MISCELLANEOUS CABLEGRAMS

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 7025, 13 January 1910, Page 5

MISCELLANEOUS CABLEGRAMS

By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright. ENCOURAGING THRIFT. LONDON, January 11. The British Savings Bank is introducing hardened steel of .which the post offices will keep the keys, the boxes being periodically opened* The plan is founded on tlio homesafes system in America, where it has .resailtcd in a saving of a hundred millions sterling in the last., decade. SLUMP IN COTTON. NEW YORK, January IK The greatest slump in cotton since the Sully campaign has taken place on' the New York market. Business was transacted amid wild scenes of excitement. [At tho close of 1903 there was a shortage of cotton, and tho Russo-Japanese war acted as a stimulant to prices. At the end of January, 1904, prices at Manchester for Middling Bpland reached 8.36 d per lb> as compared with 7.40 d on the first of the month. In the United States the industry was greatly depressed owing to the forming of a “corner,” and in February the market was excited, and prices slumped. Mr, D. J. Sully headed widespread “bull” operations, but a month later ho met with disaster and suspended payment. During recent months there have been many re--1 porta of a shortage in American cotton crops, and high prices have been ruling.] MUSIC BY WmULESS TELEPHONE NEW YORK, January 11. The Now York Opera Honso is inaugurating wireless telephones, employing dictographs and radiophones. Tho music performed iii the building can bo heard over a distance of ■sevonty-fivo miles. NEW SOUTH' WALES FIGURES. (Received January 13, 1. a.m.) SYDNEY, January 12. The New South Wales go-id yield last year was 238,017 ounces gross, of a value of £869,456, a decreos© of '23,636 ounces compared with tho previous year. ' POTATO BUG AT WORK. SYDNEY, January 12. Tho Rutherglen hug is causing serious damage te tho potato crops' in some districts of this State. YICITORIAN GOLD YIELD. MELBOURNE, January 12. The State’s gold yield last year amounted to 702,221 ounces, gross, ot the value of £2,779,000, a decrease of 18,988 ounces, as compared with the previous year. MINOR ITEMS. In the pockets of a Russian banker •who hanged himself in Austria were found bank-notes and securities to tho value of £150,000,. American campaigning methods are exposed in a case in which William Clark, a _ well-known journalist, is suing Lewis Chanlor, formerly Lieu-tenant-Governor of New York, for £4OOO for booming Cdranler for tho Presidency. A report on tho recent telegraphic interruptions in Victoria attributes them to a 'coating of carbon particles on tho insulators, the result of tho bush fires. Light rain damping this, ■without washing it off, causes it to become a conducting medium.