NEWS BY MAIL.

Hokitika Guardian, 25 May 1928, Page 3

NEWS BY MAIL.

STAAtPEDE FRO At SNAKE

BUDAPEST, April 14

While unpacking banana crates just arrived from Jamaica, Alexander Barat was. scared stiff on finding a boa constrictor a yard long curled amid the. bunches. He fled into the street. The frightened snake reared its head and darted for a hiding place, but a stampede emptied the banana warehouse in two minutes.

A Budapest Zoo keeper was sent for, and the snake is now in the reptile house. The Zoo directors’ offer of 30s for the snake was gladly accepted by the banana company. Barat, who is still .seeing snakes, remains in a sanatorium.

GAOL ROBBER GANG. RIGA, April 14

The district court in the North Lithuanian town of Sliavil lias before it a case in which a man named Badsevich, governor of the prison at Birslii, has been charged' with the organisation of raids in which parties of his prisoners, expert burglars, whom he released at nights and furnished with tools and revolvers, wore employed. The prisoners returned in the movnnngs, when the booty was shared. These expeditions were carried on for a. considerable time, but eventually quarrels broke out among the night raiders, one prisoner declaring that his gaoler had taken an excessive preportion of the loot.

BURGLAR tn a ship. NEW YORK, April 14

Captain William J. Enright, master of the Port Curtis, of the Commonwealth and Dominion Line, Ltd., was arrested to-day on a technical charge of manslaughter following the death of an unidentified burglar m his ship early this morning. The Poet Curtis was moored alongside Brooklyn Pier, and Enright, it is stated, was awakened b.v a ii™* in bis cabin. He fidled out. “Mho is there ?” A man ran to the door, pursued by the captain with his revolver. It is stated that as the intruder ran down the companion way Captain Enright fired three shots. The man screamed and fell at the moment when the mew aroused by the souffle, rushect cm de Jn' his Dockets were cuff-links and a diamond pin which the captain recognised as his property.