NEWS BY MAIL.

Hokitika Guardian, 24 July 1920, Page 4

NEWS BY MAIL.

FRENCH BALANCE-SHEET,

MONEY NEED FOR RECON STRUCTION.

PARIS, May 14. It is important at this juncture that nil should realise what is the situation of France, what she has lost and what she lias gained in the war. M. Andre Tardieu, who during the Peace Conference was a French plenipotentiary, has set forth what he describes as the balance-sheet of France. First he enumerates the debit side. During the war 8,500,000 men were mobilised, 1,400,000 being killed, 800,000 maimed, and 8,000,000 wounded. France lost 57 per cent of her men not yet 32.

Next conies devastation. Countless houses were destroyed, 7,500,000 acres of arable land laid waste, 3,000 miles of roads'destroyed. Mines which produced 55 per cent of French coal have been destroyed, and also 11,500 factories which before the war produced 55 per cent of French coal have been destroyed and also 11.500 factories which before the war produced 94 per cent of the woollens, 98 per cent of the linen, 70 per cent of the sugar, and 60 per cent of the cotton of the whole country. One-third of French shipping was sunk by German submarines. To defray the cost of the war in artillery, explosives, equipment, and food France had to raise more than £8,000,000,000. Of this huge sum £130,000,000 is owed abroad, and owing to the depreciation of the exohange amounts to three times that sum.

To her credit France may boast that in the devastated regions, to which more than half the inhabitants have returned, 3,600,000 acres of ground have been put under cultivation again, Loth of the roads have been repaired. Of the destroyed factories 3,500 are in full blast, and 8,500 are being rebuilt. To meet the funded and floating debts French taxpayers have been called upon this year alone for £720,000,000.

BANKER’S FLIGHT TO PARIS. LONDON, May 14. 11 1 particularly want to get to Paris before the banks close,” said a leading London banker at the Handley Page aerodrome, Cricklewood, N.W., yesterday morning at 11 o’clock. Within 20 minutes of his arrival a machine was ready, and be arrived in Paris 2 hours and 10 minutes later, which left him two hours in which to transact his business.

TRAITOR’S SHOT. j NUNS ATTEND DOOMED WOMAN. MAN SURVIVES A VOLLEY. PARIS, May 15. Four traitors met their fa'tl {his morning at the • historical Chateau of Vincennes. Their crimes have been numerous. Toque, an ex-colonial administrator, had not only aided the Germans in issuing the notorious organ “ Gazette des Ardennes,” but also spied on bis fellowcountrymen and betrayed them to liis new masters. Lemoine, Herbert, and a woman named Alice Aubert were three of his accomplices. Just after 5 o’clock a large grey-blue car drove up to the rifle butts behind ttie castle, where, in the midst of a hollow square of troops, were four gaunt six-ioot-higlit baulks of wood, to which the culprits were to be fasiencu. The car halted- about -30 yards from the posts. It contained Toque and Lemoine. Toque got out and stood by the car, apparently calm, and talking to his counsel. Lemoine sat back in bis seat with. his coat collar buttoneu up, remarking in a normal voice, " It is too cold. I prefer -to wait here till the others arrive.” WOMAN’S EAST WORDS. The soldiers looked glum and fidgety. The officers obviously would have liked to be at any other post of duty. A few minutes later the car containing Herbert, still ill soldier’s uniform, arrived, and then, last ot all Alice Aubertf She was accompanied by two nuns clad in (lowing robes and white coifs. For the first time nuns set foot on an eitecution ground.

Alice Aubert had, before leaving the Saitit-Lazare prison, attended Mass and taken communion. She bad been praying all tbe way to Vincennes, aild held in her liaiid the beautiful ivory crucifix given her by tbe nuns. As soon as she got out ol the motorear the. party set out on foot across the ol) yards which separated them from the posts. Last came Alice Aubert. With her short hair loose and wind-driven she cairieil her .head on high and her eyes fixed straight before her. In her hands she held clasped to her breast her crucifix. “ T do not mind dying,” she said, “if I go to Heaven. I am only sorry for my relatives and those who have to die with me. Please pray for me and them.”

