BRITISH & FOREIGN NEWS

Hokitika Guardian, 26 May 1927, Page 2

BRITISH & FOREIGN NEWS

fiBV TELEGRAPH- -rER PRESS ASSOCIATION.]'

BLACKMAILERS’ GANG. LONDON, May 24. Describing the offence as the worst J of its kind within a quarter of a century’s experience, Chief Justice Hewart heavily sentenced seven men found guilty of blackmailing a retired Army Captain to the extent of ten thousand pounds sterling over a period of ihrec ycars, as cabled on April Gth.

George Taylor, ringleader of t.h gang, was sentenced to penal servitude for life. Two others were given fifteen and twelve years respectively, and two N others ten years, and one eight years. Commenting on the ease. Sir G. llcwart said it was most difficult to understand why such victims refrain from laying the facts plainly before the police. relying on the discretion of the Press not to divulge their names, an ’ thereby helping to stamp out the worst of pests of contemporary civilisation.

BTG LAW CASE. LONDON, May 24. Captain Woolf Barnato, his sister. Mrs Blackwell, and his brother’s widow. Lady Plunkett, each receive £900,000 sterling as the result of the settlement of a decade-old action regard ing the share of the nr fits' of ■Barnato Bros, between 1897, when Barney Barnato died, and 1910. when Woolf Barnato came of age. The' “Standard” expresses* the opinion that including costs, the case will cost approximately three millions Merlin#-

NOBEL LITERATURE PRIZE. ROME, .May 24

The “Giermile d’Jtalia” states the Nobel Prize for Literature will laj. awarded ot Signor Weinandello, the Sicilian dramatist. After a long struggle for recognition his works are now known throughout Europe.