GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 2060, 27 November 1919, Page 1

GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

The Berlin police have discovered an attempt to smuggle twenty million marks from the German capital over the Swiss frontier. The police officials succeeded at the last moment, by means of aeroplanes, in overtaking an express train from Berlin to Bale, and in arresting the smugglers at Nuremberg,

A story of the buried treasures on Vimy Ridge is under investigation by the Canadian militia department. The treasure, a sum of money in gold, is said to have been buried on La Eolie Farm on the top of Vimy Ridge. Subsequently, it is claimed, the money was found by Canadian soldiers while digging-in a gun, and handed over by them to their superior officers.

Numbers of animals kept in a menagerie in Paris recently escaped and wandered about at large in the forest of Saint Germain en Lave. Lions, monkeys, and a wild boar disported themselves to their heart’s content, much to the alarm of the passers. But finally a roundup was organised, and the fugitives were reinstated in their home.

IVhile a wedding was in progress at Wymering Church, Cosham, Hants, there arrived a funeral for which no preparation had been made. The* funeral carriages were drawn into a lane until the wedding party had left the church. The mourners then waited in the vicarage while the sexton and bearers dug the grave. Letters making arrangements for the funeral had miscarried in the post. A stock of 5,000 tons of perchorate of ammonia which was used during the war for the manufacture of explosives, and which represents a total value of twenty million francs, has been thrown into the river Arve, France, as the simplest way <if disposing of it. Apart from the financial loss entailed by such a proceeding, Iho chemical has poisoned (lie river at least as far as its ,junction with the Rhone, killing all living tilings in the water.

A windfall has come to a wellknown London figure, John Francis, the shoe-hlack, who for mure than three decades lias had a stand opposite the premises now known as “The Coal Hole." Many hundreds of soldiers came to old John, who is over 70 years of age, for a shine, during the war, and in those days he earned as much as ,C 4 a week, ami was able to save. Since then husi'ness has been slack, ami the outlook was poor until the unexpected happened. A solicitor has been searching for the old man for some time, am! he now finds that he is heir to .C 1,500 left by a lady who was a friend lo the Francis family vears ago.

Hew Otto Oerstenberg, aged 7*2, chairman oL‘ the important Berlin insurance company “Victoria,'’ has had an extraordinary adventure in Karlsbad with masked robbers, who seem to have had an aeroplane in readiness to lake them to Berlin. Herr tiers tenberg was decoyed to.a well-known hoarding house in Karlsbad, and taken to a private room, where masked men compelled him, on the threat ol' taking his life, to sign a cheque for 1,500,000 marks (nominally £75,000) on the Deutsche Bank in Berlin. He was then locked in the room. After remaining there for some hours he succeeded in getting out on the window sill. To this he clung, shouting for help. He was taken for a lunatic, but was released from his dangerous position by means of a ladder. The robbers escaped, leaving behind them a revolver, a dagger, and ropes.

All exciting scone, followed l»y a soldiers leap from a third-door window, was recently witnessed in the Strand, London. A man named Le Bonly, a private in the Canadian Forces, was arrested by a military patrol. He dealt one of his captors a violent blow in the face, and broke away from custody. He turned down Savoy Street, a steep incline, and ran oft at great speed. On the point of being recaptured, lie turned into Savoy Mansions, which are occupied by a department of the War Office. .Escape was practically impossible, for the exit was guarded closely by police. The hunted soldier reached the third floor, and seeing that his pursuers were at his heels, leapt out of a third-lloor window, and fell on to the pavement. Severely injured, lie was taken in an ambulance to a military hospital. “Give me two ice creams, and the necklace is yours,” said a little page boy to an ice-cream seller, in the Tuileries Gardens, The necklace, composed of pearls, is said to be worth £2,000. It belongs to a American woman staying at a Paris hotel. A page buy stole it, gave it to a companion, and this companion offered it to the ice cream teller for 10 francs. The ice cream seller had not 10 francs to spare. The day was hot, and the ice creams were tempting. Thus the pearls changed hands

for the ices. The mother of the iee ere mu' seller was alarmed, and informed the police. The necklace has been restored, the iee cream seller is the poorer by two ices, and the page boy and his companions are at the police station.