There was silence everywhere. As the group penetrated the square of soldiers the major who was in command of the troops, with a voice hoarse with emotion, shouted, “Present arms!” RIDDLED AND STILL ALIVE. The nuns embraced Alice Aubert, and then the chaplain solemnly blessed them all. As the small party of assistants, nuns, chaplains, and counsel withdrew Toque tried to raise, his right arm, and in a strong voice shouted, “ I affirm I am innocent. Vive la France!” Only Herbert allowed the soldiers to blindfold him, the others, including the woman Aubert, preferring to face death with open eyes. After the volley came a moan. It was from Toque, lying huddled in a heap, still alive. Four non-commissioned officers ran out, each with a revolver in his hand to give the “coup de grace.” Alice Aubert, Herbert, and Lemoine were dead.

Toque, with at least six buwets in him, lived, though certainly he was not conscious. Four single shots rang out one after the other. Doctors and officers had hurried up, and one doctor examined Toque and found that life lingered. A sergeant was called and he fired yet another shot into the battered form. STABBED REVOLUTIONARY. PREACHED ANARCHY BUT SHOUTED FOR THit POLICE. LONDON, May 14. Disagreeing with the views expressed at open-air meetings by Sydney Albert Hanson, an “ anarchist-communist,” French Robert Lark, a. wood machinist, stabbed him with an ice-pick, and was yesterday at the Central Criminal Court sentenced to a month’s imprisonment in the second division. The jury found him guilty of unlawful wounding, and recommended him to mercy.

Lark, who is 66, conducted his own case. He is a short, grey-headed man, with a pointed grey beard. Mr Herman Cohen, prosecuting, said that Hanson, who is a fitter, living at Chelsea, S.W., has extremely advanced opinions, calling himself an anarchistcommunist and revolutionist. After a meeting at the Grove, Hamineismith, on April 10th, Hanson was walking home with his wife and child, when Lark stabbed him in the back of the neck with an ice-pick. Hanson, a young man wearing a bandage round his neck, said the wound had impaired his thinking. When the blow was struck Lark said, “ That lias done for you.”

Lark, cross-examining, asked Hanson to repeat the “ Anarchist Litany,” with which he concluded the meeting. .. Hanson: There is no “Anarchist’s Litany.” I concluded by advising the people not to take so much notice of their politicians. Lark: Perhaps your memory is bad. I will try and help you remember it. Did you say “ Damn the King.” “Damn Lloyd George.” “ Damn law and order” ?—No. Hanson denied he was a Bolshevik, although his sympathies were with the Bolshevik aims.

Lark, addressing the jury, said that he had worked in various munition factories, and knew that the mysterious strikes were the result of Bolshevism under the name of trade unionism. Mr Justice Lawrence, summing up, said it was a curious irony that in this case a man preached anarchy and communism, and that when somebody stuck an ice-pick in his neck he immediately shouted for the police and called for the officers of law and order.

“ WATER INK.” INVENTOR’S SUGGESTION TO NEWSPAPERS. LONDON, May 15. Another illusion was shattered at the Royal Society of Arts, John street, Adelplii, W.C.j last night. Between 30 and 40 members of the Institute of Inventors met to discuss

“ The Relations of the Inventor to the Staie,” and none of them came in RollsRoyces or in rags. It was an assembly of apparently ordinary normal beings.

The inventors present at what was a rather technical discussion about patents looked perfectly prosperous. They bad the appearance of plenty without profiteering. This rather conflicted with the statement made by one of them to a ‘ Daily Mail” reporter that “inventors want credit for their work more than cash.”

They did not talk much about their inventions, hut one of them said that newspapers should bo printed on sheets which could be wiped clean and returned to the, presses after a day’s use . “It could be done if water ink were used instead of oil ink,” he affirmed.

