European News.

Auckland Star, Volume X, Issue 2749, 13 February 1879, Page 2

European News.

famine in England!

THE DESTRUCTION1 IX MAXrHKSIW CASKS OF ACI'UAL STARVATION "A BrJiish Wovki.i ■!)" w. iron from Mm»». ter, England to the New York "KvenineP?? 8; There is scarcely a single t.^ie ihatisnnt* much affected during our present dewS? Home hundreds o£ boiler makns ceasefl » v last week because LVier f-i)iployfiso»naffi*?? reduce their wages four shillings v week n ° great Fiee Tra.e Hall was fill 4 on Sundkyh* with some thousands ot rai.wav <-mnloyep»i testing against a reduction of i\vo shilling week. The cotton mills of Oldham andntt* districts are idle, because cotton master* «» overstocked as to off.-r mill hands WorkoSlv^S condition of no dreadful a decrease of wI<S that t.'ie SBi! hands prefer to work toneX wholly starve rather than work hard for a sami starvation Avage. eß*

Meanwhile the moat dreadful, scenes afein nebsedin our immediate neiuhhourhood "yv newspapers have teamed with instances of to tenKe hunger and destitution, one oii^y of whU I will give in a sample of the rest. A bnteW misled a large bunch o£ " lights,' and whichh» had f een hanging outside h'B window a mommlt before. Go: ng to tLc door, he observed aseaiS crow of a fellow making ( If with it, Heqsc][£ followed him unobserved, and picking n>Tl policeman us he went along, they went into a* mans house, only ro find him and big wifeamT children tearing aMiuder a^ d ravenonslydevonS. ir:g the "raw man-rial" that had just been stolen. To the cr. dit of nnr common huma&UT it, ought to be lecorded that, instead ofrivfc tho man in'o ciistody, the huicbergavehifflfi ■ couple of thiliings, and i)us policemau wasonlT too glad to wink at this evident but yew excusable " miscarriage of iuttice." '

A HORRIBLE iXCTDi'XT OF THE DIBTT TUTION IN ES'GLAND. j Yesterday morning a arii 1 named Annie Lydia LauKhton, aged six years, was strangled by her mother, Maria Laugiiton. a No. 21 Armstroni!. street, Woolwich. Mr* Laugh ton and her hiffi. band lived at tne house named. The parents have seen better days, an" the wife especially ape ears to have been much depressed at their reduced state. On Sunday she was in veiyliai spirits, and cried a good deal. Yesterday mom- i; ing, at half-past five, her husband, who is employed at the Silyertown India Rubber Works at North Woolwich, left honit- to go to his day's duty, and almost directly afterward his wife left her bed with a determination, it is belietei to destroy the 1 yes of botn her children. They were sleeping in different, beds in the sametedroom, and she states that the impulse prompted her to seize the little girl by the throat and; strangle her. S^e did so, and, as the ciildi' awoke, she thrust a stocking into her mouth and partly down her throat, to stifle her cries.' While she was thus en gag' d ihe boy awoke. This probably saved his life, for his'inotfcet merely tol1 him to be quiet, as she was going ; > out to sec a neighbour, and dressing herself she:: . ' left the room, locking the door after her. Shewent direct to the polce station in Williamstreet, where Police-Sergeant BrenchleywasoEi ~:;' duty, and told him that who had killed nercMU '■■, ';'■! at Nn. 2! .Armstrong-street, at the same tima handing him the key of the room. Thomas Alexander Mitchell afterwards saw the pri-. soner, who told him that she had done thedeed in order that her daughter might go to heaven,"