SYDNEY SCENE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 215, 10 September 1940, Page 5

SYDNEY SCENE.

BAFFLING CRIME. LUXURY FOR SOLDIERS. SYDNEY, September 4. A bundle of letters written in Greek were found in a trunk in a house at Krskincville, Sydney, and may assist detectives who for seven weeks have been searching for the murderer of Victor Moulos, 'M, well-to-do Greek radio dealer. The crime has proved one of the most baffling for several years, and the police have received little help from the Greek community. Moulos, a single man, was found lying on the side of the road at Brookvale, near Manly, on July 19. It was at first thought that he had been killed by a hit-and-run driver, because the police were satisfied that marks on his clothing could only have been made by tyres, but medical evidence as to the wounds on his head was that separate blows had been deliberately struck. Convalescent soldiers will soon be able to bathe in live luxurious bathrooms, finished in black onyx and silver, pink, blue, green and white tiles, in the former Gordon home of the absconding financier, John Wooleott Forbes. Forbes is said to have spent £54,000 on his residence, which the Bed Cross Society has bought for £20,000 as a convalescent hospital to accommodate .'MM) soldiers. Set in | five acres of gardens, the tliree-storeycd house has .'JO rooms, and includes the following accessories: Cream-tiled swimming pool Ofift by 24ft, with purifying plant and underwater lighting; ballroom, with orchestral dais and bar; gymnasium; summer teahouse; bird sanctuary; lisli ponds; turf tenuis court; and nursery. Troops Hunger Strike. Seven hundred A.I.F. men held a hunger strike outside Mount Victoria railway refreshment rooms when their Sydney train arrived there at midnight last night on the way to Batiurst. The

temperature was 3.1 degrees, snow from a fall on Monday night was still on the platform, and the soldiers were hungry. The Railway refreshment rooms had 00 dozen hot pies and gallons of coffee ready, but not one of the 700 soldiers' attempted to buy anything. Instead,! they counted out the refreshment roomi and sang lustily, "Why Was I Born so Beautiful?" Their hunger strike was a demonstration against the refusal of the Railway Department to allow Mount Victoria women volunteers to serve them with free refreshments unless the women bought platform tickets. The Commonwealth Government is considering a plan to train Empire Airj Scheme reservists who are waiting toi be called up in gliders. Moiuliers of the 1 eliding Club in Sydney contend that gliding teaches air-sense and the essentials of aircraft control, but Air' I Board ex|>erts hold that gliding is not (of milch use because Hying a power-' driven 'plane was so different. A Sydney! flying instructor said Germany had. 100,000 glider pilots in training. " There! (he glider took the place of the clemen-j tary powered trainer used in the British and Australian Air Forces. This no doubt was one factor in the su|>erior skill of British and Australian pilots.

Poet's Son in Scuffle. J Mr. J. 11. Lawßon, son of the Australian poet. Ilciiry Lawson, struck a man at a patliorinjr in tlie poet's honour at I lie Ijiwsoii statue in the Domain on Saturday. Half way through the ceremony Mr. Lawson said loudly: "My father seems to have plenty of friend; now that he is dead. He'didn't have many when he was alive." The man turned round and said, "Who said he didn't have any friends*" and complained that he could not hear the speakers. Mr. Law&on then hit him. Mr. Ijiwsoii said later that because of his father's experience he hail never tried to write |xielrv or stories, Iml had [remained a teacher. "In a countiv likr this all a iii.iii can do i- to find a joh that will him in :i regular »a:o." he said. worth while these days is commcrcialiseii "' The principle speaker at tho function was Mr. .Justice Kvatt. who has rc-i«ncd the llinfa Court lielleli to iontc«t the Federal election for the <>fli<-ial A.L.I*. When Mr. Lawson was introduced to him he handed Dr. Evatt fas lie is now since his resignation) the following ,couplct iroui an unpublished poem by

his father called "Murphy": "He was two years in Parliament when times were pretty grim, He most be fairly straight, because I never heard of him." Dr. Kvatt laughed, and made a note of the lines. New Press Regulations. The drastic powers of the Director{General of Information, Sir Keith Murdoch, over the Press, radio and cinema have been greatly modified by the Amended National Security (Information) Regulations. Under the original rc'rulatio.is the Director-General had authority to compel publication of any matter. Now he may require publication only of corrections of an inaccurate statement of fact, Radio time taken over by the Dircctor-tJcncral is limited |tn .10 minutes in every 12 hours, and cinema time to 10 minutes in any programme. The approval of the Minister jmust l»e obtained by the DirectorjGviieral :»eiorc he can require publication of any corrections of reports which he considers inaccurate. The Divorce Court yesterday granted decrees nisi on the same alJegation of , adultery to two petitioners—John Herbert Robinson, 30, analytical chemist, formerly of New Guinea, and Philaracna Catherine Brennan, 31, of Wau, New Guinea. They alleged that Mrs. Robinson. 27. and Mr. Brennan, 33, had come i to Sydney by the same ship on holiday, had pone on to New Caledonia, and i,when they returned to New Guinea had confessed that they had lived together in Sydney. Mrs. Brennan said her hus- ■ I band had pone to New Guinea during t the depression because he wanted to i !>ctter himself and had become a '.building contractor on the goldfields. I The Kquity Court yesterday granted 'a son who had been cut off by his father ••\i!h only a pair of silver candlesticks, '£3100 from his father's £36.000 estate, to be increased to £5100 on the death of his mother or aunt. A daughter wa» iuar<!<d £1100 and £3 a week, to lie ''increased to £<i <>n her mother's death. The son. iicuvjc Henry Asher-Smith, now in the A.1.F.. and his sister, of I iirramurra, had ap]>ealed against the « ill of their father, a Sydney merchant. He had left his estate to his widow, other relati'.e«. and after that to five Sydney hospitals and orphanages. The judge said the husband and wife had ibeen separate*', and it appeared that the ! two children had espoused their mother's