Cable Jottings

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 544, 22 December 1928, Page 9

Cable Jottings

SENTENCE COMMUTED.—The New South Wales Cabinet has commuted the death sentence passed on Thomas Butler to one of imprisonment for life. Butler, who was a ship’s painter, murdered a woman with whom he had been living at Rozell, on September 17. The jury had recommended him to mercy. RETRIAL ORDERED. —The Full Court of Criminal Appeal at Sydney Upheld the appeal of Arthur Callaghan *nd the brothers Walter and Bert Llttler, who were convicted of a capital offence against a girl at Parkes. The Court directed that a new' trial be on the ground of the misdirection of the Jury. GERMANY AND THE SOVIET. —A hew Russo-German trade treaty is reported to be imminent. The Soviet 'grees to utilise a certain amount of German shipping, to accept the German Government’s interpretation of commercial espionage, and to acknow- • edge the right of German Consuls to visit German subjects who are imprisoned in Russia. —A. and N.Z.-P.A. PLOT IN TURKEY. —The Constantinople correspondent of “The Times’’ that in spite of concealment It Is clear that the authorities have discovered a plot against the Government, police have made 150 arrests at Rrusa, and others rt Constantinople. Three generals were arrested, but were later released.—Times cable. PROTECTION OF NATIVES.—T h e re P° r t of the Chief Protector of Aborigines in West Australia for the v ca r stated that the estimated native Population of the State numbered a decrease of only 176 on the Previous year. Reports that leprosy and other diseases were prevalent urn °ng the natives had not been substantiated byinvestigation