BRITISH AND FOREIGN

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 249, 27 February 1911, Page 3

BRITISH AND FOREIGN

(From the Australian Papers). THE CORONATION. London business men and the transportation companies estimate that there will be an influx of 2,000,000 visitors into London for the Coronation. Though a large number will be Americans and foreigners, visitors from the oversea dominions will predominate. The stands to be erected along the route of the procession will be on a more extensive scale than those pu| up at the time of King Edward's Coronation. From the' end of this month Westminster Abbey will be closed, to enable the necessary preparations to be carried out. PURE CHAMPAGNE. The French Government intends to introduce a Bill to protect the reputation of French champagne from thej use of grapes grown outside the protected area. It is proposed to isolate the true champagne until it is bottled, a speciaMabel' to be used at every stage as an endorsement of the purity of its manufacture. The Bill provides also that champagne shall be stored in specially-constructed premises. The Government tax will be only y«d a bottle, in order to defray the cost of supervision. BUYING A HUSBAND. Before allowing her husband to obtain a divorce to marry Madame Emma Karnes, the American prima donna, Madame Degogorza, the wife of the famous baritone, insisted that she should receive £20,000. Madame Eamcs decided to pay this sum, and the divorce proceedings will therefore be instituted. A FAMILY SUFFOCATED. A ghastly tragedy lias been discovered at Philadelphia. A man named Hyman Berkowitz, his wife, and five children, were discovered in the bedroom of a tenement lying about the floor in various attitudes. They had all been asphyxiated by the fumes of gas that was escaping through a tube that had been attached to one of the taps of the gas stove. "A doctor pronounced life extinct in every case.

"LA GREVE PERLEE." When the French Government sailed the railway men out as reservists to suppress their own strike, the latter swore that they would get even with the authorities. They therefore, as it is declared, invented as a .subtle form of reprisal the delicate art of sending things astray, known us "La grove perlee" (cunning strike). On two occasions of late trains failed to slow down at the Gar du Xord terminus, with the result that they crashed into and ripped up the platforms. ''Faulty brakes!" .say the engine-drivers. "La grove perlee!" whisper the knowing ones, who smile as they contemplate the authorities' futile efforts to discover what it is that is causing all the mischief. But this is not all. Six hundred trucks of merchandise were side-tracked the other day near Maisons-Laffittc, and 280 waggons were lost in the depths of the Forest of Saint Germain, while one train, with 300 cattle and 100 pigs, which was on its way to Paris, completely disappeared.