NEWS BY MAIL

Hokitika Guardian, 3 July 1922, Page 4

NEWS BY MAIL

FILM POPULARITY. I NEW York. May 15. | The ellipse of famous screen personalities continue with the progress of the ; keinnn popularity contest i (inducted for the benefit of New York charities. While Miss Constance iiiimcy retains the lead among women with 19.255 votes. Aliss Mary Pick ford has droplied to ninth place, having received only 1.888. Other well-known artists fared even worse. The Talmadge sisters. Miss Marion Davies, and Aliss Gloria Swanson all appear low down I on the list. Among the men a similar situation prevails. Charlie Chaplin is ninth with 1.277 votes. Mr Will Rogers, the ! “Cowboy King.” easily maintains the lead wtih a total of 2,0(53. HitteN rY a lioness. LONDON. April 22. A lioness at the London Zoo yesterday hit off her keeper’s finger-tip ns he was tempting her to leave her den. 'file man. mimed Woolston, was holding a piece of meat at the hack of the cage to lure the animal out of her slcpine fpiarters when sin* siirang and hit oil' his fingei-tin along with the meat.

The lioness was presented to the Zoo

hv the King, to whom she was given by the .Maharajah of Juiingarh. MOTOR THIEVES’ HAUL. LONDON. April 22. Thieves in a taxicab bearing a London mi nlhe i and presumably stolen, carried nil' a safe on Wednesday night at Ashiugtpii, mar Alnrpeth, Northumberland. and escaped with mere than £5,000. the accumulated takings ot the RuflYihi Palace picture house. The picture house is owned by Air and Airs Lamb, who live (dose to it at North View, and keen the takings in a safe at, home for some time helore hanking them. At 10 p.m. oil Wednesday ii was I'niim! that the front, door ol the ir dwelling had been I’oiscd, and the safe was missing.

The police weie at once iiil’m nfed, and (luring the night the safe, with it's hack ripped off by chisels, was found lying iii the disused aerodrome at Cramlingtoii, on the way south to Newcastle. A uuitnr-cab. which has been travel! to a garage ill Newcastle, is believed to have been the one used, and active search is being made for the thieves, some of the stolen money, put into circulation, being already in the hands .of the police.

The robbery was apparently carried out very openly. The Mil" would appear to have been carried 1.50 yards to the cab. Examination of the house indicates that the safe was dragged downstairs over a heavy carpel, and so through the passage to the waiting cab.

Tilt' thieves had evidently a close' knowledge of the house and its routine, 1 f< r normally a large mastiff dog is in the premises, hut on this particular j night it had been taken to the picture , house. The sale contained about to,00') in notes and more than ttiO in toin. When : the rohhory was discovered the cab and . the men had disappeared, hut the police for an area of 20 miles around were ' notified, and as a result of a motor-car approaching South Gosforth, Newcastle, 1 shortly after 1 a.m. yesterday was signalled to stop. If slowed down, hut as the police approached it put on speed and dashed past the police at a great pace.' Thieves are making an evei increasing use ol motor vehicles, of all kinds in carrying out extensive rohheries, and the fact that they go from London to ail parts of the country has been repeatedly pointed out. It is thought that in the present ease the ear was stolen, otherwise it is not likely that the thieves would have abandoned it. Scotland Vard officers, at the request o! the Morpeth police, are investigating and trying to Irate the ownership of the ear.

]m conned ion with the robbery two moil were detained by the Newcastle police yesterday afternoon, but no charge is preferred and investigations are still proceeding. SKI 11TS HATTI.fi. PARIS, -May 8. I.oiigchamp, with its gay crowds revelling in bright sunshine to-day. revealed that, the fashionable l’arisienne has by no means made up her mind in the battle of tbe skirts to yiWd without protest to the dictates of the Paris ‘.‘creator.”

In the paddock and on tbe stand of Ibis beautiful Paris ra.cerour.~e frocks' and skirts ot every length were to be seen, from those which drooped just below tlie knee and revealed the dainty contours of the silk-dad calf, to those that swept and billowed .just above the pretiv little shoe and bid even tbe trim ankle.

While knee-length skirls were very few. there were one or two examples ni white inoussclino tie laine ironi a line do la Paix establishment. Tailor-made skirts cf the new fashionable shade ol blue were olten somewhat longer, but few that 1 saw to-day came lower than Kin to lOin from the ground. That seems to be tbe compromise at which the Parisiennc lias arrived and which the Paris dressmaker has bad lo accept. Afternoon flocks of all the bewilderiiijx varieties of silks and satins wore distinctly longer. Most oi them were pi el ly well down to ankle-length ,and > m- almost even swept tbe grass. Here, again, the Parisieiine’s wi-b lor a compromise between Ireedom and fashion lias bad ils influence in tbe Vr.fi !e of tbe skirts. A few of these long dresses showed tbe fact that tbe dressmaker has been obliged to yield to tbe desire of bis customers.

ROY ItOßßfii? HAND. XKW YORK. Ala;. (!. A gang of youths, whose ages range from Id to to, pleaded guilty at Chicago police court yesterday to a series of burglaiies in which they secured lyioty of tbe value ol more than C'J.ddli. T' c court, liven was filled with ex- ■ il.ils i evcl vers, knives, furs, jewellery, masks, handbags, and so oil. The loader of the gang confessed that he and bis companions bad robbed more than ."id houses in the last feu weeks. Tiic gang was known as tbe ‘‘film bandits,” be said, lro,n the ire! that thev always carried out tluil opera-

tions in the afternoons when the houses were empty, the women being in the kinemas. ..