NEWS BY MAIL.

Hokitika Guardian, 25 July 1927, Page 4

NEWS BY MAIL.

SCHOOLGIRL BRIDE. LONDON. YTny 30. A .schoolgirl's wedding during her lunrli hour was recounted at Hull yesterday, when Francis Joseph Theodore Nowell, aged 20. of OoxliiH. near New- Holland. Lincolnshire, pleaded guilty to committing perjury by making a false statement in a declarain connection with his marriage to Edith Margaret Hoodlnss, the four-teen-vea rs-old daughter of YTr AA'illiam Hood las, farmer, of Barton-on-ffumber. He was fined £2O and costs. YTr H. YATay. for the Public Prosecutor. said that Nowell, a smartly dressed young man, made the acquaintance of tbe girl, who was then thirteen, when he was a- pupil on her father’s farm. The acquantance was continued after Nowell left the farm. The girl went to school in Hull and was seen there by Nowell, who in February visited the register office and stated that he wished to marry a girl aged 1 (3. He gave his own ago as 21, and the registrar handed him a form of consent to his marriage to the girl and told him he would have to return it signed by her father. ~ FATHER IMPERSONATED. This was returned purporting to have been signed by the father, and when Nowell and the girl attended to be married during the lunch hour they were accompanied by two men who signed the register as witnesses. One of them impersonated the girl’s father, but the prosecution had not been able to trace him. That night Nowell and the girl returned to her home and told the surprised parents that they had been married.

YTr Benno Pearlma.ii, for Nowell, said that the marriage remained valid until it was upset: this youth and girl were husband and wife in lawNowell was well connected and had

| been working at the farm and later at a 'brickyard to gain experience. He was educated at Bridlington Grammar School and Hymens College. Hull. Next year he would receive some thousands of pounds of invested funds left to him in a will. The girl, he added, in one of her letters to Nowell outlined a plan to run away with him for the purpose of getting married.

DYNAMITE MANIAC’. NEW YORK, May 30.

The town of Bath, .Michigan, which was plunged into mourning by the act of a maniac who, as reported yesjldrdivy. blew up with dynamite a portion of a school house, killing 3G children ami live adults, is to-day marvelling at ils escape from a still greater calamity. The dynamite was skilfully planted under every room in the school as well as in many houses in the town, and it was only because of the short circuiting of some of tlie wires that oOttlb ol the explosive deposited in cellars failed to explode. Andrew Keogh, the maniac, a man of 54, was esteemed in the town as a high!v educated mail. He was a skilled electrician. 'Apparently he had planned his fiendish outrage long in advance. AYhcu the school taxes were raised lie attacked bis fellow-members of tlio school hoard, declaring that tliev were ruining him.

Contrary to the first reports, he watched the effects of the awful explosion at the school, gloating over the dead bodies of the children, and saying that with fewer children to teach the school rates could he reduced. it was when the principal ol the school approached him that he fired a shot into his owl) motor-car, in which dynamite was stored. The principal and three others were killed instantly, and the mania’s dismembered body was scattered in all di-

ret Lions. The authorities arc now searching for boxes, supposed to contain infernal machines, which .wore despatched by tlio maniac by parcel post to the State Governor and other officials.

GLOBV OF THE EM IMB 11. LONDON, May 30

Mr Baldwin, the Bruno M.nister, speaking from 10. Downiiig-strcet last evening? delivered an Empire Bay mos-ivlin-h was broadcast simultaneously throughout Great Britain. In his message he said:

There has never been anything like the British Empire in the world before, and that is why the won! Enipiie sometimes puzzles people. Aon associate if with Home. Germany, Austria. |;ussin, France, at different periods of lheir history.

You must rid yourself oi nil those associations and try and think of it an old word chosen to represent a new

idea. In our thought of Empire today there is nothing in the nature of flag-wagging, or boasting of painting the map red. No, only a sense of pride in the race, from which we spring, a pride which makes us humble in out own eyes ,anil resolute to make ourselves as worthy as we may of the heritage and responsibilities which arc ours. \Ye have been born into a community settled in a small island, dependent- for our 'food supplies on the produce of countries overseas, amt that food "c pay for by exporting goods. In those circumstances there inevitably conics'times when the opportunities of many* of our people are restricted. PEOPLE OF ONE TONGUE.

It is open to us to settle and work in any climate we may choose and in almost any part of the world, and find ourselves among )>eople who speak om tongue, who obey our laws, "ho cheiish the same ideals, who worship with rites familiar to use, who are subjects of the same Sovereign. And to tins we must devote our best energies in the years to come to make our unity such a reality that men and women regard the Empire as one and that it may become possible tor them to mote within its hounds to New Zealand, to Australia, to South Africa, to Canada a- ; easily, and as freely as from Glasgow to London, or from Bristol to Newcastle.

AYc who have inherited this Empire arc promt of it. AA ith our pride thine ■should mingle gratitude to those who have gone before us, by "hose efforts this Empire has grown. In a world spilt suffering from the shock of war the British Empire stands firm ns a great force for giod.