NEWS BY MAIL.

Hokitika Guardian, 22 April 1927, Page 3

NEWS BY MAIL.

BAND OF AIOST SUICIDES. ZURICH. March 2. Between eight and nine hundred suicides take place yearly in Switzerland, a inch after Denmark enjoys the unenviable distiucti' li of having more deaths of this kind in proportion to its population than any other country in Europe. Alcoholism is responsible for 1/ per cent, of the suicides. An anti-suicide committee. founded in Zurich live years ago. intervened effectively in GOO eases of attempted or contemplated suicide. Thanks to a communal subsidy and private donations il was possible to give a new start in life to many of the utterly despairing, who had made the tragic resolve to end their lives. RAPHAEL AS GIFT. ROAIE. .March 2. Urbino. the town which has the honour of being the birthplace <o Raphael, is one of t lie few important Italian cities that flourished in his time which possesses no single work of the great painter. The cilv council ol l rhino recent!.' petitioned Signor Alussolini asking him to remedy this deficiency. The Premier, it is now learned, lias acceded to Urbino’s request and has ordered a painting of Eraiu-esce Alaria Della Rovere. Duke of Urbino. by Raphael, to be presented to the great painter’s native place. The picture lias hitherto been hung in the I ffizi Gallery at Florence. NEW FRENCH DEFENCES. PARIS. Alarch 2. France is about to reorganise the defences of her eastern frontier. York on fortified centres is to begin in July, but the system will he mainly theoretical, though all along the line there will be supplies of entrenching implements, barbed wire, sandbags, and other engineering This forms the essence of the new plan for eastern frontier defence, according to a statement from AT. Painleve, Alinister of War. published in this morning’s “ Petit Parisien.” The old French defence line, which

reached from Verdun to the Swiss frontier, is now many miles to the rear of the now frontier, and therefore a fresh fortified lino is to he created. One suggestion was that from Dunkirk to Switzerland a complete line of trenches should be dug such as was familiar in the Great AYnr. These trenches, however, would he of concrete. The other suggestion was for great fortified centres with storehouses ami embryo lines between. "What we have chosen.” says AL Painleve. “is a compromise between tlm two systems.”