GENERAL SUMMARY.

Clutha Leader, Volume XII, Issue 600, 15 January 1886, Page 6

GENERAL SUMMARY.

In an interview on November 29, Mr Charles Bradlaugh, member-elect for Northampton, said : — '* Personally I believe I stand a better chance of being permitted to take my seat under a Tory Government, which is likely to remain in power, than ever I would have under Mr Gladstone's Cabinet. My sympathy for Mr Gladstone has tied my hands, and I frequently snuffed myself out to avoid harming his party. I have no reason to "spare the Government. lam able to bring against it every kind of weapon. Hitherto my display has been made peacefully in Trafalgar square," He further boasted that he had caused the defeat of twenty Liberals by running Radicals in the same district, because he preferred Tory to Whig opponents. He declined to divulge his plans as to> the future, stating that he had hitherto damaged his cause by prematurely divulging what he intended doing. "I- shall," he said, " observe secrecy in future towards friend and foe alike." William H. Vanderbilt died suddenly of paralysis of the brain at his mansion, New York, on the night of December 8. His total income per annum is stated at 15,000,000d01. His death is attributed to overwork. Suspicious characters have been found hovering near his tomb, and it is believed the theft, of the body is contemplated, as in the case of the millionaire Stewart. A tremendous storm at Aspinall on December 6 sunk fourteen vessels, many of them with their crews. .The Royal Mail and Pacific Mail Companies' docks were much injured. Chinamen are being systematically boycotted' in every town on the Pacific coast, and opium dens have increased so fast in cities that general alarm is felt. Miss Nannie de Vallance, who claimed to be the widow of an English loi'd, was arrested for forgery in New 'York on December 13. There is a most decided boom in the iron trade in the United States. On December 5 pig metal advanced Idol a ton, and 50 cents on ore. Six children were bitten by a rabid dog running at large in Newark, N. J. , on December 4. The peculiar feature of the case is that, at his request, the children have bean sent to M. Pasteur, in Paris, for treatment. Weston and O'Leary began a foot journey of 2,500 miles at the Metropolitan Rink, Newark, New Jersey, on December 7. The rules are twelve hours a-day, excluding Sundays. The walk is undertaken as a trial of endurance. The State of Nueva Leon, Mexico, started a revolution on December 1. President Cleveland allowed himself to be dissuaded from attending Vice-presi-dent Hendrick's funeral, on the ground that some crank might assassinate him,and now the majority of the Press are jeering him for causele3s timidity. The San Francisco police made a de-" scent on December 16 on a cottage in the suburbs of the city and captured four dynamiters, with many of their destruc-

