BRITISH AND FOREIGN.

Otago Witness, Issue 3015, 27 December 1911, Page 23

BRITISH AND FOREIGN.

LONDON, December 18. j Sir Georg© Reid has arranged for a of combined gramaphone and cine- j matograph lectures in schools. The addresses, which will deal with the resources of Australia, will be- repeated by the gramophone. ! Eleven bills were introduced into Parliament during the recent session to pro- | vide for electric railless trams similar to those in Leeds. Thirty-three systems are at present working on the Continent, where it has been proved that the railless tram gives small towns the advantages of tramways without incurring the almost prohibitive cost of the ordinary j system. ] The s.s. lonic reports that when rounding Cape Horn, Kate Hare, a widow from New Zealand, in a sudden frenzy, flung her mother and a Mrs Herdman on the deck and vaulted overboard. Her j skirts kept her afloat until a lifeboat ! rescued her, but she died shortly afterwards. Alan M'Dougall, aged 18, a member of the Social and Political Union, was charged with an attack on the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who received a black eye. At the Chancellor’s request, the magistrate reduced the charge to one of common assault, and M'Dougall was sentenced to two months’ hard labour. December 19. Thomas Ormiston Chant, a civil engi- j neer, who returned to England from New ! Zealand in 1909, has divorced his wife for misconduct with Captain Robert William Harldng. The damages were fixed at £2OOO. j The Board of Education has decided to make grants for cinematograph displays ! in the day continuation schools. In an address to the Aeronautical Society, the Under-Secretary for War (Colonel Seely) said the Government was determined that Great Britain should no longer lag behind in the use of aeroplanes for war purposes. The judgment of the Court of Inquiry into the Olympic Hawke collision is that the steamer was responsible. Mr Justice Evans decided that the Olympic’s pilot took an over-wide sweep round the West Bramble buoy, and having the Hawke on the starboard the Olympic should have mad© way for her. December 20. The Catholic Bishop of Cloyne and six priests are suing the Dundee Courier, which alleged that the Catholics of Queenstown had ordered the discharge of Protestant assistants in shops belonging to Roman Catholics. The Bishop claims £2OOO and the priests £SOO apiece. Mr G. Moule, of the Australian Light Horse, has been appointed second lieutenant of the 14th Hussars ; and Messrs H. Dean, R. Barker, H, Wilcox, and 0. Barnes (New Zealanders), second lieutenants in the Dorset, South Lancashire, Notts, and West Kent Regiments respectively. Mr Pratten, the vice-president, is submitting a scheme to the New 'South Wales Chamber of Manufacturers suggesting that they ask the Government to allow manufacturers to nominate skilled workmen when these are not obtainable locally, the manufacturers receiving the same subsidy as is paid to other nominated persons. Mr Pratten is hopeful of the Government’s approval. -December 21. i The youth MacDougall, who was convicted on a charge of assaulting Mr Lloyd George, has eaten nothing since his conviction. He has taken up this attitude as a protest against his sentence of hard labour. The text of the Papal decree cabled on the 12th inst. ordains that a layman who | summons an ecclesiastical person before" any layman’s tribunal without permission of the ecclesiastical authority incurs the penalty of excommunication. There are continuous rains throughout England. ! Mr Bedford has resigned the Examiner- i ship of Plays in England. I Mr J. W. Jona, of the Melbourne Uni- 1 versity, has been awarded the Beit Memorial Fellowship for medical research, of the value of £250, and tenable for three ■ years. t The net personalty in the estate of the late Captain William Warner, who was connected with the pastoral industry in North Australia, has been sworn at £131,478. December 22. At a meeting of the shareholders of the North British Australasian Company it was agreed that a reorganisation of the capital should be made. j The Royal Commission on Tuberculosis, in its final report, emphasis the identity of mammalian tubercule bacilli of human origin in similar bacilli from spontaneous disease in other animals. Experiments show that the original characteristics of the viruses are remarkably stable, differing in degree, but not in kind. December 23. Mr Thomas Gibson Bowles, in a letter, says he will rejoin the Conservatives because the Liberals, controlled by their Nationalist and Socialist allies, have become a revolutionary party. December 24. Reinhardt’s ' “ Miracle ” play was pro- j duced at the Olympia Theatre, which was transformed into a Gothic cathedral. It :was a remarkable spectacle. There were (

