MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS.

Hokitika Guardian, 30 December 1924, Page 4

MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS.

[REUTERS TELEGRAMS.j LIXF.iI NEEDS REPAIRS. LONDON, Doc. 28. The “Daily Mail” says the liner Majestic has developed a crack above the water-line, owing to strain during had weather, necessitating three months’ repairs. CLACKS JX CKD RUSSIA. LONDON. Dec. 28. Ihe “Daily Mail’s” Riga correspondent says that African negro delegates are tonring I! nssia under Soviet guides like the British Trade Unionists. These black “reds" were given the ■special saloon carriage in which the Britishers journeyed. As negroes are seldom seen in llnssia they are attracting great crowds. The delegates declare the Communists in South Africa intend to free the enslaved Clacks from thi‘ British yoke. FREE STATE AND LEAGUE. LONDON. Dec. 28. The Itepublicau newspaper “Sinn Fein” published in Dublin, asserts that it is authentically informed that Britain has offered to pay twenty million sterling to the Free State in return for the latter withdrawing her claim for separate representation on the League of Nations. The paper adds the terms will be accepted and there will be a sham protest in the Dail Kireanu.

AN AM A/.INC VLXDLTTA. LONDON, December 28. Ihe “ Daily Express ” Oenevn correspondent describes an amazing vendetta. begun 2:18 years ago, between the families of Asciiwandeii and Jaucli in the Alpine village of Curgeden. On Christmas Day Jaucli shot Aschwantlen in the forest and then gave himself up to the police, lie declared that he had shot his enemy in order to protect his own life. Aschwanden’s sixteen year old son swore an oath to avenge his father, '('here is already a long list of deaths due to the filed as the male children of both families have been taught from infancy to shoot straight and they have never been allowed to leave the village unarmed. STILL A MYSTERY. BERLIN, December 28. A telegram from Hamburg says that .Tackel after a remarkable trial, was found guilty of murdering Anderson and Semmclhaeke; but how be murdered them and disposed of the hudiea was not revealed. TIIK SWA It A. JI STS REPLY. DKI.III, December 28. At the National Congress, though the pact was ratified overwhelmingly, the opposition speakers did not mince Words ill denouncing it. (iaudhi appealed to all to vole in accordance with their sincere convictions in view of the revolutionary character of the proposed change.

C. It. Das in moving the adoption of the pact, said the boycott ol foreign cloth was their reply to the Government's challenge in Bengal. He reaHi ruled the Council would not bring the Swaraj, but the Swarajists had gone thereto in order to give the enemy no quarter and they would attack wherever they could. TERRIFIC CALK. DISASTHOrs TO Si 111’l’lXO. LONDON. December 28. Although the gale is abating there are reports of shipwrecks and Hoods, accompanied by some loss of lile and much damage throughout the country. The storm was particularly disastrous to coastal shipping. A (ionium trawler was lost of the coast ol Scotland with only one survivor out of a crew of fourteen. The Isle of Wight lifeboats were launched to assist the distressed steamers and they ha tiled lor hours in the worst seas known in the channel for years. Landslides near I’onlypool blocked the roadway. Houses chimneys, and walls collapsed in many towns with hnirbrenth escapes. Mountainous seas swept I-lushing i,« | Boulogne .-tcjnnei'S lr"ln '‘ml to and when tho\ hit l-'oll,stone. A naval monitor broke lioni ils moorings at, Spit head and was blow n across the Solent, stianJing on llm opposite shore. Two bodies and a considerable amount of wreckage, believed to belong to a Kreucli vessel were washed up at ( arnarthoiisliirc. Heavy destruction was wrought in Rhondda Valley. Many inhabitants cut off near Abeyst.wylli had to be rescued bv means of boats. Three hundred tons of loosened earth collapsed on top of a train in a railway cutting between Brecon and Marthin, some passengers being injured

OBITUARY. LONDON. December 23. Oliiluar.v. —f!i‘uige Downing I.iveing, wlm had .'in unbroken residence nt Cambridge University lor seventy-six years. A dubious farmkr. LONDON", December 23. At a meeting ol farmers at Worcester a farmer asjjyd Mr Hylands, President of the Farmers’ ("nion. whether the proposed grant ol a million sterling to the Dominions for the improved marketing of their produce would not he harmful to British agriculture. Mr I’ylauds replied that it would he monstrously unfair if the State, being unwilling to help British farmers, was going to help people overseas to brine down British prices. It would he the Onion's duly toAsee that British agl'ieulture did not sulfer under the scheme.

