She has 250 of a crew and four officers. The greatest precautions were taken that the prisoners should not learn her secrets. They were confined below the decks, and suffered severe hardships, having but little food. The identity of the raider was not disclosed. The survivors say she is either the Vineta or a ship of the Moewe type. It is reported that several Japanese officers aboard the Hudson Maru were shot for resisting. The Hudson Maru was captured on January 12, and crews from the other ships were put aboard with a German prize crew, which took her into Pernambuco flying the German flag. Of the raiders’ prisoners, 170 British and Hindus, 54 French, 13 Americans, and some other nationalities were landed at Pernambuco. One hundred captured lascars were retained aboard the raider as stokers, thus releasing the Germans for prize crews. Four hundred and forty-one members of the captured crews are aboard the Yarrowdale, whose whereabouts is a mystery. Some report that she has foundered; others expect her arrival shortly. The Brazilian and Argentine Governments are investigating the rumour of a secret German base at some uninhabited coastal port. Captain Days, of the French schooner Nantes, says the raider flew the British flag, and ordered him to stop. They then showed the German flag, and threatened to sink him. The Germans boarded and removed the crew, looted the ship, and sunk her with dynamite.
• General Birdwood is credited with the statement that the records of France reveal the remarkable and significant fact that no instance has occurred of an Australian committing an offence against a woman. Their reputation in this respect is the highest. General Sir Newton Moore says that experience at Salisbury is the same. He has been congratulated by leading residents of the district on the splendid behaviour of the men. The Provost-Marshal makes a similar report as to London. Only one percent of the men in the camps have been punished, and the majority of the offences have been merely for overstaying their leave.
• A Tapanui party visited Teviot fruit gardens recently, and found the orchardists very busy and short-handed (reports the Courier). Most of the fruit people are working 13 hours a day. The fruit is conveyed to Beaumont by motor lorries, and they are almost continuously on the road day and night. The bulk of the fruit is in splendid order, but there is lamentable waste, as there is neither canning factory or jam preserving works to deal with secondary fruit.
• "You haven’t got as much intelligence as I thought you had,’’ said the military counsel to a farmer witness at the Military Appeal Court in Palmerston on Friday.
"You have got every right to think that; I wouldn’t be milking cows if I had much," declared the witness amidst laughter.
• "Bad language is very common in all the cities of the dominion. Men seem to think that they can use filthy language in the streets, no matter how many people are present," said Mr S. E. McCarthy, S. M., at the Magistrate’s Court in Wellington, when sentencing a returned soldier to a month’s imprisonment for obscenity.
• Orepuke has taken on a very sober turn since the war started (says the Tuatapere Guardian). During the past year, the local constable states, there has not been a single case of drunkenness to bring before the court. Owing to lack of business the holders of the licence for the large Masonic Hotel decided to close down, and to this end, the license was allowed to lapse last Friday evening. This now reduces Orepuki to two licensed hotels. — ODT, 20.1.1917.
• COPIES OF PICTURE AVAILABLE FROM ODT FRONT OFFICE, LOWER STUART ST, OR WWW.OTAGOIMAGES.CO.NZ
