AMERICAN CABLE NEWS.

Hokitika Guardian, 9 April 1926, Page 2

AMERICAN CABLE NEWS.

DRY LAW’S ENQUIRY. [Australian & N.Z. Cable Association.] WASHINGTON, April 7. Federal Attorney Buckner, who is in charge of the prohibition law enforcement in New York, testified before the Senate’s dry law enquiry. He said: “The ‘fixers’ traffic openly in justice in New York. In the Federal Building in the course of a. year at least fifty thousand bar-tenders, peddlers and waiter “fixers” pass through the corridors. There is an air of collusion there. I have been told that the jurymen have been bribed in their toilets.” Senator Heed asked what lie meant by “ fixers.” Attorney Buckner said: “I niean those who traffic in justice—those who hang around the corridors of the buildings to buy jurymen and to influence the memory of witnesses with money. Attorney Buckner, declared that if the light kind of machinery were set up. then the prohibition law might bo enforced, but with jury trials in such a congested community as New Yoik it was impossible. The Police Commissioner, he said, was receiving fifteen thousand complaints of infringement every month. Three thousand prohibition cases were now awaiting hearing. GREAT OIL FIRE. NEW YORK. April 7. San l.aiso Bispo has suffered the greatest oil fire in the history of tho industry. The loss is four million sterling. VANCOUVER, April 7. A message from Sail Luiso Bispo in California, states: “The latest estimate of the loss from a fire in tho Union Oil Coy’s oil fields which liroko out here to-day. is ten million dollars. Tho fire started when lightning struck a huge underground concrete tank. Four tanks are now burning, making 1 probably the largest conflagration experienced in the history of the United States oilfields, There arc barricades ’ being built. If they fail to chock tho ‘ spread of the flaming liquid, the company officials consider that nothing can 1 save, the remaining tanks.