DOMINION ITEMS.

Hokitika Guardian, 6 November 1923, Page 4

DOMINION ITEMS.

[liT TKLEGItAPH—PEP. PP.ESS ASSOCIATION.] TEL E 1 ’HO XMS I) EP FT A TlO X. CHRISTCHURCH, Nov. .5. A deputation from Canterbury Progress League interviewed lion .1. CL Cities and urged there was no necessity to increase the telephone rates, as the Department’s estimate of a deliieney was based on peak prices: that automatics would progressively decrease operating costs ; that the depreciation had been made good by renewals and repairs and that flic amount of C2(>B.7.5:1 for the year ending March 1 and £'2!)1.T74 for the year ended l!)*_’d. representing the revenue from toll communications, had not been credited to telephones. The .Minister gave a non-committal reply, in the course of which ho said the reduction of postage was costing CROO,(;f)r». However, if telephones .showed a surplus for the twelve months, he would hand it back in the shape of reductions. BROKE H'lS NECK. CHRISTCHURCH. Nov. <5. Francis John Vliestra, licensee of the Soften Hotel, fell out of a window ol the hotel at eleven last night and broke bis neck. A FATAL FALL. CHRISTCHURCH, \„v. -5. Before he could give any statement as to hi, fall from a window oil the second storey of the Sefton Hotel, Frances John A liestra. the licensee, died early this morning, an hour after medical aid had been secured. At II o’clock last night Air Vliestra, who had retired at ten o'clock to her room, adjoining her husband's, heard a persistent knocking at the door below. She went to see who the person was, and found it was her husband in his night attire. He stated that he had fallen from a window, hut he was able to walk, with Mrs A’lie,tea's assistance. The deceased walked to his bedroom. AN' he n medical attendance arrived. Vliestra was in a serious state of collapse, and beyond medical aid. The window from which Vliestra fell is in a passage round a corner from his own room. He injured his head in the fall, and this injury, associated with shuck, i> supposed to have caused bis death.

The hotel was to have heel) handed over to a new licensee to-morrow. The disposal of his interest in the hotel at a. considerable loss, the death of one of his children, and his own weak health, had made Vliestra very depressed for some l ime. He leaves a family of seven. the yoiin test being fifteen veais of age. INQUEST A’EIIIMC T. CHRISTCHURCH. Nov. .5, At the implcst oil Vliestra, (he evidence showed he suffered from asthma. Dr AA'ilj stated, that during an attack of asthma, a patient Usually got wliai was called "air-hunger" and would go to an open w iin low. The jury found the deceased met his death, through injuries received bv falling out of tin upstairs bedroom window.