NEWS BY CABLE AND MAIL.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 16121, 9 May 1923, Page 9

NEWS BY CABLE AND MAIL.

EMPIRE EXHIBITION CHOIR

LONDON, March 15.—1 b, Charles Karris, of Ottawa; formerly director of McGill Conservatory of Music, who is now en route to Canada, will be the choral director a! the British Umpire Exhibition. He will have 10.CCO voices ;ind £O3 ii-sT-imentalisls under his control.

IRISH GIRL SAVES TRAIN AXI) DEFIES REBELS' BULLETS,

LUBLIN. March 17.—A striking instance of the heroism of the population in the face of promiscuous sabotage by the rebels against the railroads, occurred on Friday. A fanner's daughter, finding that the rails had been Lorn up at the. approach to a bridge over a deep gorge between Bellina and l Dublin, flagged a train conveying a number of Free State troops and civilian passengers. The train was stopped within a yard of the abyss. The girl, by her action, deliberately defied the possible dire consequences of thwarting the plans of the rebels.

WOMEN MUST FIGHT NEXT WAJ SAYS PARIS JOURNAL.

PARIS, March 15.> —The return of the Amazon is necessary to stabilise Europe, says the Journal. The pessimistic .scribe opines, in view of the fact that there are 25,000,0C0 more women than men in Europe, that the next war must he fought entirely by women in order to present 'the female of the species becoming more deadly than the' male."

For every ICOO men in France there are; 1093 women. "What is to become off those daughters of Eve,*' nsks the writer, "in an Eden where the sons of Adam are embarrassed by choice?"

He predicts "this reversentent n values" might result in a social revolti tion as grave as the taking of the Bas tile.

MONEY TO RESTORE OLD SHIP VICTORY.

LONDON, March 23.—Tito fund to save Nelson's famous flagship the "Victory," has been swelled by a gift of £so,ooo"from a "well-wisher of tho navy."

For some time the old man-of-war has been rotting in her dock at Portsmouth, but the work of restoring her will soon begin, so that she may be a symbol of wave-ruling Britannia. .It is expected that the craft will be kept in a drydock dedicated to her use

alone, although the suggestion has been made that she be placed at the

base of the Nelson column in Trafalgar Square. Nelson's "Victory," the fifth snip of that name in the British navy, was laid down in 1759. She saw thirtyfour years of service.

EFFORT TO REFLOAT RALEIGH. ST. JOHN'S, Nfld., March 29.—The possibility of refloating the. British cruiser Raleigh, which went ashore in tho Straits of Belle Isle last, summer, and was abandoned as a total loss, has been raised. Reports made to the British Admiralty that the wreck had been moved by pressure of the ice pack this winter, led the British authorities to investigate the cruiser's present position on the. Labrador rosks.

Tuesday an aviator flew from Botwood and made photographs of the Raleigh as she now lies. These will be sent to the Admiralty for study. If the hulk has been freed from the rocks that held her, it was stated, an effort will l>e made to refloat the cruiser. The Raleigh struck the rocks near Point Amour, Labrador, on August 9 last, during a fog. Several seamen were drowned while taking a lino ashore from the wreck.

SIR .JAMES DEWAR CALLED BY [DEATH.

LONDON, March 11. Sir James Dewar, noted scientist, died to-day. Sir James, a prominent British chemist, was -the co-inventor with Sir Frederiok Abel, of cordite, the smokeless powder adopted by tho Government. He also brought forward the Dewar liask, popularly known as the thermos flask. -He wa:; 81 years of age. A scientific hobby of Sir James was I he. observation nnd investigation of soap bubbles. Sir James held the chair of natural philosophy at Cambridge University for 47 years, and a professorship of chemistry, created for Farraday, at the Royal Institution of London for 45 years. Ho won the first Hodkins gold medal of. the Smithsonian Institute, which was followed in 1919 by the. award of the Franklin medal of the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia. There was; no man in the world who knew more about soap bubbles than he. He studied their habits and even their complexes. Bubbles were not a plaything with Sir James Dewar, but things to Which he devoted three years of research work. He let his papers on the subject tell the story, refusing interviews because, he said, there are plenty of other men who have done fully as important work. Sir James Dewar'.s work deals with the problems of capillarity, and in bis laboratory at the Royal Institution, where Farraday's discoveries originated. he established

world's records by the score with spap bubbles.

