AMERICAN CABLE NEWS.

Hokitika Guardian, 22 April 1926, Page 3

AMERICAN CABLE NEWS.

[Australian & N.Z. Cable Association.] AMERICAN FOREST FIRES. (Received this day at 12.30 p.m.) NEW YORK, April 22. Three lives were lost and many people injured, and heavy property damage caused by forest fires raging over a considerable section ot New York and New .Jersey States, as the result of one of the worst spring droughts ever experienced in Eastern United States. Three men were burned to death when a motor truck was overtaken by a lire. They endeavoured to race through the burning scrub pine, but were unsuccessful. Many firemen were overcome by the smoko and beat. Numerous villages and homes were destroyed also grist mills and a summer hotel at Bedford, Now York. Ihe latter was valued at one hundred thousand dollars. The New York fire now covers two square miles. The New Jersey fire is equally extensive. The latter was fanned by a forty-mile wind, but is now cheeked, after hundreds of volunteer firemen, including school boys had fought for seventy-two hours. U.S. AVAR DEBT. WASHINGTON. April 21. The war debt settlement with Italy was approved by the Senate to-day b> .54 to 34. RUM RUNNER. SENTENCED. VANCOUVER, April 21. Captain Robert Pamphlet, master of the Canadian schooner Pescawha which was seized off the coast of AA ashiugton •State on February. 1924, as a rum-run-ner. was sentenced to-day at Port- i land, Oregon, to two years’ imprison- J ment and ordered to pay a fine ot five thousand dollars. Other members of the crew received lighter sentences. The seizure of the Pascawha followed the rescue by Canadians of the shipwrecked crew of a United State vessel. defendants declaring they were drawn inside the twelve mile limit by the necessity of rescue work. At the i trial the Judge ruled this defence was out of holding. That the defendants were engaged in a conspiracy to violate the liquor laws. The effectiveness of the treaties with Great Britain and other countries,

permitting United States t<> seize nun runners at any point within an hour’s sailing distance of the shore was greatly limited to-day by the decision of the United States Circuit Court of Appeals setting forth tile treaty does not make lawful the extension of American territorial jurisdiction. The Court dismissed the seizure proceedings brought by the Government against British and Norwegian vessels.