LATE CABLE NEWS

Hokitika Guardian, 24 September 1929, Page 2

LATE CABLE NEWS

FLIGHTS IN OLD AGE

LORD PASSFIELD AND WIFE.

LONDON, September 3.

Yielding to the persuasion of Sir Horace Plunkett, the well-known Irish statesman and agricultural authority who recently qiialified for a pilot’s certificate at the age of 75, Mrs .‘Sidney Webb, wife of the Dominions’ Secretary Lord Passfield, who has refused to he called Lady Passfield,. made her first flight at Brooklands. She was so delighted with the experience that she persuaded her husband to take a flight and he remained in the air for 10 minutes. Mrs 'Webb is aged 71,! and. her husband is 70. <

LABOUR AND REDS.: .... * CONFLICT AT BELFAST. LONDON, September.. 3. Communists have had what probably will be their last heading fit a Trades Union Congress, says the Belfast correspondent of “ The Tfcnes.” In replying to the general council’s disclosure about the disruptive tactics, of Communists instructed from. Moscow, speakers said the policy of jindustriol co-operation was the true cause' of the ineffectiveness of the union, and the decline in membership. •

It was alleged that there had been collaboration between the employers and the general council to suggest the expulsion' of militant members who already had been victimised by the employers.

The secretary of the congress, Mr Walter Citrine, retorted that the prolonged forbearance of the British trades unions in the face of Communist attacks had excited the astonished scorn of Labour leaders throughout the world.

The meeting thereupon loudly acclaimed the council’s report affirming that Communists had constantly endeavoured to .divide and c'pnquer eyqry working class ’ organisation, ;ip; Britajp with the object of ‘ imposing a Cbmpiunist autocracy. v ,7 .. y-.-.

. i : >> r w• .: '• • • HUSBANDS’ :LAMESfS/'• WIVES WHO WERE .CRUEL., LONDON,’ September! 3. Four husbands timidly applied to the Willesden magistrate for protection against their wives. . .. The first man' sftid his wife' had forced him to do # the shopping and housekeeping and to submit ‘’the accounts. If he protested she wasf really violent. The magistrate refused a summons. -.y.i.ri

The second husband was very nervous, and brought his mother to the court. • He asked if : the magistrate would prevent his wife assaulting him. The magistrate said the problem was insoluble, hut he would send a missionary to interview the wife. • ; The third man complained of persistent cruelty by his -wife. He said she thrashed him every' time he went home. He secured a summons.

The fourth applicant said his wife hit him so hard that he was .afraid to go home unless 'a policeijifln,:; stood outside'ready to help him if, he were called. The missionary will,'.attend to this case also. • j..,.

SOLD AS SLAVES

FATE OF CHINESE i (GIRLS

PEKING, September 10.

Startling revelations of a iflourishing new trade—the selling 'of- Chinese women into slavery—which has followed the removal of the Chinqjie capital to Nanking,' have been mqde by local detectives. A gang of traffickers has been operating here since last autumn and during that time has shipped away, between 2000 and 3000 girls at fancy prices. . The usual method is to approach a family known to be in financial straits and buy the daughter of the house outright. Some of these human chattels are reported to have brought 'as much as £2OO, the spin depending upon their attractiveness. .

Another method is for a member of the gang'to pretend to the girl’s fam ily that he wants her as ai ’ wife, • and is willing to pay a suitable ’ sum to her parents. As soon as he marries the girl he represents to her that he has a position in the army, or the' Government, .and that he 1 must leave Peking. He takes her away with hifiiy and, on reaching his, destination, sells her into slavery for considerably more than the price paid to her parents. ‘ - Owing to the vigilance ofc,tlie, focal authorities, who find great difficulty in checking the practice because of the great secrecy with which these transactions are put through, the slave leaders have avoided using the railway. They have smuggled their victims out of the city by rickshaw or mule cart to Manchuria, where Peking women are said to be in great demand.

WIFE BRIDESMAID,,

HUSBAND COMMITS BIGAMY,

LONDON, September., 12.,.,

The story of a wife who acted as bridesmaid at her husband’s bigamous marriage 1 was related at the Belfast Court.

The wife, in evidence, admitted that she knew her husband could not marry a second time, but he asked her to act as bridesmaid. She was afraid to refuse, she.said, because of his .temper.

