NEWS BY MAIL.

Hokitika Guardian, 17 September 1928, Page 1

NEWS BY MAIL.

SHELL HOSE FRIENDS. . LONDON, August 2. A London business man was walking down Haymarket, S.W., yesterday, when a taxicab pulled up suddenly beside him, and the driver yelled, “Hi 1”

The business man looked round rather indignantly. Next minute be was wringing the hand of the man, who was his “mate” in France during the war and whom he had not met for ten years. Their last meeting-place was a shell hole in front of Villers-Bretonneux, east of Amiens, in 1918. They were bombed by a German aeroplane, .and the business man was taken away with shell-shock, leaving the taxicab driver to continue in the advance. Describing their meeting the business man said: “ We were so overjoyed that we sat talking on the front of the taxicab for such a long time tlmt a policeman had to move us on. We talked about our old comrades in the battery—some of them dead, some of them driving omnibuses, others the heads of businesses. “ We left the taxicab outside a restaurant in a side street and went in to celebrate our meeting. It is almost ten years ’to tile day that we cringed in a shell hole and cursed the Gotha that bombed us out of it.”

SMUGGLING YARNS. LONDON, August 1. Stories of drug smuggling oil the Thanet coast were referred to by Chief Constable Butler, of Ramsgate,: on Saturday after Catherine Lily Ebbett, aged 22, had been found guilty at Sandwich of obtaining money by false, pretences. Mr- Butler, said tho woman, under the name of Barbara Durant, had for some months been fooling the* Customs officials and giving endless trouble. She supplied purely imaginary 'information of a submersible craft supposed to enter Pegwell Bay and of quantities of dope*, which was* supplied to persons in London. She also- stated tlmt she had been connected with dope runners, who were well armed anil had headquarters at Margate, and had been driving about with them in a motor car, and it was found to be that of a Dover motor

Asked if Elibett got anything out of this, Chief Constable Butler, replied: “Nothing but excitement , and driving about with the Customs officers.” He added tht a number of men were gathered one night in June on her information that dope was to be landed in Pegwell Bay, and that armed men were to he there to receive it. The recorder remarked that she must have been clever to fool all these people. Sho was placed on probation for

CHLOROFORM WARFARE. NEW YORK, Augi 1. If the prediction of Or Gustav lKgloff, a prominent Chicago chemist, is fulfilled wars of the future will be as beneficial as sleep at night. The dreaded honors of ghastly wounds, insanity, and sudden death will bo replaced by a sigh of relief that one can escape from the monotony of daily toil or obtain a rest cure from the surfeit of life’s pleasures. In the future, Hr Egloff said, war will he waged with anaesthetics so powerful that they will be able to put towns and cities to sleep without a gun [being fired. Army divisions and corps assembled near the front lines will be quietly sent to sleep by the use of humane gases distributed by aeroplanes. GAS-MASKS USELESS. A thousand aeroplanes carrying a full ilond of chloroform will he able to spread abroad 'tile, anaesthetic in such doses that gas-masks will he useless. Instead of-'beihg a devastated land of torn trees and ruined homes, the country in which .the new warfare will V waged will bo a kind of lotus land, for I>r Egloff promises defeated armies and nations not only sleep but pleasant dreams more delightful than those induced by opium.

U.s. GAMBLING MANIA. NEW YORK, August 1. Bitter complaints, from wives that their husbands wore gambling away their weekly wages in lotteries have brought about swift raids by the police on two pool?- operating in this city. Sixteen me*, were arrested last week in

down-town offices • and all records seized. These lotteries, the police state, are based on the Stock -Market, racing rind baseball. One offered a first' prize of £5,000 which the police allege was paid to a dummy. , The baseball pool was so popular that (:0 salesmen were employed and 50,000 tickets were sold weekly in New York alone. Weekly deposits of £20,000 were paid by operators into a Brooklyn bank. * These lotteries are not confined to New York, but extend throughout the States. One cigar store in Connecticut is reported to hare taken 50,000 tickets weekly for a baseball lottery. United States Treasury balances .also,formed the basis for another gamble. Federal assistance.will be sought for checking pools which extend their operations outside the State of New York. The police declare that the present raids are but the opening fire’of the‘campaign. JEWEL DEAL. j NEW! YORK, July. 20. A Now York police chief yesterday seized in a jewellery establislilient in Fifth Avenue £90,000 worth of jewels, alleged to be tho property of the John Wanamaker Stores. The jewels were brought at the store on the credit of a well-known <£ Bromo Seltzer (health salts) King,” Captain Isaac E. Emerson, by his housekeeper, Mrs Maria J. Leslie, who represented that she had authority from Mrs Emerson to make the purchase. Subsequently All's Leslie sold the jewels to . the Fifth Avenue jeweller for £12,000, saying she needed won-

on for .Mrs Emerson. Mrs Leslie has now been placed by her relatives in - an institute. Captain Emerson, who is in Germany inspecting a yacht that he is having built there, has telegraphed that his housekeeper had no authority to pledge his credit. An action by the jeweller to recover the £12,C00, plus a £IO,OOO profit on what lie claims was a legitimate transaction awaits the return of the “liromo Seltzer King.” ■‘ACE” OF AIR ACROBATS. VTLLACOUBLAY, July 24. The most famous of all the French air acrobats, Lieut. Fronval, was kill- ' cd here this afternoon when his machine collided with that of Capt.- Cdrnillon, one of the airmen who flew from Paris to Timbnctoo in a day last April. Fronval was perhaps the world’s most skilled pilot in air manoeuvring; He always appeared thoroughly at his ease flying upside- down, turning like a leaf, or practising one of his famous corckscrow dives. His aerial tricks used to chill the blood of the most experienced airmen. -.And Ho. met his death in his aeroplane while still taxing along the ground. • LOST IN FLAMES. , . Ho had just descended Tram a sKorfc trial flight and was moving along with; only half-power on. dipt. Cornillon was also landing, and the'two machines, meeting head-on, burst .into a sheet of flame ' Corniljon,, jumped clear without injury, hut Fropval was caught in the dobris. By the time the two aeroplanes had been pulled apart and Lieut. Frouval’s body taken front the blaze, life was extincti; :