hundreds of actors and 2000 supernumeraries. Mr Whitaker, an electrician, was electrocuted on the stage of the girls' school at Rochester while superintending the operation of the limelight during, an operetta. While he was handling an arc lamp his wet boots touched a regulator. PARIS, December 19. The Ministry of Commerce severely condemns hobble skirts, and states that if persisted in Paris may cease to be the centre of fashions. Armand Quintand, a Paris shopkeeper, and three accomplices have been arrested on charges of defrauding British, French, and German firms of £IOO,OOO. They obtained goods on credit, and then sold them cheaply. December 20. Five duels have been fought over Madame Langevin's separation suit against Professor Langevin, with Madame Curie (the eminent chemist and discoverer of radium) as co-respondent. Tho court granted a separation order. December 21. The Appeal Court confirmed the verdict in the libel action brought by Major Dreyfus against the newspaper Francaise last February, imposed a fine of 3200 francs (£128), and ordered the widespread publication of the verdict. Four armed robbers shot a bank messenger at Montmartre, and stole 20,000 francs (£800) in coin and 100,000 francs in securities. They then escaped in a motor car. The messenger is in a critical condition. ' December 22. A man named Mingler, his mistress, and a bank clerk named Champion,, have been arrested on a charge of swindling Carpentier, a Spaniard, of £48,000 on the pretext of foundling a bank, also of £20,000. The Chamber of Deputies has adopted a modification of the workmen's pension scheme. The retiring age has been reduced from 65 years to 60 years, and the State contribution? has been increased from 75 to 100 francs. December 23. The booty secured by the robbers at Montmartre totalled £20,000. The automobile in which the robbers made their escape has been found at Dieppe. It is believed that the gang is now in London. December 24. Madame Langerin is satisfied with a separation order against her husband, and does not intend to proceed with the charge of infidelity, wherein Madame Curie was cited as co-respondent. BERLIN, December 20. The estimates for 1912 show a deficit of £2,187,000, mainly due to the widening of the Kiel Canal. Compared with 1911, the navy expenditure increased by £1,27/,000 and that of the army by £1,000,000. A National Defence League is being formed to help the army on similar lines to the Navy League. December 21. The Government of Mecklenburg has rejected the proposal to impose on bachelors not liable to provide for their relatives a tax of 25 per cent, higher than that imposed on husbands. December 22. Dr Solf, the Governor of Samoa, has been appointed Secretary for the Colonies in the Imperial Cabinet. December 23. The Kaiser has forbidden officers to visit England without the permission of the War Office. December 24. The Deutsch Atlantis]ch Telegraphen is negotiating with the Secretary of Posts and Telegraphs for the establishment of deferred reduced press rates similar to those conceded by the Western Union. An Italian couple have been arrested at Montreux on a charge of robbing Rotwal, an Italian princess, of £25,600. LISBON, December 21. Through rainstorms and cyclones the Tagus and other rivers are flooding the lower parts of Lisbon, Oporto, and elsewhere. Thousands of cattle have been drowned, and the railways stopped. Gunboats are patrolling the coast to assist ships in distress. ST. PETERSBURG, December 19. A terrorist at Usofska, in Southern Russia, took refuge in an Englishman's garden. The police and Cossacks surrounded the man,' but he escaped after killing four policemen and critically wounding four others. TANGIER, December 19. " The Duke and Duchess of Fife and their family have left Tangier for Egypt. CAIRO, December 20. The Nationalist journal Alalam has been suspended for three months for publishing violent articles against the Government. The Porte has ordered the withdrawal of the handful of Turks garrisoning Soluk. TEHERAN, December 20. The anti-British boycott at Shiraz has ceased. WASHINGTON, December 20. Reports to hand state that the Republic of Nicaragua is in the throes of another revolution. Rapid-fire guns are said to have been smuggled into the country through New Orleans. NEW YORK, December 19. . At St. Louis "Billy" Smith, a former prize-fighter, quarrelled with the chief of police, who shot Smith, probably fatally. The chief of police had recently married Smith's divorced wife. In a suburban railway wreck at Kansas City an employee named Roscoe Agers,

though his hands were burned to the bone, threw away the fragments of a broken stove from a wreoked car, thus preventing the wreckage from taking fire. This act of heroism saved dozens of lives. The accident was due to a collision between two trolly cars. The application of the Westinghouse Airbrake Company at St. Louis asking for the appointment of receivers for the Wabash railway was granted. December 22. At Apiary, in Oregon, the boiler at Leimman's flour mills burst, wrecking the buildings and killing three men. and wounding three others, including the owner of the mills December 24. Mr Charles W. Morse, at one time a prominent banker and known as the Ice King, who was sentenced in 1908 to 15 years' imprisonment on a charge of misapplying the funds of the Mercantile National Bank, is seriously ill, and his recovery is doubtful. OTTAWA, December 24. Mr Kenneth Kingston, a surveyor, has been shot in the back in the Saskatchewan woods under mysterious circumstances. The police are investigating the matter. Mr Donald Mann, head of the Canadian Northern Railway Company, states that the company is contemplating the establishment of Australian and Oriental steam ship services after the opening of the Panama Canal. The work of constructing the Hudson's Bay railway, which has been interrupted pending an investigation and an award in connection with the contract entered into by the Laurier Government, will be proceeded with immediately. The railway will be owned and operated by the Government. MONTREAL, December 21. The Minister of Militia proposes to introduce training schools for every regiment in Canada. Arrangements will be made in 1912 to train upwards of 25,000 cadets. WINNIPEG, December 21. Crime is rampant. Dozens of citizens have been held up at the revolver's point and robbed. The police have made 10 arrests of suspects. Several persons were beaten as well as robbed. VANCOUVER, December 19. Another bank hold-up was attempted by two masked men. A bank clerk named Gibbs, who was living on the premises of the Northern Crown Bank, Central Park, shot at the intruders, but missed them. The latter returned the fire, and Gibbs was wounded in the wrist. The men decamped. BUENOS AIRES, December 22. Rene Eitenne has been arrested at Autuil on a charge of defrauding M. Fontaine, a wealthy manufacturer, of £40,000 by spiritualistic practices. CAPETOWN, December 21. The Southern Rhodesia Council has resolved that trial by jury is not suited to cases where Europeans and natives are mutually concerned in crimes of violence, and has requested the Administration to provide a substitute. CALCUTTA, December 20. Owing to arrears of pay 600 Chinese at Lhasa mutinied and plundered the Mint and the Amban's residence. It is. reported that the Lamas paid 100,000 taels to get rid of the mutineers. The Chinese troops at Chumbi sold their munitions and fled towards India.