BRITISH & FOREIGN

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume XXIV, 28 December 1926, Page 7

BRITISH & FOREIGN

OVERNIGHT NEWS SUMMARY. (Per Press Association—Copyright.) RANGOON, J_)ec. 23. The Frenchman Stern, who was arrested aboard the steamer Ellora, charged with attempting to murder a New Zealand girl, has been pronounced insane by the doctor, and will be repatriated. ROME, December 23. The Italian aviator, Captain Passalava, attained the height of 19,569 ft. —a world’s record, in seaplane 559, with an engine load of half a ton. DELHI, December 26. _ A dastard]v communal outrage reported. Air Swami Shradhandad, the wellknown leader, was assassinated by a Mahommedan, Abdul Rashid. Delhi is intensely excited over the crime. All .shops have closed. The crime will revive the communal discord which recently showed signs ot dying out Strong forces of police are patrolling the streets. Minor disorders resulted in five Hindus and one Moslem being injured. LONDON, December 25. The late Sir Adolf Tuck, of the Christmas card linn, left an estate worth £321,638. The “Sunday Express” states that nineteen motor-cars for the use of the Duke and Duchess of York and their staff are being shipped to New Zealand and Australia. A Boy Scout who accompanied the Shackleton expedition to the Antarctic. James Marr, now a Master of Arts and Bachelor of Science at Aberdeen, has been appointed Zoologist to the Dis. eovery expedition, organised by the Colonial Office. William Scoresby, in connection with this work, will investigate deep sea life and make scientific surveys of the Antarctic. The “Daily Mail’s” Rotterdam correspondent says that the British Consul, by a laborious process, elicited what is believed to be the story of the unidentified British soldier wandering about in Holland, dehf and dumb, with a faulty memory, but momentarily able to recall wanderings in many countries over the world. His name is believed to be Paul Horn. He was born in Baltimore, and served in the infantry at the Dardanelles. where he was wounded and sent to hospital in Egypt. Hp also fought in the Irish rebellion in 1916, and at Ypres and Arras. He recalls the names “Auckland” and “Wellington,” whence he was apparently repatriated by the American Consul. , Since the wtir he has travelled over the world, chiefly as a stowaway. Drunkards will lie convicted out of their own months if the Courts accept the discovery of Mr J. W. Jeaffreson, a professor in the University College, London, that speech ean be written accurately by the movements of the jaw. The professor says he has invented an instrument giving an identical graph for .sound and jaw movement, which is recorded on a photographic film, from which the actual spoken words can be read. “If the test were applied to a drunken man it would definitely establish whether his speech was affected," says Mr Jeaffreson. “The dips in the graph representing vowels would be irregular; crests represents, consonants blurred. A magistrate need not rely on a policeman’s word—the accused would have written his own unmistakeable confession bv merelv talking.” NEW YORK, Dec. 24. The Senate is preparing to open an investigation which may rival the Doheny affair. Early in January evidence will be called by Senator King of Utah concerning reports that American oil men seeking copcessions in Mosul influenced the negotiations for the Lausanne Treaty, restoring diplomatic relations with Germany. During 1926, there were 6128 automobile fatalities in seventy-eight major American cities, whose population aggregate nearly 32,000,000. New York led with 988, Chicago had 622, Detroit 325. A message from Rockmart (Georgia) states that a collision between the north and south-bound Florida passenger trains, on the Southern Railway, on Thursday night, resulted in many casualties. Gene Tunney, the world's champion boxer, who is spending his vacation at Rockwood (Maine), was nearly drowned when he lost his footing in an attempt to leap a treacherous ice wrinkle on Moosehead Lake, while walking with three companions to attend mass in Rockwood Village. Tunney plunged into the water, which is at least 100 feet deep. He was only rescued after his friends, foiining a human chain, kept him from sinking until other persons, attracted to rhe scene, helped to pull him out on to the ice. He had been so long immersed that he was thoroughly chilled, and had to be taken to a hotel aiid put to bed. The Paris correspondent of the “New York Times” says that quietly and discreetly, the French have nearly completer! arrangements for strengthening the forces in the districts adjoining the Italian frontier, in a manner designed to meet and parry, any sudden danger from excited Fascists. The land, air and sea forces are being fitted out, and grouped in such a way as to counter a sudden raid, such as might be made on Antibes, and which, if successful, would completely isolated Nice. Eleven deaths occurred during the holiday season due to drinking poison liquor. Dr. Morris (chief medical examiner of New York), declared that denatured alcohol, which the bootleggers fail properly to re-distill, caused the fatalities. He added that people were even drinking alcohol that can be bought from any chemist for heating. The Westinghouse Electrical International Company announces that French financiers are planning to erect in Texas City (Texas), a great

