NEWS BY CABLE AND MAIL.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 25 September 1924, Page 8

NEWS BY CABLE AND MAIL.

MILLION DOLLAR HAUL. MONTREAL, Aug. 1, Six men have been arrested, on a charge of obtaining 25,000 dollars by false Tjretenees from a resident of Chicago. They are believed to belong to a gang of international confidence trick men who have swindled tourists coining to Montreal of more than 1,000,000 dollars during the past six weeks. The police have ‘under their surveillance a security vault containing over 100,000 dollars in cash, alleged to be part of the stolen money. United States officers have been on the trail; of the gang for several years. They ostensibly operated in connection -with stock market deals and racecourse betting. Their stationery bore the name of J. P. Morgan, of New York, and there were eight dummy telephones and a, number of dummy telegraph instruments in the office which they used. The United States authorities claim that the gang secured 605,000 dollars in Cuba last year. MATTERHORN CLIMBERS KILLED. ZERMATT, Aug. 1. Two Austrian visitors, M. Braun, of Vienna, and his wife, were killed on the Matterhorn this morning. Other tourists saw them fall and hastened to the scene of the accident. They found both the climbers dead. EIRE ON NORWEGIAN LINER, > CHRISTIANIA, Aug.- 1, Soon after leaving port this afternoon the Norwegian-American liner Bergensfjord caught fire.'The-outbreak started with an explosion in the after engine. The liner anchored, in a, side arm of the Christiania fjord and landed all her 450 passengers. The damage to the vessel is considerable. TENDERS FOR TRAM RAILS. LONDON, Aug. 1. Hull Corporation Tramways Committee accepted the tender of Messrs Bolckow, Vaughan and Co., Limited, Middlesboro.ugh, for 1500 tons of rails at a cost of £17,936. The German tender was £3OOO less, and the Belgian tender £2700 cheaper. The committee felt that t-he work should be kept in tills country. RAID BY LIONS.

CAPETOWN, Aug. 1. Farmers along the seuthern side of the Sabie Game Reserve in the Transvaal are suffering heavy losses of live stock owing to nightly visits of lions from the Reserve. The number of lions in the Reserve is estimated to be 3000. . UMBRELLA RAILWAY. It is just a century since Parliament- sanctioned the construction of , the Monkland and Kirkintulloch railway in Scotland. It was unique in its method of propulsion, for its motive power was the wind, and umbrellas were hoisted to catch it and send the trains .along. The wind was not always in the right direction, and, as it was impossible to use the sailor’s method of “ tacking, ” in those, circumstances the train was pushed. AMERICA’S NEW U-BOAT. NEW YORK, July 27. The submarine V 1’; which will be commissioned in October, was launched to-day at Portsmouth, New Hampshire. It has a surface displacement of 2164. tons, a surface speed of 21 knots, and a submerged speed of nine knots. It is stated on good authority that this vesseUwill be able to go to Europe and return without replenishing supplies. It can carry a crew of eighty-seven. £6OOO DAMAGES. LONDON, Aug. 1. Mr Harvey Dodd, .mining engineer, of Woldingham, Surrey, was at Sussex Assizes yesterday awarded £6OOO damages against Mr Albert Stedman, laundry proprietor, of Forest Row, Sussex. It was stated that as a.result of a collision between his motor car and a motor van belonging to Mr Stedman, Mr Dodd’s right arm had been ampu- • tated, preventing him from following his profession abroad and limiting him to consultation work. STRIKES IN ITALY IN 1923. ROME, Aug. 1. Interesting statistics .of strikes in Italy in 1923 have just been published from official reports. There were some 200 strikes, compared with the two or three thousand recorded in previous years, and the number of operatives concerned amounted to about 66,000. In the previous year it was fifteen or twenty times that number. This shows, according to the Government contention, the beneficial effect of Con-servative-Fascist Government, both as regards employers and workpeople. LAWYER’S VISIT. LONDON, Aug. 1. On behalf of the American. Bar Association, the Hon. George AV. Wickersham (vice-chairman of the American Memorial Committee) presented at the Royal Courts of Justice the memorial statue of Sir William Blackstone as an offering to the Bar of England. No writer in the law, he remarked, had exerted such an influence as Blackstone oyer a great nation in the hour of its birth and during the years of its growth to full maturity of istatehood. In accepting the gift, the Lord Chancellor observed that occasions like that did more than any written word to cement the close brotherhood between England, America, and Canada. JOY-RIDING IN TAXI-CABS. NEW YORK, Aug. 1. New York residents are joy-riding in taxi-cabs, which they may now engage at a flat rate of lOd per mile as & the result of a rate war between the several companies. As each cab holds five persons, and there is no extra charge for numbers, parties are formed to tour the citj' and neighbouring beaches, and the fare split five ways amount to only 2d a mile for each person, which is practically as cheap as the railway fare, while the method of travel is much more luxurious. Despite the cheaper rate the taxi-cab companies declare that the daily receipts are much greater than previously. They complain, however, of an unusual number of punctured tyres from tacks and hails strewn about, presumably by the companies maintaining higher rates. AVTATOR ’ S YENTURE. PARTS. Aug. 1. The French aeronaut, Laporte. who with a passenger was competing in the balloon Grand Prix race, which

started from Lyons, has had a narrow escape through Jus balloon being carried out (over the Mediterranean. The wireless station at Marseilles received news from the British steainer Leicestershire that an empty Zodiac balloon had been found drifting in the Mediterranean, and that a search of the neighbouring waters'had failed to discover any traces of its occupants. During the afternoon, however, nows was received that the pilot, Laporte, and his - passenger had been found near Istres, having apparently jumped out of the basket before the balloon drifted out to sea. Both were seriously injured.