TOMMY’S PETS.* CATS AND DOGS TO GO HOME. LONDON, September 12, The British Tommy’s liking for catsand dogs has presented a pretty problem to the Ministry of Agriculture in connection with the return of the Rhine Army to England. The army consists of 6000 soldiers and a preliminary survey shows that at least one in ten has a dog or a cat that lie wishes to bging home. The Ministry’s quarantine rules, however, must be obeyed, and each animal must be kept in an,* approved place for six months before arrival here. The expense, including cost of transport is £l2 for each cat or dog. Special arrangements are being considered whereby no soldier will be deterred from bringing his pet home. They include those of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, who will accept 300 dogs and cats in special quarantine at which they will be maintained free of charge, but, in order that the facilities will not be abused, each owner will be asked to pay a nominal £2 toward the upkeep.

PATIENT’S FATE.

NO RIGHT TO DECIDE.

LONDON, September 12

Protests will be of no avail. If your doctor says that you must go to hospital to have your appendix removed you would be well advised to let him have’ the last word without any fuss. You may set rather a high value upon your appendix and you may not care for that particular hospital; indeed you may not have a kindly feeling for hospitals, at all, and, if you must lose your appendix, you would rather have it done in the privacy of your home. That dosen’t matter; the patient has no vote, according to Dr R. Guthries, the East London coroner, who declared that if a doctor made up lfis mind to send a patient to hospital, the patient had no right to decide otherwise. If the doctor’s instructions were ignored he ought to throw; up the case.

MIS-SPENT LIFE. IS SEASICKNESS A RESULT. \ . LONDON, September 12. No last-rlninute farewell parties; no dances to bid the parting guest Godspeed; no luncheons, dinners, afternoon teas;.no late nights, no. wine, spirits or beer,, no rich food; no mixing of liquids with meqls; in short, no riotous living. It qpunds lifce a sentence of imprisonment—but it is only the prescription of Dr. Sydney Jones, surgeon on the Atlantic liner .Aquitania, against seasickness. Dr. Jones, who has been 36 years at sea, says tliat no person will be seasick in the roughest weather if for a week before sailing he “lives a decent, quiet life and takes ordinary dietetic and medical precautions against hyperacidity.”

ROBOT MAGIC.

FOR SAFETY OF SHIPS.

LONDON, Sept. 12.

“No one need suffer seasickness,” is the claim .if the makers of an apparatus exhibited at the Shipping and Engineering Machinery Exhibition at Olympia. -

Voyagers inhaling five minutes before the voyage. a mixture of oxygen and medicaments from an atomiser are guaranteed complete immunity. If the mixture is taken .after the symptoms are shown, an. effective cure is claimed in 85 per cent of cases." The exhibits include a “magic ray” and an automatic lookout which rings a bell instantly any.object, even a fogbank crosses , the ship’s path.

Other inventions are designed to improve the human element including an instrument on the. bridge, sensitive to the slightest smoke, for detecting fires in the hold, after which the pressure of a button on the bridge floods the hold with, extinguishing gas; a pis ; tol extinguisher claimed to be able to put out a 20ft blaze, and a fire-proof-ing preparation which makes woodwork proof against an oxy-acetylene flame.

GOING TO THE DOGS

CHINESE STOPPED.

SHANGHAI, September 12,

Following a long campaign against various forms of. gambling, resulting in the closing of roulette-wheels, the Chinese agitation succeeded in delivering a severe blow to the three greyound racing tracks here, where many Australian dogs compete.

The Nanking Government has issued orders to the Customs Department that in future the importation off greyhounds is to be banned. The companies operating the tracks say that the move is unlikely severely to hamper their activities, in view of the tact that well 1 over 100 hounds are in Shang hai. One-third of this number comprises bitches, most of which will be quickly put to breeding.

HIGHBROW THIEVES.

BURGLARY IN CHURCH

LONDON, September 12

Under cover of a thick fog thieves carried a heavy-six barred gate 100 yards over churchyard walls, and used it as a ladder to break into the Priory Church at Cartmel (Lancashire.)

They removed a first edition of Edmund Spenser’s “Faerie Queen,” valued at £2OOO, but left other historic treasures.

