GENERAL CABLE NEWS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 282, 21 April 1913, Page 2

GENERAL CABLE NEWS.

The following cables appeared on April 7 and 8 in Australian papers employing the independent Press cable service:— Three American ladies—Mesdames Kutrelle, Harris and Thorne —all of whom lost their husbands in the Titanic wreck, will commemorate the anniversary of the great shipping catastrophe in a novel way. Towards the middle of this month they' will sail from Boston for England, their departure from the American port being so arranged that they will reach the scene of the disaster on the iuiniversary of the date on Which the Titanic foundered. Then, in the darkness of early morn on April 14, they will each reverently cast a wreath into the sea.

A thrilling railway disaster, involving the destruction of a whole train and all its occupants, occurred yesterday near Boma, in the Congo Free State. The train was crossing an arm of the Congo river, when it left the rails, and, plunging through the bridge, went headlong down into the water below, from a height of 150 ft. The entire train fell into the river, and of the 23 persons on board not one was saved.

The French papers are publishing minute descriptions of the German airship Zeppelin IV., which lately descended so suddenly at Luneville. Every detail in the construction of the craft is described. Many official photographs of the dirigible were taken before it left on its return to Germany. Now that they have had an opportunity of examining it, experts differ „as to whether the, latest Zeppelin is really such a terrible engine of war as it liad been represented. Paris-reports the death of M. Constans," a former French Minister of the Interior. It was M. Constans who squashed the celebrated Boulangist agitation of 1889 and the years preceding, and forced General Boulanger to flee to Brussels. The Socialist leader, Herr Haase, violently opposed the proposed army increase. in a speech in the Berlin parliament. • He advanced the usual well known Socialistic arguments, and recommended a total disarmament. On the other hand, -Herr Spahn, of the Clerical party, and Hen- Liebert, of the Conservatives, expressed - delight at the completion of arrangements for a more effective army, and at the fact tliftt it had been demonstrated that the military expenses | of the Triple Entente were, as complied I to those of the Triple Alliance, in the ratio of 25 to 15. • » It is understood that the CanadianPacific Railway. Company have decided to'construct a second tunnel through the I famous Kicking Horse Pass in the Rocky Mountains. The boring will be 10 miles long, and will take seven years to complete, at the enormous cost of £3,000,000, and will reduce the track distance by only five miles. Captain R. Muirhead Collins, secretary to the High Commissioner's Office in London, was banquetted by the members of the British Chamber of Commerce in , Paris. The president of the, Chamber stated that samples of Australian products would be exhibited in Paris by his' organisation in order to direct the attention of French buyers to Australian 1 goods, and the Chamber would also attempt to obtain a minimum tariff on Australian products. A disastrous railway collision occurred at Budapest. An express train collided with a goods train that ; w<is going.-; in the opposite direction, itnd 33 passengers were killed .and 70. injured. The impact was terrific. The sleeping-car of the express was telescoped, other cars smashed to atoms, and the permanent way torn up for a long distance; Tlr.s drivers and firemen on the 'two enginewere among the'killed. The deputies who? threw inkstands at the Premier in the recent disturbances that took place in the Hungarian Parliament at Budapest stood their trial on the 6th: One was sentenced to 30 days' imprisonment, and two to 15 days each. The three have appealed. President Woodrow Wilson will personally read his Message to Con'rrress, thus adopting a new practice at Washington. ~ j . ' . The skeleton of a prehistoric . man found in Kent last August shows that the living being had a brain capacity of 1500 cubic centimetres. There is no' trace of the overhanging brow ridges which characterised-, the, skull of the Neandenthal man found in Germany, a discovery which has been of great use to anthropologists. The teeth are much worn, and the molars were''evidently

lost prematurely owing to abscesses at the rojots. v glints,found near the skeleton were of the late paleolithic and early neolithic periods.