Japanese transport, Kinshiu, was unfortunate enough to fall in the way of the Russian cruiser, Rossia. After overhauling and stopping the unarmed vessel the Russians gave the officers and men aboard of her a few minutes to leave her and thereupon promptly sank her. This procedure was all in due accord with the rules of war, and in European eyes no stigma would attach to men acting as did the Japanese officers and men. A court-martial at Tokio which announced its decision on July 25, shows that Japanese opinion differs from that of Western nations. Two captains, two commanders, a paymaster, two lieutenants, and on© ensign who were aboard the Kinshiu have bejn dismissed from the army, and the social rank of all has been reduced to that of commoners.