AUSTRALIAN NEWS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22904, 11 June 1936, Page 9

AUSTRALIAN NEWS

METALS AND MINERALS NEW SOUTH WALES YIELD SYDNEY, June 10. (Received June 10, at 11.30 p.m.) Metals and minerals valued at £10,012,000 were rained in New South Wales during 1933, compared with the 1934 yield of £9,127,523. The output of coal was 8,698,570 tons, valued at the pithead at £4,887,341. The gold yield was the host since 1921, namely, 50,1020 z, valued at £212,818.

THE DARLINGHURST MURDER SYDNEY, June 10. (Received June 11, at 0.15 a.ra.) The Minister of Justice (Mr L. A. Martin), in the Assembly to-day, mentioned the case of James Massey, who will he hanged next Monday. Mr Martin said he had received a statutory declaration from Mrs Elizabeth ' Bellingham, who declared that she was inside Stead’s garage and witnessed the shooting, which so upset her that she had since been unable to tell her story. Consequently, she remained in the background. She described the shooting as accidental. Stead made a grab at Massey, seized his wrist,*and the revolver went off. Air Martin said detectives had investigated the woman’s story, which was so at variance with known and undoubted facts that the Government was unable to place the slightest credence in it. Consequently, the law would be allowed to take its course. Mr Martin said there was abundant evidence that Massey fired a shot at least two feet from Stead’s body. Therefore, it was deliberate.

A previous message read as follows: “ The Executive Council reviewed the cases of six men who had been condemned to death, and it was decided that James Leighton Massey, aged 21' who shot and killed Norman Stead after attempting to rob a service station at Darlinghurst on February 10, should be hanged on June 15. Aubrey Potter, aged 22, who was convicted with Massey for the Darlinghurst garage murder, but did not shoot or carry arms, had his sentence commuted to * imprisonment with hard labour for 15 years.”

SHOPKEEPER ATTACKED SYDNEY, June 10. (Received June 11, at 0.30 a.m.) A masked and armed maij entered a pawnbroker’s shop in Oxford street, Darlinghurst, to-day and, when interrogated by the shopkeeper, Charles Marks, aged 04, he attacked Marks on the head with the butt of a revolver. Finally he escaped, pursued by a neighbour’s dog. Marks was too ill to say whether anything had been stolen, but apparently robberv was the motive.

GOVERNMENT ACTUARY »

NEW ZEALANDER APPOINTED SYDNEY, June 10. (Received June 11, at 1.15 a.m.) Mr Cecil Gostellow, Government Actuary, Registrar of Friendly Societies, and Superintendent of the National Provident Fund in New Zealand, has been appointed Government Actuary for New South Wales. The Acting Premier (Mr Bruxner)' in making (be announcement to-night, said that, although there were not many applicants, Mr Gostellow was the only candidate with the necessary qualifications.