General Items

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 80, 3 April 1923, Page 3

General Items

Thirteen persons, Including nine girls, committed suicide in Berlin on Wednesday, all from motives arising from poverty and fear of starvation.

Fifty-three tombstones ir{ Vjho Belfast Protestant cemetery Avere defaced and smashed, apparently by a gang armed with sledge-hammers and crowbars. Reprisals are threatened.

A roving gang, known as the “Third Party,” belonging to neither side, has appeared in Ireland, robbing all classes indiscriminately. Both the Fre e Staters and Republicans are wat suing the movements of these robbers.

The Free State Budget estimates th e deficit to be twenty millions. The expenditure includes 10 2-3 millions on the army, and eleven millions on compensations, oxving to rebel operations.

The Madrid correspondent of the Daily Mall reports that Archbishop Valdes was found dead in his bedroom, with a razor nearby, and his papers strewn about the room. The theory of suicide Is not accepted. It is rumored that rchbishop Valdes had differences with the Vatican.

Prince Klticharakava, the Mika.’do’s brother-in-law, was killed through his motor car colliding-with a tree on the Parls-Cherbourg road. The chauffeur was also killed, while Princess Kiticharakava and Prince Osaka, the Mikado’s brother, were injured.

The four-masted barque J. and T. Dollar, the largest sailing vessel which has ever entered Sydney, carrying a cargo of 2,660,000 feet of lumber from America, had a narrow escape of being wrecked off the Heads. The tow rope snapped in a heavy sea and the big ship was driven within a cable length of the rocks before the tug secured a new hold. Only skilful handling of the ship by the barque’s captain and the pluck and work of the tug master averted a disaster.

A recurrence of the crime wave in New York has resulted in orders that every member of the police force must take a patrol, and all vacations are suspended. Special guards have been ordered to protect banks and business houses. The entire police strength is being held in emergency duty both , day and night. These measures follow the extraordinary number of murders, robberies, hold-ups and assaults.

The Dublin correspondent of the Morning Po: ’ .sports that a deplorable state of affairs exists in the women’s gaol at Kilmainham, where women are confined for taking part in Republican propaganda, and assisting in arson and armed outrages. Elementary sanitary necessities are lacking. There are five or six women in single cells; beds are taken from all the prisoners because some tore up their bedding; the privilege of writing letters has been withdrawn. Ninety-one women since March 21 hav e been hungerstriking.

The decision <•*{ the authorities to arrest the parish priest at Wischnltz, in Polish Silesia, for refusal to obey the Law Court’s order, led to an amazing conflict. The authorities, anticipating resistance, owing to th e villagers’ strong feeling, ordered out the village infantry, eighty and many police. Church bells immediately called the defenders to arms. Practically all the women rallied to the vicarage. They joined hands, sang the Litany and then, as the attackers closed in, the women received them with volleys of hot, salt and sand. Only the cavaly c ~.-ge decided the battle and enabled the military to carry off the priest and a large bodyguard of fighting, scratching, and screaming women.