ARRIVAL OF THE SAN FRANCISCO MAIL.

Press, Volume LIII, Issue 9520, 12 September 1896, Page 9

ARRIVAL OF THE SAN FRANCISCO MAIL.

(PRESS ASSOCIATION TELEGRAM.) AUCKLAN D, September 11. Arrived—Monowai, from San Francisco. Passengers — Misses Mills (2), Mesdames Mills, Brown, B-ilev, Cleave, Messrs Mills, Drvden, Baker. Laugford, Cotterill, Brown, Reynolds, Skelton, Hansen, Dudgeon, Auburn, Phillips, Attyes, Moon, Wendell, Shoemaker, Bailey, Cleave said 31 iv the steerage. GEXERAL~SUMMARY. SAN FRANCISCO, August 20. The Mexican island of Clarion, a rocky .speck l3*ing some distance off the coast, ha_ been' seized by Great Britain. A Mouroe doctrine rumpus is expected. The islet belongs to tho state of Coluiea. It is also assarted that the same power has planned to seize the Island of Revillagigedo, on the Pacific Coast. A little band of Americans, crusaders for theosophy, are receiving considerable attention from English papers, and have made many converts, both in England and Ireland" The Rev. Mr Williams, a chaplain in the British Army, has joined the crusaders, Among other new adherents iv Europe are Said to be Professor Crooke, the English chemist, who invented- Crooke's ray tube, Camille Flammarion, tho French astronomer, and, it, ia said, Mrs Benson, wife of the Archbishop of Canterbury., who, with her two sons, is stated joined the Theosophists recently. Leaving Europe, the crusaders will go to Malta and Egypt, then will follow Australia, New Zealand, and Asia. The return is to be by wav of San Francisco about March.

The London Standard of August 3rd denies the report that Sir Charles Tupper, of Canada, is to succeed the Earl of Aberdeen as Governor-General of that colony.

A dispatch of the 15th says the popular heart has been very much touched by Sir Johu Millais's sufferings and death. His surgeon says of the new treatment of ozone as anantiseptic, thatno man ever passed through such a grave illness with such comfort as Sir John Millais during the three months since the operation of tracheotomy was performed. He had practically no narcotics whatever. Ozone was used in his case for the first time.

In receiving the deputation appointed by the recent Congress of the Chambers of Commerce of the Empire in London, to urge the Government to take steps towards the codification of the commercial laws of the whole Empire by means of identir-ai statutes for the various colonies, Mr Chamberlain gave the deputation a. promise . that he would endeavour to meet their views.

Sir Matthew White Ridley, Secretary of State for Home Affairs, refused, on August 11th, to communicate to the House a statement made, in his private caprvcity, by Lord Chief Baron Russell, of Killowen, with reference to the case of Mrs Florence Maybrick, an American woman serving a lifesentence for the murder of her husband. An agitation for her release is kept up on both sides of the water.

Queen Victoria has issued a message to the nation, thanking them /for their expressions of lo3 T alty and affection as the period approaches at which the length of her reign will have exceeded that of any other English monarch. The Rev. Warren C. Hubbard, of Rochester, New York, a Freemason, who conveyed fund, from the place named to aid in church restoration in Rochester, England, was most hospitably received. : In replying to addresses by the Mayor of Rochester and Dean Hole, Mr Hubbard assured his hearers of the undying friendliness of the United States for Great Britain, addmg that if they had heard anything to the contrary they must remember that not all those living in America are Americans. The money was raised in response to an appeal by the Rev*. Dean S. Reynolds Hole, of the English Rochester, during his visit to the New York States ci_3* of the same name. In the National Artillery Association competition at Shoeburyness, England, on August sth, the visiting Canadian Artillery defeated a picked British team in the contest for the London Fry Challenge Cup, Avhich trophy has been held by Canadians since the last contest in 1866. The contest was an exciting one. -.. --"-•

Not for a long time (says a London despatch of August 9th) has the Queeh been so much moved by an act of kindness to her family as she was by a letter from the Pope, accompanying the present of a massive gold antique bracelet sent by his Holiness to Princess Maud upon the occasion of her wedding. The letter is filled with the kindest sentiments of affection, such as a parent might have used, and the missive is considered another proof that the Vatican desires to be on friendly terms with the Anglicans.

It is being debated in London (August 28th) " How to celebrate the Queen's reign, the longest in English histoiy." A wealthy manufacturer set the ball rolling by proposing that £5,000,000 .should be raised to found a model settlement, to be called Victoria Town.

The results of tests in actual warfare of the Lee-Metford rifle, which is now the standard arm of the British infantry, are not satisfacto-3*. According to recent advices f romMatabsloland, unlessthe bullet strikesan organ it nomorestopsawoundedman'scharge than would a popgun. General Garrington commanding officer in Matabeloland and General Kitchener, Commander-in-Chief in the Soudan, have recently mode strong complaints unknown to each other, and both predict disaster to the English troops now in the field from this cause.

THE U.S.S. CO.'S NEW STEAMERS. Mr James Mills, Managing Director of the Union Steamship Company of New Zealand, is a passenger for Auckland in the steamship Monowai, sailing at date. He arrived here, from Loudon, on the 14th of August, and brought more details about the new steamship now being built by Messrs Denny Bros., of Dumbarton, which will in a few months succeed the Monowai in the run between Sydnej* and San Francisco via Auckland and Apia. While Mr Mills was attending to business in England his wife and daughter, who return with him, made a tour of interesting poiuts of Europe. His visit to England has been important, in that he purchased one large' steamer, let contracts for two more, and advertised for tenders for the construction of a fourth one. The vessel which will succeed the Monowai is now building, and is expected to make her first visit to this.port next March. She has already been christened the Moana, which means " the sea." She will be considerably larger than the Monowai, and will out-strip her as to speed, running sixteen and a half knots in her trial trip. She is calculated to average fifteen knots an hour loaded, and to cover the distance between San Francisco and Auckland in seventeen daj's, whereas now as a rule it requires twenty days' time for the Monowai to make the vo3*age. The ship will be strictly up to date in all her appointments. The ship purchased by Mr Mills is a cargo steamer of 3000 tons capacity, built by Messrs Doxford and Sons, of Newcastle-on-Tyne. She is fast in her class, and will run in the Fiji Islands local and sugar trade. The other ship contracted for will be called the Waikare. She will have 3500 tons capacity, and a speed of fifteen knots on her trial, and will work also in the colonial trade. The vessel for which tenders have been asked will be a 3000 ton steamer to consort with the Mararoa and Monowai in the intercolonial freight and passenger trade. The business of the Union Steamship Company has come to be enormous. The Company is now operating fifty-five ships, and in six months will have reached fifty-nine.