NEWS BY MAIL.

Hokitika Guardian, 5 February 1921, Page 4

NEWS BY MAIL.

SAVED BY A DREAM. I,ON DON, Dec. 1. In a dryam during Saturday night -Mr A. E. Thomas, of 61, Falmouth road, Bristol, saw a burglar set fire to a Co note taken from his cash-box. Me snatched the note away and saved it by plunging it into a bowl of water?" So impressed was Mr Thomas by his dream that before going out on Sunday evening he hid his cash-box. On bis return he found that the bedrooms had been ransacked and £ls 6s taken. The cash-box had not been found. “My dream saved it,” said Mr Thomas. COAL TOO DEAR FOR FRANCE. PARIS, Dec. 1. M. Ader, head of the French National Coal Office, stated yesterday: “We have informed the British Coal Board that the price of this coal is now so prohibitive that it would be •more advantageous for us to close down some of our industries than tb~ continue to pay it. The British reply is that, if they lowered their price, they could not continue to guarantee to France 45 per cent of the British coal available for export. The French Ministry of Public Works has appointed a commission to fix the maximum price we are prepared to pay, which will be communicated next week to the' Coal Board.”

M. Ader explained that the U.S. delivers coal in France at about 15 dollars (nominally CM) a ton, freight included, and will give credit up to 10

years. American coal deliveries to France have risen from 20,000 tons a month last January to 700,000 tons in October. The highest price which British coal has reached in France is £7 10s a ton, including freight. SURPRISE FOR PRISONERS. LONDON, Dec. 1. Telling a prisoner who went into the witness box to give evidence that if the Court did not believe him he would risk being prosecuted for perjury, the

Lord Chief Justice carried out his threat yesterday in the Court of Criminal Appeal and forwarded the documents to the Director of Public Prosecutions.

The prisoner was an ex-Royal Air Force flight-sergeant named Douglas Westlake, who was sentenced at Surrey Sessions to 9 months’ hard labor for obtaining motor-car rides by fraud, presenting a cheque on Cox’s Bank, where he had no account. Yesterday lie pleaded that he had gratuity money in his pocket when he hired the car, with which he could have paid for it, but he gave the cheque because a friend told him it would he met. After hearing Westlake’s evidence the court dismissed the appeal, the Lord Chief Justice stating that they did not believe his story. DUTY BEFORE WIFE. LONDON, Dec. 1. “A man must put his duty first,” said Mr Cancellor, the West London magistrate, yesterday in fining a constable L'o, or 21 days’ imprisonment, for absenting himself from duty in order to join his wife, who was ill. “Just before I joined the Metropolitan force in March,” the constable told the magistrate, "1 brought my wife from Scotland. Apparently the climate did not suit her and her health became bad.

“She gave birth to a child, and it was dear to me that il they stayed in London the result would he fatal to both. 1 sent her hack to Scotland n August. Since August I have been receiving letters from her asking me to join her, and just lately the letters have got rather strained, and a friend of mine said, ‘lf you don’t join .your wife at once you will lose her.’ 1 applied for a transfer to Rosytli Dockyard. That was not granted, and on October 28 I asked for an immediate resignation from the police force, but 1 was told to complete a month’s notice.” He left his duty on November I and found work in Glasgow.

Replying to the magistrate, Inspector Skipper said the constable made a clean breast of the case at the time, saying lie had to choose between his wife’s safety and a breach of duty.