BRITISH & FOREIGN ITEMS.

Hokitika Guardian, 1 May 1923, Page 2

BRITISH & FOREIGN ITEMS.

AUSTRALIAN AND N.Z. CABLE ASSOCIATION. CROOKS ARRESTED. AN EXCITING PURSUIT. PARIS, April 30. Charles Edward Holloway, an American, and Francis O’Brien, an linn?- have been arrested. They are supposed to be members of an international gang. Tho arrests followed complaints by Louis Rubin, an American banker, who was victimised on Thursday in Brussels to tho extent of two thousand sterling, by a confidence trick. Rubin came to Paris with detectives, whore lie recognised a portrait of O’Brien as tbe man who robbed him. The polico wont to a hotel on the Rue do Rivoli, and they learned that O’Brien had gone to Cherbourg to join the liner Mauretania, but they arrested Holloway, who is alleged to bo bis accomplice. O’Brien’s description ... was then telegraphed to Cherbourg^ During bis train journey thither, how-r.-ev, O’Brien had changted everything he wore, including his socks and his gold rimmed spectacles. His appearance was so altered that instead of him two Americans were arrested who were travelling in the same compartment.

The error was found out before the Mauretania sailed. O’Brien was arrested only as he was boarding the . boat. He vigorously protested that ha p' was an English citizen, but the police searched his baggage, and they found C2SCO in English, French and Belgian nionev hidden in a shirt in 0 Brian s travelling bag. ' Holloway has been identified as one of tbe three men who tried to swindle an American shoe merchant in September He was captured after a struggle wherein a detective shot Holloway, who was sent- to tho hospital, but ho was later released on condition that he left tlie country.

WARREN’S ARREST. PARIS, April 29. The arrested man Warren denies that l:o served any gaol sentences in Australia. or that lie was the leader of a baud of international crooks, lie declares that his arrest lias humiliated his wife, who is related to persons in high positions in England. Warren alleges that she is the divorced wile of a former Cabinet .Minister in a large Bn- . tisli dominion and that her three brothers are Magistrates in London, Canada and Egypt. . ' Seuor Santos, a- Spanish business man, on Saturday gave evidence that Warren swindled lmn out of £l,<joU. _ 'm Monroeon. a Frenchman, in ovi- ' donee, said that Warren had cheated him out of four thousand sterling.

BELGIAN WORKERS’ STRIKE. BRUSSELS, April 30

The telephone and telegraph operators and the milwaymen of Antwerp. Malins and Liege have begun a socalled “foliled-arms strike” meaning that the workers continue at their posts, but do not work. The strike « due to 209 men who are dissatisfied connection with’ the question ot exP Tgcneral strike is threatened.