HERE AND THERE

Otago Witness, Issue 2985, 31 May 1911, Page 85

HERE AND THERE

—A Kidnapped Baby- ■ The denouement in the mysterious kidnapping case at Las Vegas, New Mexico, has all the dramatic qualities of the unexpected. For a fortnight citizens, armed with revolvers, have been hunting the men who at midnight on March 29 entered the residence of Mr Alfred Rogers, a prominent and wealthy lawyer, who was away from home, and having awakened Mis Rogers, threatened her with revolvers and demanded the custody of her two-year-old boy as security for the payment of £2400 ransom. In order to save her boy s life the affrighted mother handed him into the custody of the masked kidnappers, who promised that the child would be returned as soon as the ransom was deposited behind a rock some 11 miles away from Las Vegas. The next day Mrs Rogers obtained the money from her banker, and entrusted it to her brother-in-law, Mr Will Rogers, w-ho a few hours later brought back the boy, whom he had found wrapped up in a blanket 15 miles to the south of the place where he had met the robbers and paid the ransom. Bloodhounds were unable to follow the tracks of the criminals, but on April 4 Joe Wiggins, a former convict, confessed to kidnapping the lawyer’s child in pursuance of a .scheme concocted with the uncle, Mr Will Rogers. The authorities have arrested Mr Will Rogers, who has admitted Iris participation in the plot and has disclosed the hiding-place of the £2400 ransom. Large crowds gathered around the gaol threatening to lynch the man who subjected his sister-in-law and nephew to so terrible an ordeal. The prisoner is only 21 years of age, and is employed as an engineer at the local waterworks. —The Unwritten Law. — A telegram from Fort Worth, Texas, reports the acquittal there on April 6 of Mrs Elizabeth Brooks on the charge of murdering Mrs Mary Binford, whom she accused of alienating her husband s affections. The case is remarkable, inasmuch as Mrs Brooks shot the deceased woman in the presence of a shopful of customeis at the department store where she (Mrs Binford) was employed, and afterwards surrendered herself to the police and pleaded the unwritten law. It is - some time since the South has been so excited over a murder case, and the court at Fort Worth has been packed daily with women and ministers of religion. The . prisoner is the wife of a prominent Texan lawyer, and is well known in connection with social and religious work. Mr Brooks first met Mrs Binford in his legal capacity, and a friendship sprang up between the two, and Mrs Binford was a visitor at the Brooke’ home. Mrs Brooks declared in her evidence that Mrs Binford had broken up her home by stealing her husband’s affections, and the lawyers for the defence draw a touching picture of the loving wife deserted for another woman eating out her heart in the solitude of her home. In her final appeal Mrs Brooks declared that she had prayed for two years for the “regeneration” of her rival, and had personally begged her to give up Mr Brooks. All her pledges and remonstrances being in vain, she decided to kill Mrs Binford. Secreting a revolver in her muff, she first went to church and prayed for forgiveness, and then, entering the department store where Mrs Binford was employed as a shopwalker, she shot her dead. The jury returned a verdict of “Not guilty” on the charge of murder after a very short deliberation, and the verdict was heartily cheered by the packed court.

—An Inventor's Fate. — "John Needham Longdon, a well-known civil and mining engineer and Fellow of the Society of Engineers, died in New York recently from starvation while seeking for the secret of generating cheap electricity, which he rightly believed would revolutionise the power system of the world," says the Montreal Daily Star. "What amount of success attended his search is not known, and perhaps never will be known, but the object of his quest was not an ignis fatuus by any means. At present, only a trifle over 10 per cent, of the actual power in coal, when converted into electricity, is delivered to the bus-bar, the wire carrying all the current produced by the source of electrical energy. In other words, nearly 90 per cent, of the power is lost in various forms of leakage, in the processes of converting coal into heat, heat into steam, steam into electricity, and in delivering the current. The discovery of a method of preventing the greater part of this loss would mean much to the world. The men who make money out of inventions, as a ride, are men who reap where they have not sown, and gather where they have not strewed." —Good-byes at the Railway Station.—^

A Melbourne girl in Paris writes to the Argus :—"An innovation that strikes one strangely, even in Paris, is the new regulation regarding kissing, which has come into force at the central railway stations about Paris. 'Defence de s'embrasser' is the legend that greets your bashful eye when you look for the name of the railway station. It does not mean, as I heaa'd a Londoner explain to his wife, that one must protect oneself from a certain section of the French community, who evidently have the habit of rushing at and embracing strangers. As a matter of fact, the authorities are endeavouring to insist that prolonged adieus must be made outside the barriers. The reason for such a notice is French enough to amuse even the Australian mind, to whom the peculiarities of the Gallic character are practically unknown. Affectionate demonstration is a characteristic of this lively nation, and so frantic and ebullient are the scenes that frequently occur at railway stations that the trains are often prevented from starting to the precise moment. Hence tears and embraces • are

forbidden on the actual nlatforms, and offenders are threatened with fines. I am trying to picture the effect of a similar by-law at Spencer street, Melbourne, and I wonder whether affectionate mothers and yearning sweethearts would read the notice and take French leave." Thefts by Birds.—