That bubbles are fleeting and transitory has been amply disproved by him. His finest creation was a bubble which lived for more than a year, which was followed by one that existed for 322 days. 'Scores were blown which had a life of more than two months. Ho created bubbles which were so thin that they were absolutely colorless in the purest sense.

PAY PRE-WAR BILLS AT EXPENSE OF THE TAXPAYER,

BERLIN, March 19. which former" monarchs enriched their frail favorites at tho State expense, were recalled to-day by cases where Genua n taxpayers may be forced to pay the bills of highly-placed ladies for jewellery and , "owns, under the operation of a measure now before the Reichstag regulating the settlement of private preM'ar debts and the claims of German nationals abroad.

Investigation among cases tiled for settlement under the proposed law discloses one instance, where the British wife of one of the .richest German princes settled unpaid bills of £IO,OOO with London modistes by paying the German treasury a bagatelle of 60 dollars and shifting the balance on the Government. A J#ooo diamond ornament purchased by the wife of a prominent banker in Paris in 1914 cost the banker 25 dollars, while a. German who left Monte Carlo after a run of bad luck in tho summer of 1914 owing one million francs settled his debt for today's price of a highball, stinging the taxpayers for the balance of about one million marks. A banker who took a flyer in the Paris Bourse owed his brokers 200,000 frao.es when the outbreak of war interrupted his speculations, lie settled his account for the equivalent of 50 dollars, accepting as a present from the State about 260,000 marks.

The generosity of the taxpayers will be proportionately greater in business settlements where amounts at stake are greater. For instance a coffee importer shipped a £50,000 cargo of coffee through the blockade at the outset of the war. His act- relieved him of tha necessity of repaying the London bank which financed the shipment. The importer, who used the proceeds of the transaction to build a big fortune; 'in war supplies now is able to settle for £6O paid to the treasury which has become responsible for the" full debt to the London bank.

Such examples of frenzied Government finance, which may bo remembered when Germany next pleads her inability to meet reparations obligations, arises

j from a. measure designed to relieve tho : hardships of German nationals owing to the> settlement of" pre-war debits. Through the clearing house procedure prescribed 1 by the peace treaty., the Government undertakes, under the proposed law, to assume the payment of debts and the. collection of claims and to convert the amount into marks at six times pre-war exchange parity. There is great apprehension aiming German claimants that funds held by the alien property custodian in the United States in forthcoming releases will he subjected to this law. In (hat eas? the holders will barely realise the price of (I square meal from the payments, but that apparently would be the ease only if payments were made in a lump sum to t the German Government for distribution.

TVVELVE GO DOWN WITH S.S. MERVILLE.

FLUSHING, Holland, March 15. The British steamer Merville has gone down nelir Steenbank with tho loss of twelve lives. The Merville, of 1035 tons gross, was built in 1903 in Dundee.

SCOTLAND RETARDED BY "ENG LISH IGNORANCE."

LONDON, March 26. A Zionist movement by Scotsmen, in effect, was advocated by Captain John Hay, Labor member for Cartheart, in a speech bofore the Scots National League of London.

Young men, he said, arrived in England, went to Oxford or Cambridge and became often Englishmen, in the broad sense of England, including Scotland, consequently Scotland bad to drag not merely her own weight, but the vast body of inertia and ignorance in the southern part of the kingdom.

ARMADA TREASURES .MAY BE SALVAGED.

PARIS. March 26.—Operations to salvage treasures of the galleon Tuscany of the. Spanish Armada, which sunk in the Bay of Vigo, on the north-western coast of Spain, will be resumed this month, the Eclair reports. The position of the vessel was discovered last year and the stern uncovered before operations ceased. The Tuscany was sunk by an explosion. She was believed to contain treasure of fabulous value. Besides treasures in the strong-room it is expected to find golden plate, silver candelabra and valuable church ornaments. An effort also is to be made to recover the ship's cannon and small arms.

