NEWS IN BRIEF

Gisborne Times, Volume XXX, Issue 3453, 19 February 1912, Page 3

NEWS IN BRIEF

A fire destroyed! Forster and Son’s bedstead and! bedding factory at L Itimo ne a r Sydney. The : factory was Lo •> viiy stocked. The damage amounts'' to £2OOO. ■ ' Three boys named Draper; AleDougall and Wildie were bathing at Port Melbourne and disappeared. Their clothing has been found on. the beach. It is believed they have been drowned. Ten months’ experience by the Federal Government justifies the estimate that penny post will result, in the mss of £400,000 for the first year. It >& expected that in. succeeding years the deficit will become less. Before the Total lsator C'ommlss cn at Melbourne the Rev. Mr Nicholson, Superintendent of the Scripture instruction campaign, opposed the machine on the grounds that it legal is*! gambling. It was a. blunder to have vested interests in gambling. WV-’i created ' the difficulty was to abo’idi them

•The Labor Inspector at Adelaide states that there is a shortage of labor, there being 977 men wanted, 130 youths, 726 women, and 279 girls. Earl Grey presided at a banquet at the Savoy -Hotel (London) to congratulate the Earl of Plymouth in connection with the saving of the Crystal Palace for the nation. Earl Grey announced that the donor had offered £50,000 towards the £220,000 required. The King and other royalties, foreign courts, the Governments, and universities were represented at a' memorial service for Lord Lister at Westminster Abbey. The Prince of Wales will enter Magdalen College, Oxford, for the Michaelmas term. The captain of the Delhi, which, was recently wrecked, emphatically denied that the look-out man reported white lights between one o’clock and the time of stranding. President Taft has urgently appealed to the Legislature to take steps to develop Alaska. A Bill was introduced to provide for the formation of a railroad commission. New steamer lines are also proposed. Nine passenger cars of the Canadian trans-Continental express train were derailed owing to intense cold spreading the rails. The passengers miraculously escaped unhurt. At- Madras Nelakanta and eight others have been sentenced to varying terms ,from a year to seven years, in connection with the conspiracy at Finncvallv, resulting in the murder of Mr Ashe in June last.

G. H. Brown, emigration agent, charged with obtaining money by fal-se pretences has been convicted and sentenced to six months’ imprisonment-. Mr Churchill _ (First Lord of the" Admiralty) receiving a deputation, said that nothing would give the Admiralty greater pleasure than to see an eighthours’ working day maintained at the Thames vSliipbuilding Works, and he would gladly do his utmost to - ; ensure its maintenance. Dealers in London have returned fifty valuable books which disappeared from the Peterborough Cathedral L’brary. Thieves threw a bomb into a jeweller’s shop at Bouiogne-siir-Seine (Paris; scattering the stock into the roadway. They secured a quantity of jewels and escaped, after firing at the police. At Madrid managers, actors, and authors have decided to close the theatres until the excessive theatre taxes are reduced.

At Chicago four murderers, guilty of the murder of a foreigner named Guelgows. were hanged together in the State gaol. On the previous night they are way to a hysterical outburst, and fought the warders fiercely, hut were overpowered by main force. The wife of one of the. condemned men fainted. The men were carried in a semi-con-scious condition to the scaffold. Warrants have been issued at Juneau (Alaska), for the arrest of eighteen business men under the provisions of the Sherman Anti-Trust law: It is alleged that the accused, who are at the head of coal and steam-_ ship companies, combined to exclude other companies from wharf facilities at Skagway. Penleriek, ex-manager of the East Band mine in South Africa has been committed for trial for mis-stating the amount of gold recovered during the first half of 1911, and also for stating that 4700 ounces were derived from milling, whereas they were derived from cyaniding.