NEWS BY MAIL.

Hokitika Guardian, 20 January 1921, Page 3

NEWS BY MAIL.

U.S. WAGES CUT

NEW YORK, Nov. 17

With immigrants (arriving here from Europe at the rate of 1,000,000 a year, leaders of Labour are increasingly apprehensive at the prospects of widespread distress and unemployment. It is true that they continue, vociferously to proclaim that the labouring man must not lie deprived of the high wages established during the war, hut the fact, remains, and it is an encouraging fact, that wherever necessary curtailments of pay have been enforced they have been accepted. Every day brings evidence 'that the working man is regaining his common sense and preparing to acquiesce in the inevitable. A .striking .illustration of this was furnished yesterday when 40,000 van and lorry drivers in New York, who have repeatedly threatened to paralyse the business of the city, decided against a proposed strike for an increase in wages. The decision of the drivers is hailed as a triumph of moderation against the extremists. From Danville, Virginia, comes another significant piece of news. There employees of a large cotton factory have of their own volition voted for a reduction in wages of 2o per cent, realising that a further cut may Ire necessary if the textile market descends to still lower levels. j,ln the textile centres of Pennsylvania and New England wage decreases !"nm 15 to 25 per cent have beer* dei cod without any dispute. HUSH TO RIVIERA. PARIS, Nov. 17.

Judging b/ the latest -returns from the south of France, the number of visitors to the Riviera will he a record this season. Though usually the season does not begin till December, trains running south from Paris are filling more and more every day.

To cope with the exceptional traffic the P.L.M. Railway have tp-d-ay run the Calais-Mediterranean traiu.de luxe for the first time since 1914. Until December 9 the train will run on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays.* Passengers can leave London at 8.20 a.m. and take luncheon in Nice next day. Alter December 9 the train will , run daily. In addition to this, the company is running daily three expresses from Paris durding the day and four evening trains. The number of sleeping berths is likely to he doubled to 36 in each train.

Nice, according to those who have just returned, is already becoming crowded. Important British and American banking houses have opened now offices. GIRL AT THE POLL. LONDON, Nov. 16. Charged with impersonating her mother ,u,t tlio municipal elections in the beginning of this month, Mis* Charlotte Booker, 22, daughter of a local tradesman, was at Guildford yesterday committed for trial at the Surrey Assizes. It was stated tlmt she went with her father to the poll and voted in place ot her mother. Mr Triggs Turner, solieitoi for -Miss Booker, said she was asked by her mother, who was confined to her room, to vote for a certain candidate. She did not knowingly commit an offence. FLAG FRAUDS.

PARIS, Nov. 16. The “Matin” publishes to-day tin extraordinary story of German deceit. It says that in place of the French flags captured by the Prussians in 1871, which under the Peace Treaty should have been returned to Fean- ■ , the Germans rent hack sonic old flags belonging to National Guaids and other French troops which never saw the battlefield. These flags were worried in triumph in the armistice procession through Paris four (fays ago. There is reason to believe, the “Matin” say.s, that the real flags, numbering about 60, are in some hiding-place in Germany. It further appears thAt an expert from tilie Musec de ,I’Armee had been sent from Paris to Germany for the purpose of pointing out the proper flags to be banded over. He wrs informed in Germany that the .real flags had been burned at the armistice for fear of their return to the French-, and a receptacle containing the “ashes of the flags” was actually shown to him. Ft, was the absence of the eagles of Napoleon TTI on the poles of the supposed 1871 standards in Thursday’s procession that attracted suspicion. A second expert lias now been sent to Berlin to investigate the mutter. BABY. LONDON, Nov. 18. During a, football match at Portland, Dorset, between the local team and Wevmonth Breweries a woman ran on

ground exoitedljv calling for the Portland goalkeeper, T. Carr. He was pointed out to her, and after a few whispered words the two hurried off the field. A quarter of an hour later the goalkeeper returned and explained to the referee that his wife had been taken ill and that, he had got home just in time to welcome the arrival of a future goalkeeper. TEASURE IN A SACK. SUICIDE'S LEGACY IN A SACK. PARIS, Nov 17. Carrying a heavy sack similar to those used for grain, four French called at one of the Orleans banks a few days ago and nvested gold and silver coins amounting to €1,400 in French National Loan. Curiously enough the sack had been found near a tree in an orchard belonging to a peasant who bad hanged himself a few days before. He had previously written a letter stating that lie felt compelled to end his days on account of his poverty, revealing at the same time the place where he had hidden his money. One of the suicide’s heirs svho had invested his money in the new loan died a few days after his visit to the hank.

plague; OF lizards. WINNIPEG, November 20. A plague of lizards is afflicting the towns and villages which border oil the prairie lakes and sluices of Canada. At Ninette 2.000 lizards were shovelled out of the basement window-shaft at the Government sanatorium. In the doctor’s quarters 60 were counted. Motor-ear drivers have to keep skid chains on their cars as the -oads are made slippery by a surface ••f living lizards. Many or the people keep indoors rather than venture out because of the disagreeable sensation of crunching a lizard under-foot. Tho lizard is more treacherous than banana peel. The little reptiles, which vary from 4 inches to 18 inches in length, travel by night only, and are now on their annual trek front the lakes to find suitable crevices in which to hibernate.