LATE NEWS.

Hokitika Guardian, 15 February 1917, Page 4

LATE NEWS.

Per Press Association.— Copyright. Help for Soldiers Wellington, Feb 12 A cumber of .applications for finaooml assistance to soldiers nn«ier the Go-errmeitt’s new regulations b»ve received. The Acting Prime Minister states that official forma for detailing claims have beou printed, It will >be necessary to havo someone to advise him upon the applications. It is quite impossible that he, as Minister of Defence, should be able to look carefully into them |before sending the necessary recommendation to the Military Service Board. Therefore it is intended to appoint a responsible officer to investigate eaoh claim, reporting to the Minister if there is a prima facie case.

No grants have yet been made.

Napier Trouble Settled.

Napier, Feb 14

As the result of Hou VV. D. Mac Donald’s visit to Napier, work was resumed at one o’clock, on the old conditions, and the matters in dispute are to be considered by the Disputes Committee. Free labour was brought ashore from liners in port this morning. Efficiency. Wellington, Feb 12 The National Efficieney Board set up by the Government to undertake wide and important powers allocating labour, adjusting soldiers’ affairs where businesses have to beoarried on, and re-absorbing soldiers into civil life, has reported on the Acting Prime Minister’s scheme. It approves the greater part of a well-prepared scheme suggesting some modifications in details.

The board now intends to travel through the Dominion, furthering the proposed scheme of organisation whioh will use existing war work erganisatiods. A complete system for local co-operation in every district is being arranged, Supreme Court. Skelton Found Not Guilty. AUCKLAND, Feb. 14. At tho Supreme Court to-day Thomas Edward Watt Skelton was charged with the attempted murder of his wife Alice Mary Skelton, and of causing her bodily harm at Palii, North Auckland on January 14tli.

The evidence for the Crown was on the lines of that in the Lower Court. For 'the defence evidence was given that on a fishing trip the accused laydown and slept in the sun.

He complained of not feeling well, and said he had suffered from insomnia. He also complained of pains in his head. He had one glass of brewery beer with his lunch, and later had two glasses of homemade beer. The evidence given by four doctors was that in their opinion Skelton was in an abnormal mental condition when he attacked his wife. Tho accused in a written statement attributed the attack, of which he had no actual knowledge, to the fact of sleeping in tho sun, and his violence was due solely to sunstroke. He objected vehemently to the suggestion that he was a mental defective of long standing. Doctor Pabst recalled by His Honour stated that the symptoms described by the accused in his statement were identical with those of sun-stroke, and the condition of frenzy in which the accused was said to have been in when tho attack was made would not occur again excjept under similar circumstances. Dr. King confirmed his opinion. After a retirement of 15 minutes tire jury returned a verdict of not guilty, on the grounds that the accused waf temporarily insane at the time of th< attack, his mental disorder being the result of sunstroke. IJis Honour said he proposed to order the accused to remain in custody of tho jail authorities and not to send him to an asylum. He would remain in custody until the Governor’s pleasure was ascertain ed.