BIG SWINDLE. SALT LAKE CITY, September 12. “My Bank was busted. I tried to borrow in Wall -Street, but they would not give me any, so I just went and took it anyway. I’m sorry now, for that 500,000 dollars (£100,000) won’t do any good.” With confession, Charles Waggoner handed himself over to the police, who had been seeking him for a week for the purpose of solving one of the most mysterious transaction that detectives have ever been called upon to investigate. Waggoner, president of the Bank o' Telluride (Colorado), was the leading citizen of that town, head of the Chamber of Commerce, the financier for half of the industries of the place. During the last year, however, mining languished, and the bank was hard up for cash. “I turned every way for money,” said Waggoner, “but nobody would give me any. Then I carefully worked out a swindle, if you call ic that, to repay my depositors, who really were given the worst of many deals by the clever financiers of Wall Street. I sent coded telegrams and then went to New York and presented the drafts and got the cash. I was just trying to get back their life savings for tin people who trusted my bank. Now they are broke, and I’m going to prison, 1 suppose.”

SALE OF HONOURS

LONDON, September 12,

“It is difficult to trace any instance of Royal patronage so misdirected as the clumsy batch of honours iorced on the Sovereign near the close of the regime of the Lloyd George Coalit.on Government.” This is the conclusi.n of Sir George Arthur, private secretary to the late Earl Kitchener, stated in Ins book, “The Life of the King,” which Messrs Jonathan Cape are p..b iislung. He describes Mr Lloyd George’s recommendations lor honours as an unhappy occasion, suggesting that th. Crown's reliance on the advice of even the most responsible Minister should have limitations.

“A.murmur could not be repressed,” he writes, “ when a personally estimable furniture, dealer, the conduct of whose business had not been too successful for the original shareholders, was to enjoy the same rank as general officers : who led large armies to victory.”

“Of a second nominee,’” Sir George Arthur writes, “it was stated that he gave evidence before the Income-tax Commissioner that in the middle cL the war he transferred himself and his business, Capitalised at £20,000,C00, to a domicile abroad in order to escape taxation. A third nominee admitted dealings with the enemy in wartime, though within official knowledge.- In the case of a fourth nominee the election was so bizarre that eventually Lord Birkenhead solved the difficulty by producing a letter in which Sir Joseph Robinson, the South African gold magnate, declined' a peerage. It is understood the letter was not secured without difficulty, as Sir Joseph Robinson,, being deaf, was for seme time unable to gather whether the question concerned the increasing of the amount already deposited or the renouncing of the honour and the recovering of the cheque.”

PENALTY PAID

NOTORIOUS “SANTA CLAUS.”

SAN ANTONIO (Texas), Sept, 13,

Henry Helms, notorious as “Santa Claus ” in the most sensational Texas robbery in recent years, went to the electric chair recently.

Just - before Christmas, 1927, four visitors entered the Huntsville bank. Helms was in his Santa Claus costume. While he held a crowd at bay, his companions secured £35,000 and snatched two little girls to act as shields as they raced away. In the shooting which followed, two policemen and one robber were killed. A second robber was sentenced to life imprisonment, and the third is awaiting execution, so the gang has been completely cleaned up.

SEX REFORM

LONDON, September 3

“We English are so backward in the discussion of sexual problems, and so notorious for sexual prudery and hypocrisy, that the organisation of a sexological conference was begun only after great hesitation,” said Dr Norman Haire, of Sydney, opening the third International Congress of the World League for Sexual Reform. i He added that after various eminent people had expressed their sympathy the list of supporters grew apace, and almost every country in the world is now represented in the movement, which aimed at establishing sexual ethics on a scientific, biological, and psychological, instead of theological, basis. The happiness of an enormous number of men and women is sacrificed to false sexual standards and to ignorance and intolerance. The World s League for Sexual Reform is not aimed at the abolition of sexual morality, but at the substitution of a new social ethic, added Dr Haire. ,

Just arrived :—A consignment oi 200 cases of choice apples, consisting oi Delicious, Cox’s Orange, Munroes Northern Star, Jonathans, Dunn’s Seedlings awd other varieties, with instructions to sell at the lowest market price. Paterson Michel and Co. Ltd. 'Phone No. 2.—Advt

Eggs are now cheap—preserve, a good supply with Sharland’s “ Moa ” Brand Egg Preservative. Clean and economical.—Advt.