NEWS BY MAIL.

Hokitika Guardian, 11 June 1928, Page 4

NEWS BY MAIL.

——■ THE TRUSTFUL WIDOW. BRUSSELS, April 14. One evening last summer Cyril William Binet, a well-dressed young Englishman, met a sprightly Belgian widow named Delliaize. Cyril cOuld tell the tale—and the widow bad money. She believed him when lie told her how the lands he possessed on the ]{nsso-Rolish frontier had been confiscated by the Bolsheviks and how. though his negotiations with the Soviet Government for the repurchase of his property were well advanced, there was not a hank that would lend him cash. She also believed him when lie whispered he loved her and consented to become engaged to him—not knowing that he was already husband and father. Having tombed the widow’s heart. Cyril touched her pocket and extracted nearly £I,OOO. Then he suggested a visit Lo his property. The appointed day for the long journey arrived. Seats in a first-class compartment of the train were not good enough—and Cyril procured extra cushions. Then ho remembered they had nothing to read and hurried to purchase papers. Ho was gone so long that the train steam'od away with the widow weeping among her cushions. T ho police found Cyril, and yesterday the Brussels court sent him to prison for 15 months and ordered him to repay file trustful widow the money bo bad borrowed of her.

EMPTY PISTOL RUSE. BRUSSELS, April 15. A young woman dressed in the height of fashion bailed a taxicab near the North Station in Brussels last night and asked to be taken to an address in the suburbs. When she got out of the cab she fumbled in her bag as if searching for the fare and suddenly whipped out a revolver. She ordered the taxicab-driver to hand over all his money. The man gave her several five-franc notes. “Not enough!” said the girl. “I must have more —and quickly!” The driver emptied the remaining contents of his purse into lier outstretched hand. “Now,” ordered the girl, “fly for your life!” The man drove off at top speed, but after going a few hundred yards he drove back the way the girl had gone. He met a policeman, to whom he stuttered out' his story. “ The driver looked like a fox that had been caught by a lien!” was aj humorous phrase in the policeman's statement at the station.

When they caught up with the girl she still had the revolver clutched in her hand, but it was unloaded. She stated that she was down and out, foodless and penniless, and she felt she had to do something desperate. INDIAN PROBLEMS. . LONDON, April 20. A review of the conditions in India in 192 G-27, the first year of Lord Irwin’s Viceroyalty, was issued yesterday as a Blue Book. The author of the volume, Mr J. Coalman, Director of Public Information for the Government of India, says that during the year 40 riots between Hindus and Mohommendans tooks place, and that present events seenY to show that the old intolerance has not yet disappeared altogether. Clear ly, lie says this daliger must be removed before India will be safe from Home

Rule. Oil the whole, however, it was a year of greater peace than India had known for some time. On the question of the reconciliation of the two communities the writer says: As physical fusion is out of the question, some means of at any rate uniting their interests and strengthening and developing their sense of common nationality must lie found. 'Spheres of interest must be demarcated which are common to both Hindus and Mahommedans, ant! within those spheres the two communities must work together for their own good and for the good of all India. The opportunity for such work, and the machinery wherewith to do it, arc at Hand in the provincial and All-India Legislatures.

CHILD MARRIAGES. Other pnsages from the review are: The custom of child marriage among the Hindus and the purdah system cause, or at any rate cloak, immeasurable suffering, and also make difficult the approach of medical practitioners, particularly men, to the suffering women; but while purely governmental action is brought to a halt by the wall of religious and traditional usage, other agencies can manage to find a foothold in the cracks and crannies and come at least to the threshold of the territory on the other side of the Wall. During the year Communism in India was more active and more vocal than in the preceding year. There has been no lack of authoritative pronouncements from Moscow that the Chinese disturbances arc no more than the first tremors of a great revolutionary upheaval that will dasli the British dominion in India to pioevs. , Through Moscow’s agents in India t1, f .,.,. have 'been formed, at least in Bombay and Calcutta, new “Workers and Peasants” parties. The formation of these new bodies iollowed closclv upon the appearance in India of one George Allison, alias Donald Campbell, who is known not only to have been actively associated with Communism in Croat Britain but to have spent considerable time in Moscow. The visit of T\lr Saklatvala was a further notable event in the history of Communistic activities of the year. The openly confessed intentions of the Soviet to capture and direct to its own ends the indigenous revolutionary movements in India continue to he translated into action in Bengal and elsewhere.

SIR ALLAN COBH AM’S FLY. LOBITO (Portugeso West Africa,l _• April 20. We sighted one of the world’s most magnificent harbours, Lobito Bay, at noon to-day. after following the desert coastline of South-West Africa for 1,700 miles from Cape Pen insula. This .morning our Short Rolls-Royt: Hying boat took off easily from Porto Alexandra, heading northward aloiw ~ie deserted and mountainous coastline.

All along the. coast deep waters prevailed. Even in sheltered bays and inlets it was impossible to anchor as the chart showed the depth of the water to Ixs from 309 to COO foot, where mighty rock cliffs dropped sheer into the ocean depths. We flew for hour after hour past barren rocks, along the sandy coastline, which is without a single blade of grass until at last the waving palms of Lobito Bay were .sighted.

Here oil tranquil waters, we made the fiftieth landing since left Rochester. Yesterday Good Friday, we flow from the spacious, sheltering harbour of Galvis Bay of Porto Alexandra, passing 500 miles of desert coastline without sightino a single living thing except one wild dog near Great Fish Bay. These extraordinary dogs exist by living on fish and drinking salt water, the nearest fresh water being a hundred miles away inland over scores of miles of unbroken sand dunes. Sand storms, caused by wind from the sen. seemed to bo perpetual over these dunes. The wild and barren state of the coastline is due to the absence of rain, and this is due in its turn to a cold Antarctic current and a southerly wind hitting tho warm coastline. If the reverse conditions existed, namely, hot wind and cooler coastline.

there would bo deluges of rain and a fertile country.

The coastline abounds in fish, and so numerous are they in Big Fish Bay and Porto Alexander that fishermen are sometimes afraid to east their nets in ease the weight of the catch will tear the nets away. We landed at Porto Alexander, a little fishing village in a sheltered bay, on Good Friday afternoon, to find that the entire Portuguese population had journeyed from Mossamcdcs and that a gunboat welcome to Portuguese West Africa liad been prepared in our honour. Great hospitality and a heartfelt reception were bestowed upon