NEWS BY MAIL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 98, 3 August 1910, Page 7

NEWS BY MAIL.

PASSION PLAY UNDER FLOOD. VISITORS UNABLE TO LEAVE OBERAMMERGAU. Berlin, June 14. One hundred and fifty people in the Ahr Valley are believed to have been drowned in their beds owing to great floods. More than eighty dead bodies have already been recovered, and persons who are still missing are variously estimated from forty-eight to 150. The floods have inundated Oberammergau, and the streets are under water. The theatre is threatened with destruction, and the Passion Play been interrupted. Large numbers of Britishers and Americans, who represented 90 per cent, of the visitors, are gravely inconvenienced, as they are unibic at present to leave the village, all communication ibeing cut off by the floods. The disaster has been caused by thun-der-storms of unusual violence in many parts of Germany which have followed periods of intense tropical heat. The rivers overflowed with great rapidity, sweeping everything before them. Bridges were carried away and houses demolished, and in the Ahr Valley the progress of the inundation was so rapid during the night tliat many people were caught sleeping in their beds and were unable to escape.

ADVENTURE AMONG SKYSCRAPERS. DIRIGIBLE OUT OF CONTROL IN NEW YORK. New York, June 14. . A sensational aerial exhibition was given this morning by Frederick Owens, aged twenty, among 'the sky-scrapers of Lower Broadway. The youthful aeronaut started in a dirigible balloon of the Zeppelin type from Newark, intending to alight in City Hall Park and deliver a letter from the Mayor of Newark to Mayor Gaynor, of New York. Owens appeared over the city at 10.30 a.m. and flew above the sky-scrapers to the City Hall, which nestles low ainid numerous eighteen and twenty storey buildings. He gave a wonderful exhibition, circling over the City Ha.ll and dodging the sky-scrapers in search of a landing place. Unfortunately the park was crowded with people, making a ground descent impossible. Owens, therefore, continued to manoeuvre for several minutes, playing among the high buildings, and then tried to land on the roof of the sixstorey courthouse. He loosed the anchor, which caught the chimney on the roof, but the rope broke, and the jerk at the same time disabled the dirigible.

It failed to obey its rudder, and became a simple balloon, drifting with the wind. Owens, at once left his seat and [climbed over the framework to the end iof the airship, looking like a fly to the spectators below. He -tried unsuccessfully to adjust the rudder, and the crowd expected every moment the dirigible would strike some building. It escaped destruction repeatedly, and drifted over the East River, grazed Brooklyn Bridge tower, and then drifted over Brooklyn for several miles.

. Owens finally opened the escape valve of the airship and dropped into the branches of a lane tree. A fire escape was almost instantly on the scene, and Owens descended the fire jadder to safety. The firemen then assisted him in packing his dirigible for shipment back to Neark. w

UP-TO-DATE. HIGHWAYMAN IN A MOTOR CAR. Paris, June 14. A desperate attempt at highway robbery was made in the centre of Paris this morning. A collector for a largj grocery firm was on his way to the central office, opposite the Church of St. Augustine, with a bag containing £OOO in gold and notes, when a man, who had been waiting for him in a motor car, jump-id out of it, threw pepper in the collector's eyes, and knocked him down. The thief, who had an accomplice in the car besides the chauffeur, jumped into the car, and, leaving the bag of money there, got out on the other side. But he and his accomplices had forgotten that a 'barracks was immediately opposite. The sentry saw the affair, gave the alarm, and all three m-n were caught and the money it-covered.

WOMAN ARRESTS A MURDERER. LOCKED IN A BOOM WLJLE POLICE AkRIVF. Paris, June 6 A woman a nested a ni'inicrer on tne railway dine near Bourges last night. Loufs Thevenaut, a public official in the service of the town, had been separated from his wife, and, learning that she intended to apply for a divorce, made an appointment with her near the station/ intending to persuade her to to back to him. *\v- reiii'd to return, ami he shot her dead. Mme. Thevenaut was accompanied by ■her sister, who ran into the railway station and got the stationmaster to telephone along the line to warn the keepers, of the -level-crossings. Thevenaut walked along the line, and at the first level-crossing the wife of a signalman stopped him. "A woman has been killed outside Bourges station; do you know anything about it?" she asked him. "No," answered Thevenaut. "But there is blood on your hands," said the woman. The muirederer fell on his knees and confessed, and Mme. Dubourg locked him in her room and telephoned through to Bourges for the police.

REAL SMART! VIOLENCE SECURES ACQUITTAL. Paris, June 13. The lawyer of a man named Tambornino, who was being tried for theft today'in the Paris courts, pleaded that Tamhourniiio was not accountable for his actions. This defence made the prisoner so angry that he leaned over the dock and knocked his lawyer fiat on the floor of the court. The tawver was not much hurt, and, rising to his feet, made use of his client's violence so cleverly that he secured an acquittal. DAYLIGHT SAVING. GOVERNMENT OFFICES ADOPT THE REFORM. London, June 16. A "daylight saving" scheme has been adopted in several Government offices where work is begun an hour earlier in the summer months. The Home Office, the General Post Office, and the Local Government 'Board are among; the offices where the scheme is in operation.In every instance the early attendance is voluntary, the choice of workine from 9 a.m. and 4 p.m- or fr° m *° a,m - and

5 p.m., the regulation hours, being offered to the clerical staffs at the beginning of the summer. There is no compulsion, but once the choice is made adherence to it is Tequired. From .September to May the old hours are kept—from May to September the "daylight savers" rush home at 4 o'clock, snatch a light meal, and have the rest of the sunlit hours for tennis, boating, gardening, or whatever outdoor pastime they prefer. THE POPE PROTESTS. EXTENDED LIBERTY TO OTHERCHURCHES DENOUNCED. Madrid, June 13; % The Papal Nuncio yesterday handed to the Prime 'Minister a Note from the Vatican protesting against the royal decree authorising the use of outward symbols by religious denominations not belonging to the Roman Catholic faith. The Premier will lay the matter before a meeting of the ministerial majority in Parliament. Reuter's Dresdeneorrespondent.reports that the King of Saxony yesterday summoned the Ministers, of State "in evangelkis," 1 who are the members of the Government entrusted with exercise of the ecclesiastical power of Protestant Saxony, so long as the King professes the Roman Catholic faith, and expressed his regret that his efforts to maintain religious peace were thwarted at present •by such sharp attacks on the ifivangelical Lutheran Church as those contained in the recent Papal Encyclical. He intended, therefore, to send an autograph letter to the Pope.