NEWS BY MAIL.

Hokitika Guardian, 5 September 1922, Page 1

NEWS BY MAIL.

PRESIDENT’S MULE. NEW YORK, duly 6. President Harding yesterday celebrated July 4 ('lndependence Day) by speaking to 50,000 people at Marlon, Oliio, where, as a private citizen, ho publishes a daily newspaper and has his home. Ije went to Marion for the first time 40 years ago. on a white mule. He arrived yesterday in a motor car and was given one ot the most remarkable receptions ever recorded a President.

“f shall welcome the day,” he told his fellow-townsmen, ‘‘when f can come back to stay with you permanently. .1 great many people think it is a fine thing to be President, hut 1 know letter, and would like nothing better than to he a Marionite ’again.” At the risk of being undignified, President Harding said, ho wanted to tell the real rv of his coming to Marion in 1882. ,: When 1 came to Marion on July I,” lie proceeded, ”1 was permitted to ride on a mole, as it was the easiest way to, bring me here. 1 started out in the afternoon, but this mule bad only one gait. Von could not put him into a second or the third, and you couldn’t stop on the accelerator. The evening shades were falling when 1 reached the vicinity ol Roberts’s Farm, three or four miles oftt of Marion.

”1 stopped to ask an old fellow who was smoking a pipe how far it was to Marion. Without cracking a smile he replied, ‘Well, it you’ve going to ride that mule it is a longer distance than you will ever get.’ ” The President referred in his speech to the recent miner riots at Herrin, Illinois, and said: ‘‘Liberty is gone in the United States when any man Is denied by anybody the right to work and live by that work. A free American has the right to labour without asking leave of anybody, else.’

TJ.S. MAGNA CHARTA RELICSNEW YORK, Ju'n 20. All British societies in the United States, together with members of the Sulgmve Institution and the New England Society were prominently represented yesterday at a service held at the Episcopal Cathedral of St, John the Divine in New York in commemoration of the signing of Magna Charta. The service followed a summons sued by Mr John W. Davis, the form-

er Ambassador in London, and Mr George AY. Wickersha-m to enlistment in the work of the English-speaking Union of all who believe that in existing world conditions closer co-opera-tion between the English-speaking peoples, Tlie feature of tlie service was the unveiling of three stones fi'oin the high altar of the ruined Abbey of Bury St Edmunds, upon which the cliarta was laid. The stones, the gift of the Marquis of Bristol, had been built into the sliatt of the credence table south of tho high altar in the cahedral. In an address paying tribute to the American judiciary, Mr Wickersham, the Attorney-General Mr Taft, said: “The greater freedom from oppression which the English-speaking peoples of the world have enjoyed over all other peoples has been Because froni the thirteenth century to the present time j they have held fast to the guiding principles embodied in the Charter of John.” Speaking of the historical significance of the charter, the Rev. Howard C. Robbins, dean of the cathedral, said: “More than 700 years ago these stones played a part in the event; | most pregnant in consequence of all events in the course of English history.” from its disintegration. DISAPPEARING MOUNTAIN. PARIS, July 15. A terrace of porphyrous rock in the Pyrenees on the top of the Pic du Midi, 8,500 feet, surmounted by an observatory is collapsing owing to the formation of caverns underneath where durian tho winter was snow that has now melted.

A large section of the observatory building lias crashed into the caverns and ft is feared that the rest of the observatory is untenable.