FRANCK’S BALANCE SHEET. PARTS, December 23. The French National Balance Sheet which has been issued by the Ministry of Finance, shows assets as 79(>,5.‘!0 million paper 1 rimes, liabilities (>(>(1..120 million francs, hut Franco’s debts to Britain and America amountin'; to nearly one million of gold francs are not included in the liabilities, nor are the debts of other countries to France amountin'; to about fifteen milliards of cold francs, included in the assets, which, however, include 10:!, 1)00 million paper francs as capitalisation of the, French share of the Dawes annuities.

The Minister of Finance says that France does not intend to repudiate her debts, but he argues in favour of a reduction thereof. PARTS, December 20. The statement on the financial condition which has been issued by the Mimilieu Minister, shows that avliilo the national debt at the end of 1912 was 112,‘>91 million francs, it is now 7:i,.j0( 1.000 wold francs. France’s foreign debt is now thirty-six billion francs, bein'; an increase of .‘T.’IO per cent since the outbreak of war.

WAR DEBTS HAGGLING. PARTS, December 23. M. Clomoncenux announces that if the lion. Winston Churchill (British Chancellor of the Exchequer) raised the question of fufer-Allied debts at the forthcoming Conference. France will suggest that the total war cost he pooled aiul divided among the participants pro rata according to the national wealth. If the proposal is icjeotod she will demand that France should be credited, firstly, with the damage in making her soil the battle "round; secondly, the war taxes of France paid on goods purchased front the United States and Britain, and Clemenceaux adds that unless France receives a quid pro quo settlement o her debts she cannot abate the total reparations against Germany which are officially fixed at sixty-six hundred million storling.

ANOTHER JAP DISASTER. TOKIO, December 29. A fire late last night in a private lunatic asylum in Tokio resulted in many fatalities. Of the 3-13 inmates 101 are misping. Thirteen corpses have already been recovered. The fire spread and destroyed fifty other houses before being extinguished. .TAP EXPLOSION DISASTER. TOKIO, December 29. Forty-seven bodies have been recovered ui) to the present from the Otaru explosion disaster. The injured total ■l5O. ANOTHER DISEASE.

WASH I NOTON, December 28. I)r Edward Francis of the Ini ted States Public Health Service, announces that the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which is meeting here shortly, will discuss a newl.v-deterinineil disease. Tularaemia or ••rabbit fever,” it being flic last of tin- known diseases attacking mankind discovered within the past fifteen years. The malady is essentially a rabbit nflTictioU, but it also attacks, annetimes with fatal results, human beings. A lly or a tick which sucks hlood from the infected animal may early the fever to man. who may also contract it by .cleaning game. Tularaemia is already active in twelve western. midwesterii and southern States and has been introduced into several Eastern States ill the past lew months. American physicians, who have attempted to study the disease have been stricken with fever, although no ease has been fatal. Dr Francis Jays that the British physicians have given up their experiments with the new ailment, on the grounds of discretion, after the entire personnel of one London laboratory became ill from dealing with infected ’.rabbits, 'Kent from South America. Dr Francis points out that the general prevalence of Tularaemia lias not been known owing to its incorrect diagnosis as septic infection, typhoid fever, or anthrax, lie indicates that the disease cannot hS contracted through eating cooked rabbits, although freshly infected meat, while being prepared for culinary purposes can transmit the virus. MOTOR- TRAGEDY. LONDON. December 29. Four persons, including a blind man. were drowned owing to the skidding of a touring car containing six persons. which broke through a bridge and foil thirty feet into the Stokesnv River in Shropshire. Four were pinned beneath the ear. The chauffeur jumped clear and escaped. Another was rescued.