ENGLISH MAIL NEWS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXX, Issue 191, 14 August 1899, Page 3

ENGLISH MAIL NEWS.

TEE GREAT WALL OF CHINA.

THE LOSS OF THE STELLA,

SEVERE SENTENCE ON GENERAL 3 GILETTA.

h$ AERONAUT'S TERRIBLE FALL

\\- AMERICAN LADY'S JEYYEL- ' * LJSRI' CONFISCATED.

The mails by the Orient steamer Omrah were delivered in Sydney yesterday. They include English newspapers to June 30, from which we uiuke the following extracts:— Intelligence has been received at Shanghai (states the London "Central iS'ews") announcing that a Russian military party numbering twelve has been massacred by brigands. It is understood that substantial compensation will be demanded by .Russia from the Chinese Government. Edison is now completing an automobile. He expects to have it perfected within a few weeks. He declares that he will be able to turn out an electric tricycle that will run 150 miles without re-charging. A telegram from Denver (Colorado) to the London "Standard" says:—"Mr Lewis, a civil engineer, from Chicago, has passed through here en route for China, on behalf of a syndicate interested in a concession for the destruction of the famous Great Wall. Two British, one French and three German syndicates are competing." The Exchange Telegraph Company states that, according to news received from Nigeria, Okoro, eldest son of the deposed King of Benin, has surrendered himself to Mr Flint, the AeenirGeneral of the Royal Niger Company. Mr Flint is sending the prisoner to Sir Alfred Moor, the Administrator of the neighbouring 3Siger Coast Protectorate, within which tne province of Benin is situated. The Johannesburg correspondent ot the London "Standard" says that persistent rumours are current that tne British Government has acquired possession of Inyack Island, at the mouth of Delagoa Bay. The United States cruiser Chicago, instead of proceeding to Brazil, sailed on Monday, June 2b, from Tamatave to Delagoa Bay, m order to afford protection if necessary to American interests, owing to the unsettled state of affairs in the TransV£The "Eclair" publishes the following from Toulon:-"The engine framesi of the ironclad Bouvet. and of the cruisers Lavoisier and Galilee have been found to be seriously defective owing to bad metal having been used in their construction. It is impossible to make repairs and the vessels will never attain their normal speed. The following note was found in a small coffee tin on the beach bathing place at Ilfracombe on June 29. M was written on a page of a small pocket-book, or diary, in pencil:- b.s. Stella. To my wife and children The Stella is going down as I pen my last words. If I do not survive go to my brother Good-bye.—R. *eel, A.B. Mrs Abigail Ned, 5, High-street, Cardl An important judgment was given in Paris on June 28 in the case of Madame Betal against the Transatlantic Company. The husband ot Madame Retal was lost in the wreck of the Bourgogne. She brought an action against the company on tne S of reckless conduct on the part of the captain The cow held^ that Captain Deloncle should m the tog 'have gone at slow speed and that mmelately the collision took place he should have popped and seen to the lowering of the boats. The comP hanv being Responsible for his errors, £4000 damages were given to Madame EThe "kissing bug" from the .Philippines continued to bite the lips of *ew Yorkers, being no respector of persons One actress who has fallen a Sm is the popular Rose Coghlan SdThe has been temporarily obliged to abandon her engagement. The m sect injects bacterial poison into the upper lip of the victim during the nflt and the result is possibly deadly Kb tne case be promptly treated. Authenticated information having reached the British Government of tTe^ntention of the ChineseMjflWJJ directors to dismiss Mr Kinder, mr Bax Ironside on June 28 communicated to the Tsung-li-lamen a & telegra nnm ?^ otV^imS;e^^Sit; ana ite effect S been good, -the Question of dismissal having been indefinitely postponed The trial of General Giletta, tne Tt-Tlian officer who was arrested at Kice on T charge of espionage, took be heard in camera, as *J e d rh ae%aTty Oof e t h Pe OS. Th• T rterheSin^^Sce the Puffi?' #roe r cuteoi addressed, the Court asking that the maxnnum iSrSsss be G s ed en^nced him to five years' imprisonment, and to pay a fine of 5000 francs

Ms* been definitely decided to inpnt General Otis will ha\e 40,00u ™f availaS; for active operations after the rainy season. Arrange mns are Sg made to grease transportation facilities to the Philip Dines As the regular army has almediately to instruct recruiting officers to enlist volunteers. About 10,000 are wanted. In Dublin a special jury awarded Mr Brenheim, wine merchant, carrying on business in London and Bordeaux £4,000 damages against tne Dublin Hotel Metropole Company for having by the negligence of their •servants sustained injuries which resulted in the loss of a leg. In March last the plaintiff was staying at the Hotel Metropole in Sackville-street, and when about to go to bed a porter of the hotel said he could go to his bedroom by the elevator. The porter opened a door and told plaintift to step in, but the elevator was not there, and the plaintiff fell down the shoot to the cellar. He was severely injured, and amputation of a leg was necessary. The Lord Chief Justice of Ireland said he approved the verdict, although he would have been Inclined to give n little more himself. At Graz, in Styria, on June 36,

Signor Merighi, an Italian aeronaut, ascended in his balloon to a height of considerably over 10,000 ft. when the balloon burst suddenly and fell. At a distance of about 40ft. from the earth Signor Merig-hi threw himself out of the car. He broke one leg, and was taken up unconscious, but living, and was taken to a hospital. During his fall he wrote on a paper, found in the car: "Am dying contentedly, having reached my term." Signor Merighi (says the Vienna correspondent of the "Daily News") states that at the height of 3500 metres the balloon suddenly swelled to an enormous size, and though he immediately opened the ventilator, it burst with a tremendous crash, and was rent open from top to bottom. It formed, however, a kind of dome, which served as a parachute in the tremendous fall that followed.

The massacre of a Eussian military party at Kirin by Chinese brigands was closely followed by an attack by Chinamen upon the railway works near Kiao-Chow. Three railway engineers have been carried off. Very promptly the German military authorities have organised a punitive expedition consisting1 of 80 foot and 16 mounted men. A Eeuter's telegram on June 25 from Hongkong says:—"lt is announced from Kien-ning-Fu, the scene of the recent antiforeign outbreak, that a large nuinof placards have been posted up there at the instance of the local gentry offering a reward of lOOOdol. for the heads of missionaries. It is feared that the authorities will be unable to cope with the increasing agitation."

The correspondent of the "Leader" at Brussels relates a curious story, which he takes from a French, source. After the disaster at Cavite the Spanish Governor-General put up to public auction all that was left of the ruined naval squadron, consisting of 25 gunboats. These were bought, together with their armament, by a certain M. Francisco Reyes. When M. Reyes claimed his gunboats, he found the Spanish sailors stripping them of their guns and in rep?*- to his protests they threatened to sink the ships if interfered with. The guns, numbering 60 in all, were then dragged ashore for use in besieging the town of Zamboanga, which, the Spanish ! forces were then trying to wrest from Aguinaldo's garrison. Mr Reyes has never seen guns or ships since, nor has he been able to obtain the return of any of his purchase money.