HEROIC ACTION STOPS RUNAWAY IRISH ENGINE. DUBLIN, March 10.—Tho bravery of a national soldier averted a railway accident between Thomastown and Athlone, County Westmeath, on Wednesday. A band of irregulars securing an engine, sent it down the track. An officer of the railway protection corps notified troops at a blockhouse along the track and Volunteer Brady, on duty in the little cabin, acted quickly. He took off bis shoes and socks and awaited the arrivel of tho engine, which soon appeared, making 20 to 30 miles an hour. Brady caught a hold on the engine and swinging himself abroad succeeded in reaching the control and stopping the runaway barely 500yds. from an approaching passenger train.

SMASHING BATTLE OF ELECTRIC WAVES.

BERLIN, March 20.—A ficrco war

in the air is in progress between the Eiffel Tower radio and the Eberswalde plant, near Berlin, where Gern.anp experiments in wireless telephony arc being conducted. The Eberswalde experimenter's fancy in testing apparatus runs to news items on the Ruhr and musical numbers like Deutschland Ucber Alios, or the battle song, "As Conquerors Let us Defeat France." The Eiffel Tower has been instructed to jam the Eberswalde broadcasts, which, reach Scandinavia, Finland, and Moscow, as well as mid-Europe and the Balkans, so a smashing battle of electric waves moves daily in the Empyrean. When the Eberswalde station started broadcasting, honors were about even, but now tho Germans arc bringing on reinforcements in the form of more powerful sending appara-

hss, and are confident of winning the field of Central and Eastern Europe. They will also press the invasion westward into territory hitherto French.

TO BROADCAST RACING NEWS. OTTAWA, March 29.—Unless Sir Lomer Gouin can prevent radio en-

thusiasts in tho United States from broadcasting race odds and tips, "bookies" and sportsmen with restless bankrolls will still continue to do business in tho usual confident manner. This fact may be the main reason why those who give the sport of kings the long-distance treatment are to-day wearing pleasant smiles instead of being plunged into gloom and anger by the proposed Bill to legislate racing news out of the newspapers, and to ban the publication of racing tips.

Almost anybody with an enquiring turn of mind can, for the small sum of five dollars, and a modicum of personal discomfort in the popular price stores, secure sufficient screws, bolts, batteries, dinguses and cats' whiskers to manufacture a radio set. The cuss words attendant to the operation come naturally. With this outfit and the assistance of the broadcaster of . any of the American cities, the fans can sit comfortable in home or office and listen to the latest from Tia Juana and New Orleans.

Already race lesults are setting up healthy competition with the bed-

time stories, and the evening lecture on Einstein's theory of relativity, and even the most strait-laced of radio owners receive the information.

CAPITAL LEVY ALARMS TRADE. LONDON, March 14.—British financiers are alarmed at the results already noticeable of. the rumblings from'Labor Party councils that a capital levy would be one of tho first pieces of legislation to be put over should Labor acquire the ascendancy in Parliament.

With Labor leading the opposition and steadily reinforcing its position, British investors havo taken fright over the announcement that a strong minority in the House of Commons is pledged to such a confiscation 'of wealth and aro selling out their holdings in enterprises which could be reached through the proposed measure. The money is being reinvested in overseas undertakings. The alarm, of tho investing public was demonstrated in numerous shares of stock recently when colonial shares were snapped up in two or three hours, while British industrials fell flat.

A graduated levy on fortunes exceeding £SOOO was a plank in Labor's platform during the last, election, but tho capital levy was not mado ( a prominent election point. Opponents of lho scheme say that an attempt to impose a levy woidd react disastrously on sterling exchange, cause the dis-

appearance of n largo portion of The country's fluid capital, make impossible the realisation of fixed capital for enterprises and in many cases prevent the valuation of taxable securities.