NEWS BY MAIL

Hokitika Guardian, 2 May 1921, Page 1

NEWS BY MAIL

TRUNK MYSTERY. PARIS, Feb. 25

Mme. Weisemann-Bessarabo, the writer, who is accused of murdering her husband, whose body was found in a trunk at Nancy railway station, burst into tears during cross-examination by the magistrate to-day, and stated that she had confessed to the murder merely to save her daughter from staying at ... - Lazare Gaol. The daughter, the husband’s stepdaughter, has confessed to helping her mother to send the body in a trunk; this the mother has denied. “Who, then, did kill your husband?” asked the magistrate. “Why do you insist,” replied Mme. Weisemann-Bessarabo, with a tragic gesture, “that it must be either I or my daughter? See the tragic dilemma. It is your duty to find—the other person. “If I had wished to commit such a crime,” she continued, “I would have taken a motor-car and driven to the sen-shore, where I would have got rid of the body for ever. I last saw my husband at the railway station with a 1 trunk which he told me was full of patterns connected with his business. He wanted me to send it to Nancy for him later in the day. “We waited, and about nn hour later the motor car came hack with the trunk, hut not my husband. I know his body was concealed in it.” After the mother’s ordeal it was the turn of the pretty young daughter, who adopted the same attitude as her mother. _ The judicial authorities, at their wits end, intend to confront mother and daughter next week to see if they still maintain their present attitude.

THEATRE BATTLE. VIENNA, February 26

During a riot at a theatre here last night women were thrashed with sticks, many people were injured, cloakrooms were looted, and, in the panic that followed, the building was partially wrecked. The riot arose, from the opposition of about a thousand of th spectators to the production of “Reigen”-a play which, attacked as indecent, is defended by the Social Democrats, and the Labour newspapers. This play, which is a dialogue dealing with the most intimate problems of sexual life, has been banned by the Austrian Parliament on the ground that it is immoral, but the ban has been ignored by the municipal authorities. The trouble began with 'he throwing of bombs filled with noxious gases and eggshells filled with tar. Fights broke in many parts of the building, and the police were overpowered. In one of the boxes Count Louis Salm, an athletic giant and a famous tennis player, who has played at "Wimbledon, protected the women occupants until he was knocked down by rioters with kuckle-dusters. An actress fainted on the stage and the curtain was rung down. LIVE BOMBS ON WARSHIPS. NEW YORK, Feb. 28. Nine former German warships and two obsolete American battleships are to ho used as targets in a series of tests undertaken by a Joint Army and Navy Board to determine the vulnerability of battleships to attack from the air and also to develop a system of tactics for attacking warships off shore with aircraft. The former German ships include tho light cruiser Frankfurt and the Dreadnought Ostfriosland. These ships, which under the agreement of the Council of Ambassadors must be destroyed before August 9, will be attacked with live bombs.'lt is not stated whether they will be under way at the time of the attack, but the old American battleship lowa, on which dummy bombs will lie used, will steam under wireless control. Bombs to be used against the German vessels range from 200 to 1,000 pounds in weight.