NEWS BY MAIL.

Hokitika Guardian, 16 September 1922, Page 4

NEWS BY MAIL.

HAMMER MURDER • PARIS, July IdJealous of an intimacy, which her husband denies, Mrs Clara Phillips, 23, is alleged to have beaten Mrs Alberta Meadows, 20, to death with a hammer on a lonely road near Cos Angelos on Wednesday, driven home in the dead woman’s car, informed her husband, with liis assistance removed traces of the crime, and He'd by train to Arizona, cables the Cos Angeles correspondent of the European edition of the New York Herald. A woman believed to lie Mrs Phillips has been arrested at Tuseon, Arizona. She denies knowledge of the crime and maintains a- stolid indifference. The sole witness of the crime was Mrs Peggy Coffee, who says that, with Mrs Phillips and Mrs Meadows, she went in a car to the lonely Montecito Drive where Mrs Phillips asked Airs Meadows to stop the car and get out as she wished to talk with her. Quietly and with a smile, Mrs Phillips accused the other woman of intimacy with her husband. When Mrs Meadows denied this Mrs Phillips, shrieking with sudden rage, swung her hand, in which she clutched a hammer, from behind her hick and rained blow after

blow upon her victim. Mrs Meadows, screaming for Help, succeeded in getting out of resell and started to run. Her assailant ca*ght her and renewed Her attacK. “After slip fell 1 became sick and walked away.” t l ’e witness declared. “Mrs Phillips overtook me in Mrs .Meadows's car and made me (let in, threatening me with death if I did net remain silent.” FRENCH CHAM HEP KISS. PARIS, July 0. Not since the Historic meeting of the Chamber on August -1. 1014, when all parties joined in the Sacred l nion of National Defence, have French deputies keen so moved as they were to-day by the dramatic speech in defence <f M. L’nimaire, the Premier made by M. Viviani, an cx-Premior, in reply ti> the assertions of the Communist Deputy, AT. Vaillaut-C.mturier. that M. Poincaire was partly responsible for the war, and had laughed in a military cemetery. M. Vivian.!, while refuting the statement that M. Poincare (then President) was in any way responsible for bringing about the war, reminded M. Vail-lant-Couturior that if the Communist Party wished to attack anybody they should have chosen him, as he was Prime Minister when war was declared. IVith tears streaming down his face M. Yiviani urged the Cham her to return to those days of sacred union which prevailed at the beginning of the war, and to lemember that, although the war was over, there remained the treaty of peace to defend. When M. Yiviani sat down the whole Chamber rose to its feet. The Socialists with the exception of a handful of Communist members did the same and vised with the Rignt. and the Centre in cheering M. Poincare. The Premier crossed front the Government bench and taking M. Yiviani in both his arms kissed him.

MYSTERY OF THE ATOM.

LONDON, July 15.

The evolution pf the atom, one of the most agitating scientific questions of today, is discussed on novel grounds by Mr \V. D. Versclioyle, who put forth some theories which will sot scientific men thinking.

Sir Ernest Rutherford and his school regard the simplest atom —that cf hydrogen—as composed of a unit of positive electricity round which a negatively charged electron circles. Mr VcrsTilioyle doubts whether hydrogen is the most primitive atom, and says that wo must show the evolution of even hydrogen. He even questions the existence of the positively electrified nuleous we have come to take for granted. and visualises a negative electron which spins at colossal speed round an axis and in so doing becomes a powerful magnet having a north and south pole, like the earth itself.

To propound his new theory, which is too technical to he gripped by the mere layman, he has had to invent many new terms, or revised meanings for existing terms, noteworthy among which is the gyron, or two-pole electron “magnet.” which is the “smallest hotly that is known to science.” Next conics a sub-atom, which is thought to be composed of small groups of gvrons, then the atom, a complicated system of sub-atoms.

A ret cut theory, evolved by Mr. A. H. Compton, assumes that the electron is not only an electrically charged particle but a unit also of magnetism, and this is in close accord with yet another theory of Chapman, in which the electron. imbued by Nature with a gyroscopic motion is termed a magneton. Mr Versclioyle states that lie has been able to find a method of influencing the gravitational attraction of the earth for matter, a definite relation of electricity to matter, and that lie can foresee a si in ’ le means of dealing with the internal energy of the atom. The alls' oiscncss of his theory combined with the already complicated them its a.s to (he structure of the atom, only go to show what a let we have yet to !o:rn befc re we can oven remotely begin to dream of the golden age when unlimited power is placed in our grasp