tered in 1767, was unveiled at Mount Hope Cemetery, Boston, on Nov. 23. Instead of being decreased for November, the public debt of the United States was increased for that time, the receipts from revenue having been small. A tremendous storm on Nov. 24 and 26 wrought great havoc in the Atlantic States, particularly among the shipping. Chas. D. Bradley, a Chicago physician, has become insane by the use of the new anaesthetic cocoaine, and has physically ruined his wife and five children by experiments with the drug. The Salt Lake Mormons have turned the tables on the Gentiles. In return for almost incessant prosecutions for polygamy they have examined closely into the private lives of the anti-Mormons, and the results are indictments for.lewdness, adultery, and other practices contrary to law and good morals. There were some fears of an uprising in Utah on account of the rigid enforcement of the anti-polygamy law. The infantry and artillery at contiguous posts were under marching orders for Salt Lake on the 10th December. Caceres, the Peruvian revolutionary leader, entered Lima, the capital, on December 15, and overthrew the Iglesiaa Government. At a Conference in Liverpool on Dec. 15 of representatives of Atlantic steam.ship companies it was decided that the present freight rates were profitless. The question of the amount of increase to be made was referred to a future Conference. An advance of 50 per cent, is considered probable. The New York Herald advises that the Grant monument fund project be abandoned. Only 10Q,000dols had been raised in four months, where 1,000,000 lols was expected. Society circles in Cork were agitated on December 14 over the elopment of Miss Marian Long with her father's groom, a prepossessing young fellow named Hodnett. The runyways were married in Dublin, where they were captured. The young lady was sent back to her father's, and Hodnett to gaol for six months. The formal burial of Riel took place on the morning of December 12 at St. Boniface Cathedral, Winnipeg. A large number of friends and halfbreed sympathisers were present. A lai'ge number of Englishrspeaking people were also present, but merely out of curiosity. There was no sign of any interference or disturbance. Some speculation is rife on account of the Quebec Citadel garrison having been increased to 450 men. Despatches from London on December 15 say that grave news has been received from the Soudan. The Arabs are advancing, and it is now clear that, although strenous efforts have been made to keep the facts out of the papers, the situation in Egypt is serious enoush to compel General Stephenson to leave hurriedly to the front. The garrison at Koshey appears to be cut off and besieged, and the little steamer Loftus, while with her gun shelling the enemy, was hit several times. Later despatches say the rebels had pillaged and burned Tremafc and other villages. A Paris special of Deeernber 13, says : — " M. de Lesseps is indignant over the American criticism of the .Panama Canal. He is especially irritated at the suggestion that the French people will tire of supplying cash for the canal, and that the United States can then buy ifc cheap. He avers that the Company will never sell the canal, but as a matter of fact, investors will ultimately receive dividends which will probably equal those of the Suez Canal, that the French nation will never desert from the enterprise, a;id that he will live to sail through the canal himself. A despatch, dated December 13, to the New York' Herald from Paris, says :.— " The plot thickens evei'y day, and new light is thrown on what is called the Tonqnin scandal. Each revelation damages the prestige of the French array. Mud has been flung about freely, and miich of it has stuck. Before the parliamentary committee ends its labors more than one statesman's reputation will be mined. M. Jules Ferry's seems irrotrievably lost. He stands convicted of having wilfully perverted facts at the time of the Langson disaster by suppressing essential passages in Tonquin despatches, while startling disclosures in Audreny's report of the llth^show that the ex-Premier was calmly signing concessions for mines, forests, and pasture lands, which Genoral De Courcey declares to have been the merest myths and will-o'-the-wisps to lure people into pestilential marshes. The honour of an exMinister of War is also compromised, if it be true, as is suspected, he communicated private State papers about Tonquin to the Press. As the parliamentary committee warms to its work more surprises are expected. General De Conrcey telegraphed on December 14 that he had . captured a number of fortified caverns j and a large quantity nfarms amilimmnnij tion in the Marh?« Mountains. Numerous war junks had also been sunk. In an interview at Dublin on December ! 16 Mr' Harrington, M.P., Said that 1,600, National Leaerue branches, averaging 300 members, had donated L 12,000 to the Executive of the League during the present year. He said that some of the new Nationalist members of Parliament would receive salaries from the League. The extinction of the Liberals would, he thought, immensely .benefit the Irish cause. He also said that boycotting was outside the League's programme and practise, and was confined to a few branches. The Executive would stop boycotting whenever such power was misused. Michael. Davitt,. speaking in Dublin on the same day, said the League would open special industries, if the workmen would co-operate. He announced that he would forthwith commence an agitation to abolish landlordism in the towns, and to secure to. the tenants the benefits the farmers enjoy through the working .of the Land Act. He denounced the Earl of Pembroke and the Earl of Meath for drawing from Dublin large sums of money that rightly belonged to the people. Advices state that up to November 30, in the vicarate of Cochin China, nine -missionaries, seven native priests, sixty catechists, 270 members of religious orders, and 24,000 Christians were massacred. Two hundred parishes, fortyseye.n orphan asylums, a.n.4 ten gonyents.

were destroyed, and 225 churches burned. A despatch from Rangoon, dated. Dec. 16, says that eleven Europeans, who were working for the Bombay and Rangoon Trading Company, on hearing of the rupture between the Bnrmah and Indian Governments, tried to reach Mamp&or, but on the 20th of November they were overtaken and murdered by the Burmese troops in a steamer belonging to the King, and commanded by a palace official. It is alleged that Tynedeh, the Burmese Prime Minister, was implicated in the massacre, and the inhabitants of Rangoon are therefore indignant that he should be allowed to retain his office. A despatch from St. Petersburg, dated December 13, says that Russia has made overtures to Prince Alexander, offering to assent to the Uhioh of Bulgaria and Roumelia on condition that the policy of Bulgaria shall bo subordinated to that of Russia. Russian agents are actively intriguing at Belgrade to dethrone King Milan in favour of Prince Karagogovitch. Despatches from Belgrade, dated Dec. 16, say that . the weather was intensely cold, and that the soldiers at the front are suffering severely. A number of Servians were frozen to death while asleep. Ail estimate of the final result of the elections gives the coalition of the Tories and Parnellitea a majority of 10 over the Liberals. . Apart from the Parnellites, the Liberals have a majority of 72. Several Irish Conservatives, headed by Mr Lewis, are forming independent sections, opposing any coalition with Mr Parnell. Mr Burt replaces Sir Wilfred Lawson as leader of the local optionists. Mr Bradlaugh has entered into negotiations with the Liberal leader. The number of members of the new House of Commons who never before were elected to Parliament is 332. This has no parallel since the first Parliament under the Reform Bill. The Parnellite vote in Dublin was immense, there being 23,772 for that -party, against 4476 cast for the Conservatives and 3170 for the Liberals.