NEWS IN BRIEF.

Otago Witness, Issue 2927, 20 April 1910, Page 52

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Ex-President Roosevelt has reached Vienna. Work has been resumed by the strikers in Marseilles. The Duke of Connaught will visit the Canadian National Exhibition. ' The English Westeyaos number 488,595 — a decrease of 2267 for the year. Sir G. B. Simpson, the New South Wales senior puisne judge, has retired from the bench. The Hungarian loan of £4,690,000 was subscribed threefold- in Vienna. Lady Dudley joined the steamer Osterley at Kilburn Docks, en route for Australia. The North Coasts Navigation Company has launched its' steamier -Canonbar at Ardrossan. • . The inquest on the man Wright, the victim of the Broken Hill explosion, resulted in an open verdict. The Colonial Institute's conference of societies interested in emigration will meet on May 30. . . . ' Reuter reports that 130 tons of dynamite exploded in Kobe roadstead, Japan, causing great damage to that city. A fire occurred at Mandalay, a long stretch of business premises and dwellinghouses being destroyed. The damage is estimated at £BO,OOO. Some oil tanksi took fire in Hamburg Harbour and exploded, setting three warehouses ablaze. Several persons were "killed.

Sir G. H. Reid entertained Lord Portsmouth, Lord Pentland, and Colonel Seely at luncheon, at the British Empire Club. .Sir George has been banqueted by ths Savage Club. Lord Kitchener has accepted an invitation to the annual Australian banquet to be b<3ld in London at the end of May. Sir George Reid will preside. The boiler tubes in two German torpedoes exploded during naval manoeuvres at Sassnitz. A stoker was killed and five other hands were severely scalded. Mrs Kate Russell, of Kent, bequeathed £35,000 for the maintenance of a home for homeless and lonely ladies who had been deserted by their husbands. It is believed that Mr Wade, New South Wales State Premier, contemplates accepting a puisne judgeship. In that event Mr Wood, the Chief Secretary, will succeed to the -Premiership. ' The tramway employees concerned in the strike in Philadelphia voted for the acceptance of the company's terms for calling off the strike.

Foui of the Austrian Dreadnoughts will be completed by 1913. The preliminary work was being arranged before the credits were granted. ■

Mr Ficht, an authority oh., sugar, states that the production has decreased to the extent of 196,000 tons during the recent campaign, making the total decreaso 332,000 tons for the season. . ■•

Mr H. Bottomley, M.P., was fined £IOO for contempt of court. He bad commented on litigation wherein the National Cash Register Company was concerned; Owing; to the British political situation the British members of the Inter-Parlia-mentary Union will be unable to pay their proposed visit to St. Petersburg•. in the spring.

A corporal named Deschampo has been arrested in Paris for stealing a machine gun at Chalon last August. It is believed that the gun has been smuggled intc Germany. Sir Lomer Gouin, the Premier of Quebec, has announced that the Quebec Legislature intends to prohibit the export of pulpwood cut on Crown lands l , thus compelling the manufacture of the article in the province.

A bolting horse"* and trap at Redfern, Sydney, swept down three .tail ladders on. which some painters were engaged. Two of them, named Holloway and Hutchinson, were killsd, while the third saved his life by clutching at a windowsill in his descent. Mr Maitland's balloon, with a lady passenger, ascended at the Crystal Palace. When 2000 ft up thunder and hailtsorm prevented the balloon reaching an open space. It was driven on to< the housetops' at Islington (North London), and thence fell into a back garden. Neither of the occupants was hurt. In connection with the' festival of Empire arrangements are being made for eight weeks' festivities. Colonials will be banqueted the first day, and subsequently treated to excursions to Oxford, Cambridge, and. Stratford-on-Avon. Two hundred -thousand London school children will witness the pageant. The Count and Countess Aulby D'Edlantine, well-known French aristocrats, have been arrested at Tours. It is alleged that they sold "to Mrs Paine, an American lady living in.- Paris, forged pictures, including four described as works of Murillo. Correggio. Titian, and Corot, the quartet costing Mrs Paine £40,000. , Mrs Paine entrusted to the Count the task of making a large collection for her, but experts declare that they are all forgeries.

At a meeting of the trustees of the Dunedin Savings Bank it was unanimously resolved, subject to Government approval, to vote the sum of £IOOO to the Dunedin Free Public Library. This will mean an addition of about £4O per annum to the library funds. The death is announced of Mr H. C. Wilkie, M.R.C.V.S., who for several years was a Government veterinary surgeon. Mr Wilkie left the New Zealand service about five years, ago and took up a prominent position in the veterinary world in England, where his death took place. A distressing accident is reported Ftom the Lome Farm Benevolent Institution, near Invercargill. Allison Lorrimer. a girl of 17, was heating beeswax- and turpentine, when the mixture caught fire and her dress alight. The girl rushed into the open, where a strong wind fanned the flames, which inflicted terrible ii.juiies. She was taken to the hospital, and lies in a critical condition.

At Ngunguru, Auckland, last weok Henry James Hansen, a storekeeper, who has apparently lost his reason, armed with a shotgun and ammunition, broke into a room occupied by his three sons, and 1 ope>ned fire upon them. He fired three shots. Arthur Hansen received slight injuries on one of his thighs. Another son fled thi - ough a window, and the other escaped by the door uninjured. The injured boy was removed to Whangarei Hospital. Hansen, sen., aged 51, owns valuable property in the district. Mrs Walter J. Wollard, of Brighton (S.A.), left her 16 month old child in a perambulator to sleep one day last week. On returning an hour later she found the baby hanging by its neck, which was jammed in the back frame of the perambulator. The child was dead.