NEWS BY MAIL

Hokitika Guardian, 11 December 1925, Page 1

NEWS BY MAIL

SILVER FOX SWINDLE. .PARIS, October IS. The police of Paris, London, and other European cities tire looking for an ingenious company promoter who is alleged to have swindled guillible subscribers of more than .£IO,OOO in less than a month in connection with a scheme for breeding silver foxes in Europe for the sake of their valuable furs. For some time leading Parisians and others considered as likely to subscribe have been receiving circulars promising fortunes to the lucky people who quick-

ly become co-partners in several pairs of silver foxes which tho promoter was importing. Two companies were formed, with offices in the fashionable Champs Elysees quarter of Paris and enthusiastic prospectuses were sent to the for-tune-hunters who applied for information. The prospectus said : “ Everyone dreams of making a fortune. but the opportunities get less and less. There are, however, some lucky persons, such as the first subscribers (not to be confused with buyers of shares on the Stock Exchange) of gold mines, oil companies and rubber plantations, who have seen their (capital increase a hundredfold in a few months. This is just now the case with the silver foxtes. In Canada there are men who a few years ago could hardly get a month’s credit at tho grocer’s, and who are now worth £200,000. Office clerks who worked 60 hours a week for £2 have made £B,OOO in four years. A company formed chiefly of working women pays a dividend of 180 per cent. A penniless Canadian borrowed the necessary money to purchase a couple of foxes, and lie is now a millionaire.” Funds flowed into the offices of the company, hut the police were not impressed bv the stiver fox farm scheme, and inquiries were made. They have culminated in the arrest of the socalled representatives of the “ American banks” interested in the affair and the interrogation of a former chauffeur who posed as a. technical adviser to the company. The principal and his woman friend, a pretty blonde of 21, who skilfully filled the role of publicity director, have disappeared, with them, it is alleged, all the company’s funds. RE BRER-THROWING IN TRAMWAY-CAR. LONDON, October 7. An unknown man attacked Georgo Brewster, a London County Council tramway-oar conductor, of Wanlakcbuilding, Old-street, E.C., on the upper deck of his car between Roseberryavenuc and Farringdon-strcot late last night. Brewster was on bis way to change the front indicator when a man leapt from one of the scats and flung a hag of pepper into his eyes, temporarily blinding him. The conductor felt a snatch at his money satchel and warded off the would-be robber with his arm and called for the driver. Apparently the man got frightened and left the car. The driver found the conductor lying across one of the seats dazed. Brewster was taken by ambulance to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, where, after treatment, lie was ablo to return to Holloway depot and make a statement to the tramway offices and the police. CLERGY AND DANCING. LONDON,' October 18. Dr F. L. Deane, Bishop of Aberdeen and Orkney, speaking at an Aberdeen meeting of tho Scottish Country Dance Society, described dancing as one of the greatest assets in our social life. II was ;i wholesome recreation, and was just as necessary for healthy human life as sunlight was for flowers. lie regretted that modern forms of dancing were tending to thrust entirely on one side some of the most beautiful dances we bad inherited from the past. The Rev. Dr Archibald Fleming, of St. Columbia’s Church of Scotland, Boat-street S.W., replying to an invitation to become a patron of “A Grand Scottish Carnival Dance ” on Saturday, October 31, in aid of the funds of the Royal Caledonian Schools, Bushey, deprecates the growing tendency among London Scottish societies to hold their festivities on Saturday nights. "It is still widely held in Scotland that attendance at church on Sunday morning is at once a sacred duty and a wholesome practice,” ho says. “ Wlii'ii dances are held till mid-night on Saturday—sometimes lasting, perhaps. still later—lhc probability that those who take part in them will be in their places at church on Sunday morning is small." AMERICAN BUYING. PARIS, October 17. Baris jewellers to-day registered a solemn protest against the inquisitorial methods of the United States Customs a utliori ties. It is alleged that United States agents claim the right to inspect the private books of jewellers to ascertain the exact cost of jewels imported into the United States by Americans returning from Europe. It was also alleged that the United States Customs, through unofficial agents, advertised in the French newspapers offering rewards to employees who give them secret information as to purchases of jewels made in Paris by wealthy Americans. The French Government will be asked to send a just test to Washington against such practices. It was also decided that private business books should not be shown.

INK-BATH “RAG.” LONDON. October 18. > The death has taken place at C’hillingham, Northumberland, of Captain Arthur Windsor-Stuart Clnrk-Kennedy, late Royal Air Force anil Scots Guards, aged 41. Captain Clatk-Tvennedy was in 1906 the victim of a remarkable “ rag ” at Aldershot. After a mock court-martial he was forced into a hath containing ink. petrol, oil, jam and hot water, and then feathers were thrown on him. He escaped, hut the door of his room was battered down and he was forced to leave by the window. He was admitted to a neighbouring hotel in a state bordering on prostration. After an inquiry the Army Council decided to place the then colonel of the Ist Battalion Scots Guards on halfpay ; to remove the adjutant from the adjutancy and to censure him severely; and to stop the leave of 13 other offi-

