NEWS BY MAIL.

Hokitika Guardian, 5 January 1928, Page 3

NEWS BY MAIL.

MR BOBBIE JONES. NEW YORK, Nov. 20. Mr Bobbie Jones, the open golf champion of Great Britain and the United States, whose golfing prowess is tho pride of his home town, Atlanta, Georgia, was presented yesterday with a cheque for £IO,OOO, representing the contributions of 5,000 admirers. The gift was accompanied by a request that lie would co-operate with a committee of his friends in choosing a site and building a home thereon with the proceeds of the cheque. “No man,” said the chairman of the committee, “will grace this/ new home better than Bobbie Jones. We ask him to accept it as a substantial token of our regard for the mail who carried our banner to the very cornel's of tho earth and brought it hack unfurled in victory. Mr Bobbie Jones, greatly moved, said: “I shall he more than happy if I can he worthy of this gift.” GONDOLA RUSE. ROME, Nov. 20.

uile tin- newspapers continue to print accounts of anti-Italian manifestations in Jtigo-Slavia, protest meetings have been held in Borne, Venice and other places in Italy. In Venice the demonstrators tried repeatedly to reach the French and Jugo-Slavian consulates, and about 20 of them eluded the vigilante of the police and passed through the cordon in gondolas. They were rounded up. however, before reaching their objective.

In Padua three Jug-Slavian university undergraduates incensed their fel-low-students by singing a Jugo-Slavian hymn, and it is said that they referred to Italy and to Signor Mussolini in insulting terms. Police intervention prevented the affair from becoming serious.

CANADA’S NEW RAILWAYS. WINNIPEG, Nov. 20.

A contract for the building of a line 90 miles long to connect the Hudson Bay Railway with the Flin Finn mining district in North-West Manitoba lias been secured by the Whitney interests of New York. The cost of the railway, which is to he finished in one year ,is £BO.OOO, and the railway will ultimately he extended to other mining, hydro-electric power, pulp and timber areas in the Nelson and Churchhill river districts of Manitoba. The Whitney interests agree to spend £5,000,000 in developing .the £40,000,000 copper property known as Flin Finn. The Manitoba Government will give £IOO.OOO towards the cost of the railway, which will be a subsidiary of the Canadian National system.

The Cameron Stewart Company have started to construct- the 190 miles ol railway to connect with Fort Churchill, Hudson Bay, the contract being for £1,000,000.

CARS SWEPT OVKB BRIDGE. MONTREAL, Nov. 20.

Floods in the province of Quebec during the last few days have damaged the highways to tihe extent ol £50.000 according to an official estimate. The Jaoques-Cartier River rose 22 feet, flooding several villages, whose inhabitants escaped in boats. A motorist named Bruyero was drowned when his motor car was washed over Doiineconna Bridge into the Jaques-Carticr River. Another motor car was also swept over, hilt the occupants swain ashore.

A DRAMATIC TRIAL. PARIS. Nov. 20.

A dramatic trial, in which a young and pretty widow, Eugenie Montech, was accused of murdering her husband and her father-in-law by giving poison to them, lias just concluded at Carcassonne, the medieval walled city in the s , )U th of France, in the acquittal of the widow.

Mine. Mon tech's husband died in September 1926 and her father-in-law in January of the present year. The family lived in the village of Saint Papoul, which is a typical rural community of about 500 families, and lieio every mail’s liaipd was turned against the young widow. Rumour said that both her husband and her father-in-law had been poisoned. and a local doctor told the police that lie believed the father-in-law had been poisoned by strychnine. Then several people reported to the police that many dogs had died by strychnine

poisoning. The arrest of tlie widow on the dual murder charge followed. At the trial it was shown that an autopsy of tlie father-in-law’s body cast serious doubt on the possibility of strychnine poisoning, and tlie fact was also elicited that no ease of the poisoning of a dog liad been reported ill the village. The widow’s acquittal lias confounded the local gossips. PARIS, Nov. 19. “ The Locust of St. Pnpoul,” as the widow had been nicknamed, appeared in court sobbing quietly behind a veil. A long series of witnesses pitilessly accused the widow; the lieutenant of gendarmerie, the mayor, the deputymayor, the postmistress, the schoolmaster, the whole hierncliy of the little village testified to the high character of the dead men and the never-ending ambition of Aline. Mnnteeli, who was formerly a typist in the Prelecturo ol the Ande Department and could not, they declared, settle down to village life.

GUIDE’S HEROIC RESCUE. PARIS. October 29

Alphonse KMuttct,- the best-known, guide of Mount Blanc, the highest peak in Europe (1-5,782 ft.) , who has assisted thousands of English climbers and effected many thrilling rescues, has been awarded the French Government’s silver medal for heroism and •self-sacrifice by a Decree published in the official Journal to-day. C'outtet was acting as guide for M. Bene Weiss, a prominent City of Paris official when in making the descent of one'of the peaks of Mount Blanc, M. Weiss slipped and rolled down a snowy slope at the foot of which was the Nantillons glacier and its crevasses. “If I had fallen on to the glacier,” M Seiss told me to-day, ‘‘it would have meant certain death for me, but without mi instant’s hesitation Couttet plunged head foremost into the i ravine from a height of 00 feet, risking dashing out. his brains at every yard against one of the numerous rocks which emerge from the snow. “He made this hair-raising plunge, friends who saw' his act afterwards told nie, so that lie would puss me in the speed of his fall and be able to stop me from rolling farther hv means of ! his alpenstock. ‘‘When he caught ine up lie rolled another 50 feet with me and clicked me almost on the edge of the glacier. When I recovered my senses T found that I had escaped with a few bruises.