A pair of swallows of Fieberbrunn, in the Tyrol, have stolen, a number of 10 kronen (8s 4d) bank notes to line their nest. The parent birds discovered that the new notes are just the shad'© of blue to match their eggs, the tissue being tough but flexible, and exactly the material that they needed. The nest and the missing notes were only discovered when the swallows had abandbned it and ,it fail to the grefmd. This feat has been equalled by that of an enterprising mouse in Dornbirn, which abstracted a number of 29 kronen (16s 8d) notea to the value of £B, of a delicate reddish-brown shade, from the cash drawer of a butcher, and, tearing them to pieces, adapted them to the purpose of making a nest for her family o-f seven. The butcher, in his search for the notes, suspected and traced the mouse and found the nest under the boarding. He carefully picked up the remains of the notes and. returned them to the bank, where they were pieced together. The butcher recovered £7 10s, the bank claiming 10s for "material loss " caused by the mouse's teeth. A Lloyd-George Story.'—

A jcke on the Chancellor of the Exchequer is going the round of the London clubs (says"the Globe in a recent issue). An Arctic explorer recently approached him with a view to obtaining Treasury assistance for an expedition he had planned. Mr Lloyd-George replied that the proper course for the applicant to adopt was first to obtain help from outside bodies of citizens, such as the Stock Exchange, and then to apply, if necessary, to the Government. The explorer withdrew, but was quickly back in the Chancellor's office. "Have you been successful?" asked Mr Lloyd-George. "Partly so," replied the explorer. " How much money have you got from the Stock Exchange?" " Only £50," came the answer, " but with the prospect of a great deal more on cofaditdons which requite the co-opera-tion of the Chancellor of the Exchequer." "What are those conditions?" " There were two," said the traveller. " One Avas that they would make it £25,000 if I. took vou with me to the Pole, and £50,000 if I left you there,"

The Wheat King's Fortune. — Mr Jairnes A. Patten, the retired "wheat king," is the meet recent recruit to the band of American millionaires who are making " ante-mortem " distribution of their wealth. Within the last six .months he has quietly given £400,000 to different hospitals and charitable institutions in Illinois, and has latest gift announced is of £IOO,OOO, designed to enable the North-western University to diLscover a care of consumption. Not long ago Mr Patten's brother, Mr George Patten, died of tuberculosis, and to-day's donation is intended to convert the bereavement into a movement of lasting benefit to humanity. Mr Patten's plan is to establish a laboratory in connection with the university, where students may be encouraged to devote their lives to research and to carrying on the fight against tuberculosis. Mr Patten said that he is willing, if it is necessary, to employ his whole fortune —estimated at £4!b00,000—to combating the "white plague." Fighting Destructive Moths. — New England is fighting against the ravages of the gipsy moth and the browntailed moth, which insects have done a vast amount of damage in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, and have, threatened to spread to other portions of the country. No quarantine line has been established around the infected districts in his case, but, as the gipsy moth is found largely on roadside trees, from which it drops on vehicles and persons and is carried to other places, an effort is being made to clean such infected roadsides. In the case of the brown-tailed moth, which can fly, tha enforcement of State law has been urged, and a more general education of the people in preventive methods. These insects, which defoliate trees, have been gTeatly decreased, and the majority of trees at the present time are free of them. The infested areas now amount to about 10,000 square miles. In New Hampshire 100 men are kept busy during the winter carrying on scouting operations and spraying trees. Massachusetts also k-.=eps the damage in check by the aid of scouting parties. This work at times has necessitated the help of a large force, and as many as 500 men have been employed at one time by' the Government. Peter Pan Statue. — In connection with the Peter Pan statue which Sir George Frampton has now completed for Kensington Gardens to the order of Mr J. M. Barrie, the story is revived of the key which was given to Mr Barrie admitting him to the Gardens at all times of the day and night. It was the late Duke of Cambridge who paid this notable compliment to the famous novelist. The Duke, when he was Park ranger, had been reading " The Little White Bird," and the book delighted him so much that he was prompted to send a flattering note to the author, at the same time enclosing a key to the Gardens opposite Mr Barrie's house in Lancaster Gate. "It is only fitting," he wrote, " that the author of such a charming work should possess this key.".