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GENERAL NEWS NOTES OF THE DAY Field Marshal Hnig yesterday reported his line on the Lys battle front standing intact as it existed Wednesday morning following the British retirement east of Ypres, no ground having lieen lost in the battling of Wednesday, despite the heavy attacks of the Germans through the entire period. Checked for the time at least in front of the strong British Itositions dominated by Kemmel hill, on the northern portion of this front, the Germans are turning their attention to the southwesterly sector of the battle field. A heavy bombardment of the British positions here between Lwon and Robecq was re-IKirted in progress yesterday morning. The enemy is finding himself crannied on the southerly side of the wedge lie has pushed into the British lines and seems on the eve of an effort to widen it out. Furthermore at Locon the Germans are only some three miles north of Bethune. an important railway center, and at Robecq are within six miles of Lil-lers, a junction point of the railway from Bethune to Hazebrouck. The great flow of wounded now passing through Flanders, is viewed with alarm by the Germans, as related in an official dispatch from Amsterdam yesterday. The towns of Courtrai, Bruges, Ghent and other places have been transformed into military hospitals, the dispatch said, adding that at the front arrangements are inadequate and the Red Cross service is not able to fulfill its task. Many wounded, it was said, are dying in Red Cross automobiles and wagons and in sanitary trains. Rioting attended the breaking tin of a meeting in Belfast Wednesday to oppose conscription, according to a dispatch to the London Daily News. Revolvers were used and baton charges were made by the police, who were pelted with paving stones. Virtually every plate glass window in the street was smashed. Fifteen thousand persons took part in the meeting, which was called by the Labor party. The trouble was precipitated, the dispatch says, by 200 young shipyard workers. The requirement of full payment of income and excess taxes in June is working hardship in the campaign for the Third Liberty Loan, Representative Fuller of Ilinois told the House at Washington yesterday. Presenting to the House several telegrams from Liberty bond committees in his district, declaring that "the tax was hampering subscriptions to the loan. Mr. Fuller urged the immediate adopt bin of legislation permitting the payment of the lax in installments. Peace this year is no longer regarded as inconceivable, provided means can lie found to hurry large numbers of American troops to France. Germany i-i lielieved to he fighting with absolute desperation. She has won all her re«-ent victories by pouring in fresh divisions. She is wasting such divisions at a rate that foreshadows exhaustion, with the consequent opportunity for an overwhelming offensive by the allies, is the belief in Englaud, according to a cable of yesterday. Germany will have to observe the greatest economy, for her national debt is now 124.000.000.000 marks, and the hour of reckoning will come when there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth on the part of the taxpayers. This reflection on the jer-mau financial situation was made in the reichstag on March 1 |,y Count Arthur Von Posadowsky-Wehner. former vice-chancellor, according to the Cologne Cazette, a copy of which has been received in New York. American troops operating on the Lorraine sector have taken over control of "No Mans Laud." Patrolling parties are making almost nightly visits up to the German wire entanglements without encountering any resistance. A lieutenant and a party of twelve have made a five-hour exploring trip, penetrating to the German third line and making maps of machine gun and snipers posts and strong points without being seen by the enemy. New snbscriotions of 07,000,000 reported to the U. S. treasury yesterday, sent the total Liberty Ixinn pledges over the billion mark to ,059,558,000. "This figure," said a treasury statement, "while encouraging, is- unsatisfactory to the Liberty Loan committees. The dailv average still is short of what it should be, if the ,000,000,000 quota mark set for the country as a minimum is to be leached or exceeded." Because the peasants in the village of Novoseki. in the government of Mohilev. resisted a requisition of money by German troops and killed an officer in the resulting scuffle, the" Germans burned the village and from machine guns placed around it they fired upon the inhabitants, including women and children, who tried to escape, killing many of them, says a dispatch from Moscow. The great state of Illinois felt surprisingly young yesterday, considering that it was celebrating its hundredth birthday. Pointing with pride to the remarkable progress it had made in the last century, and with particularly fond boastfnlness to the growth of Chicago, the spirit of Illinois audaciously selected as its motto, "We havent begun to grow yet." John Haner. agent for a German publishing house. Wednesday pleaded guilty to the charge of uttering seditious remarks and was sentenced in the District -Court at Fremont. Xeh.. to serve from one to twenty years at the Nebraska lienitentiary. Hauer was charged with having said that he hoped Germany would win the war and that "tin- linns are all right." Four hundred convicts in the New Mexico state penitentiary Wednesday afternoon tarred and feathered and led around the prison yard, with a ro|ie about his neck. Major John M. Birkuer. of Camp Cody, Doming. N. M.. lield in the lienitentiary as a federal prisoner in default of ,000 bail. He is charged with violation of the espionage act. Saturday morning Chicago will witness one of the biggest labor parades ever held in this city, when 50.000 union labor men will march iu behalf of the liberty loan. Governor Lowden will review the parade from the Art Institute grandstand. Simon ODonnell. president of the Building Trades Council, will be grand marshal. Viscount Milner has been appointed secretary of state for war iu the British cabinet, according to Le Matin. The Karl of Derby, who has been war minister, the. paper says, will come to Paris as ambassador, in place of" Lord Bertie, who retires. The British Kmpire at the begiuning of April had 7,500,000 men in the service of the army and navy, according to official figures received at New York yesterday. Of this number 4.530.000. or 60.4 per -eut. are from Kngland. Late reports, however, lacking official confirmation, are to the effect that French and American forces had delivered a mighty blow against the German lines. "These reports effected the New York stock market. • -
