NEWS OF THE WORLD.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 15033, 5 January 1911, Page 2

NEWS OF THE WORLD.

The following items havo appeared in the Australian papora which employ the independent cable service :— PEKING, December 23. The famine tliat followed the devastating floods in the Anhui, or Ngan-Livei, province has brought about an appalling situation, About 2,500,000 people are affected. Thousands became 60 desperate at the prospect of starvation that they banded together for the purpose of making raids on food supplies wherever these were to be found. Many murders havo been perpetrated, and a reign of terror prevails almost throughout tho province. By way of defenco against the desperate bands that are roaming tho country cmbankmente were thrown up around many villages, and to these places numbers of I panic-stricken people from, the countryside are flocking for protection. The Rev. Mr Lobenstine, a missionary in North Anhui, reporte that scores of villages were swept away, and thousands of the inhabitanta drowned. HONGKONG, December 25. The Rev. Father Merigol, a French missionary, who has been stationed in China for the last seven years, has been murdered in Yungpeh. CHICAGO, December 25. An extraordinary "fatality occurred yesterday, Stephen Paviltek, a lockspith, was repairing an iron safe in a city business establishment, when, with fearful suddenness, there was a loud explosion, The locksmith was hurled to the .other side of the -room, in which he was working, hia death being instantaneous. The theory held by the police is that the promises in question had been marked out for a burglary, and that the explosion resulted Jrom nitro-glyoorinc with which the eafe had been charged by the intending robbers. PARIS, December 26. The Senate is engaged in the discussion of a bill to limit the number of hotels. It ie estimated that there are now 500,000 cabarets in Paris and the provinces. LONDON, December 26. Some statistics relating to last year's alpine fatalities have just been published in Geneva, Switzerland. The figures reveal that lor tho 12 months ended October 31 90 tourists nn<l others were killed in the Swks and Italian Alps. Two steamers, tho Finland and the Baltic, came into collision to-day at the entrance to tho Eiver Escant, Belgium. The Baltic was so badly stove in that she sank within a few minutes, nearly all her crew being drowned. ■ BERLIN, December 26. With the object of copying the Tailroad system of America, representatives of nearly all the private railways of the large European countries have met at Wiesbaden, Germany, and mapped out the preliminaries for another meeting- at Stockholm, Sweden. This will be followed by an international gathering at Trieste, in Austria, in November next, when American railroad managers will be invited to ispeak. NEW YORK, December 25. The doors of one of the Alabama gaols, that in the capital, Montgomery, wore thrown open' yesterday, and. about 100 convicte turned loose. Their release was intended as an act of Christmas clemency. Among those who thus secured their freedom were 40 homicides, and no fewer than 20 other prisoners who were undergoing imprisonment for life. There was a tragic finale to the festivities of a .small party that met at Lintz Hotel in Kenton, Ohio, yesterday, to celebrate Christmas. The party wae made up of three men and nr\ equal number of women. Having obtained possession of a room, tho revellers, with the ample supplies of drink with which they had provided themselves, made merry for some hours. Strangely enough, the management of the hotel was not aware of their presence until the bell-boy re ported that there was an escape of gas from the room in which the carousal had been going on. The door of the apartment was locked, but an entrance was eoon forced, and a startling sight revealed itself. Lying in different parts of the room were a half-dozen men and women, all dead, and exhibiting signs of having been asphyxiated. The floor was strewn with. empty bottles, glasses, and edibles. How the gas found its way into the room can only be conjecturd.' It is surmised that the pipes connecting a small stove with one of the gas brackets became disconnected, and that the members of the party were suffocated while sleeping off the effects of their over-in-dulgence.

Richard Taylor, the . newly-appointed chief of tho city secret service, is the man who won the medal given by Congress for conspicuous gallantry in Samoa when the American and German warships wore wrecked theTe in the great hurricane. As a result of Taylor's efforts on that occasion, the American sloop Nipsic and her crew were 6aved.

A conspicuous act of gallantry was witnessed at a firo in Portland, Maine, today. While at work on one of the 'upper storeys of the warehouse, in which the

outbreak occurred Fireman Simon came across the captain of the-brigade, who, having been overcome with smoke, was lying on the floor. The flames were already perilously closo, and as there was not an instant to lose, Simon shouldered the unconscious form of hie chief, scrambled, through ono of the windows on the fifth floor, and, unassisted, safely descended tho fire escape with his heavy burden. Simon was enthusiastically cheered by tho large crowd that etood by watching his hazardous feat. Reports from Dallas, Texas, state that a i groat number of cattle and other stock are dying from the long drought in the Panhandle country. The towns in the drought-stricken area are suffering more severely than the country districts. In Dallas the situation is such that the people are being supplied with water at the expense of the city.

Holding that pure milk is one of the inalienable rights of the baby, a number of prominent New York women have formed an International Pure Milk Lpague, and havo offered, their services to the Board of Health to assist in enforcing the ordinances for the sale and distribution of pure milk.

The Christmas holidays have been responsible lor the customary chapter of tragedies. In a Pennsylvania town on Saturday nighty during the progress of a dance at a miner's house, a keg of blasting powder became ignited, the resulting explosion half demolishing the premieee Three of the 25 guests were killed outright, the others all being more or less severely burned. .

A sensational lynching ie reported from Hot Springs, in Texas. A man who had been arrested for tho murder of the county sheriff was being transferred from one gaol to another, when 30 masked men started after the culprit with tho intention of dealing out justice in their own fashion. The pursuers overtook tlie prisoner, and, having got him away from tho guard, fairly riddled his' body with bullets.'

A mesange from San Domingo, the West-Indian republic that occupies the eastern end of the island of Hayti, reports that troops have been despatched to the Haytian frontier owing to a rumoured- conflict between the rebels under --General Firman and the loyalists. The present outbreak is believed to have been caused by the efforts of the Government to check frontier smuggling, and by the intrigues of General Debucha to become President.