GENERAL ITEMS

Waikato Times, Volume 87, Issue 13274, 1 September 1916, Page 5

GENERAL ITEMS

A COURT-MARTIAL. NEW ZEALAND OFFICER DISMISSED (Australian and N.Z. Cable Assn.) Received August 31, 10.35 p.m. LONDON, August 31. As the result of a court-martial, Lieut. T. Fitzpatrick, of the Otago Regiment, has been dismissed. EAST OF SUEZ CANAL. RECONNAISSANCE DISPERSED. (Australian and N.Z. Cable Assn.) LONDON, August 31. A British communique states: "In Egypt our patrols on Tuesday drove off a Turkish reconnoitring party mounted on camels, which was attempting to approach Bir-el-Abd, to the eastward of the Suez Canal. The enemy was pursued for six miles." LITHUANIA'S FUTURE. CZAR PROMISES HOME RULE. INDEPENDENCE SUGGESTED BY GERMANY. (Australian and N.Z. Cable Assn.) BERNE, August 30. A wireless message states that the Czar summoned M. Itchas (chairman of the Lithuanian Nationalists in the Duma) to an interview at the Russian headquarters. He promised the Lithuanians a liberal measure of home rule. Germany, on the other hand, is preparing to declare Lithuania an independent principality, to act as a buffer State, subordinated to Germany by military and commercial treaties, one of the Kaiser's sons ruling as Prince. THE HUNS' MEAT FAMINE. HIGH PRICED HORSEFLESH. LONDON, August 31. Horse flesh is 2s a pound in Vienna and 2s Gd in Berlin. THE PERISCOPE. Mi* Marshall Hall told the King's Bench (London) the other day that the periscope was identical in principle with the optical instrument "used by one of the Georges to observe ladies who thought they could not'be seen." Thus do the frailties of monarchs contribute to the advance of science. It was also in the reign of this George that the opera-glass was invented, and led to a theatre riot owing to the popular impression that it represented objects upside down, and that the gentlemen using it were thus enablfed to study the ladies on the stage in that indecorous attitude.