THE MOEWE HANDED OVER. HUN RAIDER FOR. THE FRUIT LONDON, May 1-5. The Moewe (3,500 tons), the notorious German raider, lias arrived in the Forth, where she lias been surrendered to the naval authorities. She will in future be known as the Pungo, and will go into the fruit trade, for which she was specially fitted. The Moewe, under Count Dolma Sclilodien, ran the North Sea blockade in 1910 and escaped into the Atlantic, where in many different guises she captured 13 British and several Allied merchant ships. She returned safely to Kiel with many captured officers and sailors and ,050,000 in gold bars.

Captain Fryntt’s vessel, the Brussels-, captured by the Germans in June 1916, is homeward hound. After four years absence, a part of the time lying on the bottom of Zeebrugge Harbour, she lias been made seaworthy, and is due in the Tyne on Sunday.

FORMER ETON BOY'S CRIME

BOGUS-OFFICER TRICKS IN BERLIN. LONDON, May 14

The exploits of a bogus officer, which included a visit as a. “staff officer oil a special mission to Berlin.” were recounted at Westminster Police Court, wbeiii George Francis Levee, ‘24, late ot tbe R.A.F., was charged with persuading Robert Lawrence Bcis]y,‘ of the Royal Air Force, to desert, and with obtaining a military railway warrant by fraud.

Mr Justice Fulton said the two men met while serving together. Levee said he wanted a batman and valet, as he had been appointed to leave London on a special mission to Berlin, and be promised to make arrangements for Beisl.v to go with him. By some means the two got to Cologne—where Levee passed as “Lieut.-Col. Mangay Reid” and cashed worthless cheques—and finally to Berlin, where he reported to tbe British Military Mission and directed that a cable should be sent to tbe Air Ministry. Later be was arrested for other offences and confined in a German prison.

Detective-Inspector Collins, of Scotland Yard, said Levee was brought up in Jersey and educated at bit on. He obtained a commission in the 13th Hampshises but resigned it through ill health in Decembef 1915. He rejoined the Army as an air mechanic, and had been over and over dgain convicted for wearing officer’s uniform, false protences, and fraud. Professing to be an officer of high rank in the Grenadier Guards he only just failed to obtain a pearl necklace valued at £3,000. He bad issued worthless cheques at Milan, Athens, and Constantinople. He left Constantinople in a Government nans, port provided with a warrant as an officer.

Mr Francis said Levee was really an international criminal, and lie had never heard a more remarkable record of crime. He sentenced him to six months' hard labour. SNEEZING GAS FOR DEPUTIES. DISINFECTED BY MISTAKE. PARIS, May 16. Two French deputies narrowly escaped suffocation in the Chamber yesterday. Most of the deputies being away in the country visiting their constituents, the authorities of the Palais-Bourbon decided to carry out a disinfection of the building against the germs of influenza and sleeping sickness. They closed all doors leading to the lobbies and committee' rooms and set two disinfectant distilling machines in action. But the library where M. lgnace and M. Maunoury, both ex-Ministers, were sitting at work had been overlooked. By the time these deputies realised that something was wrong and managed to make themselves heard through the closed doors, the fumes had attacked them. When released both were weeping copiously and sneezing violently.

ELECTRIC MILK. DISEASE MICROBES DESTROYED. PRO LESSOR’S D 1 SCO VER Y. LONDON, May 16. Professor J. Martin Beattie and Professor F. C. Lewis, bacteriologists, of Liverpool University, have discovered a means of sterilising milk by electricity which the Medical Research Committee (National Health Insurance) report to be “a practical method, of which the use on a large scale becomes now a problem for closer financial and administrative examination.” The two professors have been experimenting since 1914, with the result that they have succeeded in destroying by electricity the two chief dangerous species of microbes commonly found in milk. These are the bacillus of tuberculosis, which is the cause of the death of great numbers of children, and the bacillus coli communis, an agent in the production of appendicitis, kidney disease, and summer cholera of children.

Milk so treated keeps good for several days at ordinary room temperature. “ The taste,” says the report, “ is not altered and the properties are not in anyway impaired. The milk can be described accurately as “ raw milk ” free from pathogenic (disease-producing) bacteria. Children take it very readily, even those who object to heat-sterilised milk.”