: c-ers for various periods. Captain Clnrk-Kennedy left the battalion. M P. LIFTED BY HIS EARS. BUDAPEST, October 17. Herr Eckhnrdt, in the Hungarian Parliament to-day, defended himself against sneers because, as a member of ■ the Anti-Jewish "Congress now being held here, he sat at the same table

with Roumanian anti-Hungarians like Herr Gusa. Herr Fabian, the Jewish deputy, frequently interrupted, saying that lie and other Jews were in tho battlefield, hut Herr Eckhardt never. Herr Gonibos, the athletic leader of the anti-Jcwisli faction, lifted Herr Fabian, by the ears, shouting: “You little Jew, will you not talk to me?” Hut the Socialist deputy Herr Paver, with herculean strength, lifted Herr Gonibos bodily and carried him across the floor amid the wildest disorder. The sitting was suspended. PROTECTION AGAINST INFLUENZA. LONDON, October 17.

The possibility that by applying an appropriate vaccine to the limner membrane of the nose we may lie able in the near future to obtain protection against colds, influenza, and other inhaled diseases is foreshadowed in a report to the Medical Research Council on his inquiry Tnto the virus of cowpox and small-pox by Dr Mervyn Gordon, consulting bacteriologist of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. To deal with big oubreafes of those diseases it is desirable that an efficacious method less troublesome than inoculation should be discoveied. Having found that the virus of cowpox heated to 55 degrees Centigrade and injected under the skin of a rabbit produced immunity (protection against infection), Dr Gordon applied the same dose to the mucous lining of the rabbit’s nose and produced equal protection. Ho writes: “ Further experiments are desirable to determine the extent to which this physiological property of the nasal mucosa can he exploited for the practical production of immunity. Since all that is required is the mere application of the antigen (mierobic substance) to the nasal mucosa, it is conceivable that ultimately immunisation by the nasal route may he found to possess a high value in the case of threatened epidemics of respiratory-born diseases, a contingency in which preventive medicine is at present gravely at fault. As in such infectious maladies the virus is air-borne, the nasal mucosa is the surface in the body most exposed to attack. This site would appear to be the outpost where specific immunisation is most needed and most likely to prove successful in checking the spread of such inhaled infection.” The results of ttlie invesigation give promise of a practical mode of preventing not only cow-pox, but also smallpox, colds, influenza, measles, and other diseases due to filter-passing microbes. Tn their introduction to the report the Medical Research Council point out that the problem of filter-passers is one of the most important of the time. Accordingly advances in methods of investigating them—which Dr Gordon’s investigation promises—will he particu. larly welcome. An immediate application is the discovery of a means of diagnosing smallpox with certainty and distinguishing it from chicken-pox. While the rabbit serum, prepared against cow-pox will agglutinate equally well the virus of small-pox, it does not agglutinate a similar suspension containing the virus of chicken-pox. From other evidence described in tile report there is ground for hoping that before long it may he possible to prepare an effective scrum for the treatment of small-pox. GERMANS’ DEBTS. LONDON, October 9. The annual report of the Enemy Debts Clearing Office states that since the last annual report 8,935 British claims against Germans of the declared value of £3,772,209 had been finally disposed of, leaving 4.132 claims foi £8,055,382 outstanding. During the same period 50,708 German claims for £5,174,229 had been settled, which reduced the number ol outstanding German claims to 8,400. amounting in value to £9,152,990. Property claims under Article 297 nl the Peace Treaty finally disposed ol during the twelve months amounted tc 1.060, in respect of which £9,107,25/ 10s 5d was claimed. The total sum paid by the Clearing Office to British creditors and claimants up to the date of the report in-re-spect of these claims against German nationals and the German Government is as follows : Debts £49,301,905 4 £ Proceeds of liquidation ‘ 19,848,968 10 0 Compensation 9,939,200 10 S Total £79,150,074 11 2 On An strain debts aggregate dividends of 13s in the £ have been paid. Further dividends may he confidently expected. Of 10.030 British debt claims of fi11.191,208, 15,038, amounting to £13,531.100, had been finally settled. Austrian claims amounting to £2.595.118 had been adjusted. The total distribution on Hungarian property amounts to 4s Od in the £. PAINTING MORE THAN EVER AT I 82. 1 LONDON. Oct. 18. At the age of 82, which, lie attained vesterdav—St. Luke’s Day—the Grand Old Man of the Royal Academy. Sir Duke Fildes. R.A.. who won the praise of Charles Dickens as the illustrator of “Edwin Drood.” was stated hv a friend to he “painting more than ever.” Few men of Sir Luke’s age would care to spend their birthdays away from the fireside, hut lie > s so vigorous that he chose the day for the journey across France on his return from Spain. __ , ,

“He lias been spending a real holiday in Italy, with little work to trouble him.” a. reporter was told by his friend, “but in the last- year he has done more work than many young orlists.” . . When Dickens died m lSlf). Luke Fildes, then 27, did the drawing, “The K nip tv Chair: Gad’s Hill,” admired by many’ lovers of the novelists’s work. His best-known work is, however, “I he Doctor,” depicting the man who lias fought’ for a life anxiously watching his patient when the crisis is at its height, at dawn. Sir Luke has painted portraits ot the King and Queen, and after the death of Edward VII, made a sketch of him in the room in which he died, at the request of Queen Alexandra.