BRITISH & FOREIGN HEWS

Hokitika Guardian, 4 January 1926, Page 3

BRITISH & FOREIGN HEWS

[Australia & N.Z. Cable Association. 1

A STRANGE STORY

LONDON. Jan. 2. An extraordinary story of < v convict’s escape from Devil’s Island, the world’s most dreaded penal settlement, of! the coasted French Guiana, was told, when Louis Vaelier was imprisoned for a. year for theft. Taohor told the police that' he had been sentenced for life for a trivial offence in 1013. He escaped in llilf. After many adventures, he worked for an aluminum company in Dutch Guiana. Later on, he went: to Yenezula, from where lie worked his passage in a sailing vessel to Bordeaux. Thence he went to Dieppe. Then, landing secretly iu England from a fishing boat in 1020, he worked in London restaurants for four years, until in January last, when he alleges starvation drove him to crime.

SHENANDOAH INQUIRY. WASHINGTON, Jan. :>. The Court of Inquiry in the Shenandoah. airship disaster ease, absolved the Navy Department from all blame, declaring that the destruction of the airship was due principally to external sources arising from a high velocity air y current. The Court was unable to detormina, whether prior minor damage, due to gas pressure, was the determining factor, hut stated that the Shenandoah was sound in design and ennstrnetion when built, and that, a, deterioration of tho structural material was not responsible. The Court found that Commander Lansdowne expressed no opposition or reluctance to undertake tho flight as was claimed by his widow, and pronounced the disaster as ‘‘part of the price which must inevitably he paid up in the development of any new hazardous art.”

AEROPLANE SAFETY. LONDON, Jan. 4. The recent tendency of aeroplane safety devices to turn the pilot into something in the nature of a mere machine minder, is exemplified in the newest imperial airways express machine. It is specially designed for night flying and is "fitted with improved gyroscopic mechanism not only controlling the action of the rudder hut automatically keeping the plane stable and on the right course. The pilot simply regulates the speed of the engine inul the altitude of the craft. GREEK DICTATORSHIP. ATHENS, Jan. 4.

General l’angalos (Prime Minister) has proclaimed a dictatorship. He announces ho will rely upon armed force.

THE LUXOR COFFIN. •CAIRO, Jan. 3

Fight men wore required to carry the coffin of Tutankhamen, which was brought here from Luxor and is now in the Cairo museum. The intrinsic gold value of the coffin is estimated at forty thousand sterling.