NEWS BY MAIL.

Hokitika Guardian, 7 November 1929, Page 5

NEWS BY MAIL.

BALLOON MYSTERY,

PARIS, Sept. 24

A mystery of the air. that may never be solved has been revealed by the discovery near Kamenice, Jugoslavia, of an empty balloon with the basket covered with bloodstains.

Tho balloon still carried the colours of the Aero Club do France, and there is no doubt that it had been piloted by M. Nogufcty-one of the four competitors in. the annual ljaU’ loon race from St. Cloud, near Paris.,' which began last Saturday.

The other three "have all landed safely at’ various points in Central Europe, but so. far nothing has been heard of M. Noguer and - his fate i-4 unknown.

The peasants who found the balloon pillaged it of almost all its contents and only the height indicator 5: registering an altitude of 15,000 feethas been recovered. .• i U It is feared that the balloon was driven by a gale against one of the ruggest mountain sides of Croatia," and that the pilot was badly injured in a desperate attempt to save himself.

The balloon, relieved of liis weight', may have soared skywards once more, possibly leaving the aeronaut, injured and dying in an out-of-the-way spou«

A RAPID DIVORCE 1

NEW YORK, Sept. 24. The wrecking of the romances of two socially prominent couples has been disclosed at Reno, Nevada!; through the granting of one divorce suit and the filing of another. Within half-an-hour of Mrs Marie Norton Whitney filing a suit against Mr Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney the case was tried without a contest, a decree was awarded and the papers, wherein mental cruelty was alleged, were ordered to be impounded. Their marriage, in Paris in 192 A won great attention, Mr A\ liitney . being one of the richest young American bachelors and heir to both the Vanderbilt and the Whitney fortunes. At that time their romance was complicated by suits wherein Miss Evan Fontaine, the dancer, charged Mr Whitney with the paternity of her son. a charge that was thrown out by the courts with a judgment against it being reopened. Shortly after the Whitney decree was granted at Reno. Airs Marie Blair Hamilton, the daughter of Air Ledyard Blair, the New York banker, brought- a suit against her husband. Air Pierpont Hamilton, a nephew of Afr J. P. Morgan. charging him with desertion and cruelty. They were married in 1919 —b-ut the fact- that they had decided on a- divorce was less of a surprise, since they separated in 1926. oulv to lie reconciled two years later.