SUMMER, DRESS BAPTISMS

NEWPORT, Aug. 1. There are indications of another religious revival in South Wales, and it is thought that. Mr. .'Evan Roberts, the famous Welsh revivalist, may be induced to come from his retirement to lead the new movement. Remarkable scenes were witnessed at Ebenezer Baptist Church, Abertilley, last night. The chapel, which is one of the largest in Wales, was crowded, and when the minister made an appeal to the congregation to make a profession of the Christian faith no fewer than twenty-one persons came forward and were baptised. The candidates included girls in ■flimsy summer . dresses ’and colliers, one of whom took off hie coat and vest on the steps of the baptistry, in which the water is three feet deep. All the candidates were completely immersed.

A NOISE KILLfcR,

Linoleum on ceilings is the latest cure for noises from the floor above. The idea is based on the researches of the late Professor Wallace C. Sabine, of Havard Universtiy, who, in. his day, was a recognised authority on acoustics.; A thick layer of, Jelt is fixed to the ceiling, and over that linoleum perforated with small holes. That is, briefly, the new sound-killer. According to Mr Clifford Swan, a New York engineer, the common source of acoustical trouble is reverberation, and this to-day .is more true than ever owing to modern fireproof construction and its hard .walls and plain surfaces.

THIRST FOR THRILLS

In the course of a sermon in the Scots Church, Melbourne, the Rev. Thomas Tait, of Sydney, remarked that/the modern worlth was haunted by the fear of being bored, and that the empire of boredom had been fictitiously widened. There was a revolt against the necessary sameness of human existence. There was a thirst that cried out for the grotesque, the vulgar, and the vicious. There ' must he freak fashions in dress. There must be blazing advertisements, dramatic thrills, slang recitations, Bolshevik policies, and miscellaneous boisterous hellowings. Underneath all the bubble, froth, and noisome iridescence of superficial life there was the I'emorseless tug of irresistible laws. Cheap and easy ridicule might make a butt of prophets and preaeriei'S, hut the same old maladies required mudh the saine old treatment. The monotony of the world’s follies and sins made certain socalled pulpit platitudes inevitable.

SUICIDE AFTER TORTURE

LONDON, July 17, Definite information from . Russia should give food for thought, to those who still believe in the possibility of normal relations with the Bolsheviks. Some time ago there appeared in the Soviet press an obituary notice of M. Alexis Raffalovich, who, it was said, had died suddenly in Petrograd. He was described as a valued specialist and a trusted servant of the Soviets. Alexis Raffalovich was one of the best Russian economists, and long ago his reputation was well established abroach He was not a Communist; hut was intensely loyal, and, although he criticised the Communists freely, he never by word or deed did or could be persuaded to do anything against the present rulers. AH these years he continued his scientific work, and was of great use to the Soviet Government because of his knowledge and the sane advice he gave. And now he has died “suddenly.” The horrible truth is that he committed suicide in the prison of the Che-Ka. where he had been thrown on an accusation of “economic espionage’” for foreigners. There he S wn,s reueatedIy tortured, and took his Jife deliberately to escape further agonies at the hands of the. agents of the Red Terror.

Those who are finhting.theßolsheviks tooth and nail, with no quarter asked or given. always reproached Alexis Raffalovich with the punctilious wav in which he avoided doing anything which could help them. His loyal observance of Soviet decrees did not preserve him in tho .end from the cruel fate which hangs like the sword of Damocles over the heads "of all peaceful citizens in Russia.

FATAL ACCIDENTS

NEW YORK, August 1. Investigation into the grade-crossing accident yesterday, when a New York Central passenger train crashed into, a. motor truck loaded "with children returning from a picnic, killing ten of the twenty-six merrymakers, ■ shows that the electric signalling system worked satisfactorily, but apparently the driver of the truck failed to heed the customary warning posted at grade crossings, “Look and listen.” Another accident that was investigated to-day relates to the death of five persons who were fatally crushed at Detroit, Michigan, yesterday, when a steel chimney fell from a twelve-storey building across a motor-car in which the victims were- riding. The killed included two married couples. A little boy was extracted from the debris practically unhurt. A third inquiry dealt with the ramming of a big New York-Boston passenger steamer by an oil tanker, when four people, including a bride returning from her honeymoon, were sacrificed. All the passengers were sleeping in their berths when the tanker ripped a hole in the cabins. It is alleged that the negro stewards aboard were not skilled in launching lifeboats, but the sea was calm, and there was no panic.

GREAT HYDRG-ELECTRTG SCHEME

LONDON, August I

A Government-assisted proposal which will provide employment- for thousands of men for live or-six years—the Locliaber hydro-electric scheme —has been inaugurated this week, says the Industrial Daily News, by the placing of the first contract. The largest of its kind ever attempted in this country, the scheme is being assisted by a trades facilities guarantee of £2,000,000, and its completion will involve an outlay of about £5,000,000. It will transform what is now virgin forest land intoi an industrial area, covered with large works for the production of aluminium and other metals. The watersheds for over 300, square miles will bo.-har-nessed and the energy concentrated at Fort William, where equipment sulficient to gerfbrate 100,000 lforse-power will he installed.