petrol production plant, which is expected to solve France’s fuel problem, improve her shipping, and partially eliminate France’s dependence upon coal. CAIRO, Dec. 25. Two air liners bound for Karachi, have arrived. The second starter came in first. The machine with Sir W. S. Branker (Director of Civil Aviation), aboard, was delayed, through descending for petrol in Catania (Sicily), after encountering a heavy gale for fifty miles from Naples. The second starter accomplished the 190 miles, from Solium to Cairo, in under three hous. GENEVA, December 23. Within fifteen ..years, Australia will show the world’s greatest percentage of active wealth-producing citizens, and Britain will be sixth on the list. This is the conclusion reached from the statistics the League of Nations has compiled for the International Economic Conference, to be held in May, 1927. These estimate that Australia, which had 2,911,000 workers between the ages of 15 and 70 in 1910, will have 4,688,000 in 1941—an increase of 61 per cent. The United States, Italy, Sweden, Germany, and Japan will all have higher percentages than Britain. The only country expected to show an actual decrease in workers will he France. Owing to war losses and declining birth rate, her working population in 1941 is estimated at 27,383,000, compared with 28,400,000 in 1910. BERLIN, Dec. 26. The Montagu-Morgan newspaper states that the secret of Germany’s “Big Berthas,” which was destroyed before they could fall into the hands of the Allies after the Arnfistice, was revealed to the United States by two Germans now under arrest on a charge of high treason. The prisoners are Dr. Goldmann (school teacher), and Dr. Dietz, who were taken inlo custody last September, on the ground of having revealed military secrets to a Foreign Power. It appears that Dr. Goldmann offered to sell the American Embassy in Berlin an artillery invention, on the ground that he was “convinced America would stand at Germany’s side in any future war.” The invention would make it possible to construct “Big Berthas.” It is not stated whether the American Government purchased the invention. PARIS, December 25. President Doumergue gave the Press the following Christmas message:— “I, like Dr. Stresemann and Sir Austen Chamberlain, am convincted that 1927 will see a new spirit and a new conception of international affairs more widely spread through the minds of the peoples, and then there will really be something changed in the destinies of humanity.” Napoleon was physically of C 3 standard, and would have been rejected if lie had attempted to fight in the Great War, according to Dr. Thoris, of the French Morphological Society. He says: “At the age of seventeen, when he became an officer, T would have been compelled to reject Napoleon, because he was too thin, and at 30 because he was too fat. At any othei age he should have been rejected on the ground of low chest measurement. He had. a body without lungs, and a stomach without muscle.” Messages from Doorn state that, surrounded by friends and relatives, exKaiser Wilhelm spent one of the merriest Christmases since his exile. None of the ex-Kaiser’s own children, however, attended the festivities. He received gifts from Germans living in the United States. The w’eather is so cold in eastern France that wild beasts are being driven from the forests to seek shelter and food in the villages. A herd of boars last night from Argonne Forest invaded the suburb of Vitrey le Francois, and were hunted by an armed posse. The temperature in the Vosges is 16 deg. centrigrade below zero. Gales, snow and ice are reported even in Biarritz. Several deaths are recorded from cold in eastern and northern France, while the Mediterranean coast reports an inch snowfall. President Doumergue this morning signed the pardons of six German civilians convicted by the CourtMartial on Tuesday, of attack on a French lieutenant, and within an hour, a telegram was received from Mayence, stating that during Christmas Eve, seven other drunken Germans attacked and injured two French soldiers, as they were leaving church after the Christmas mass. This new incident differs from the Germersheim affair, in that the French soldiers, being unarmed, were unable to resist, the superior number of their aggressors, w’ho escaped in the darkness. It is believed here ifiat even in Germany, this cannot appear otherwise than as an unfortunate sequal to the clemency the French have shown, and as a justification for the sentences given in connection with the Germersheim affair.