Cromwell Argus AND NORTHERN GOLDFIELDS GAZETTE. Cromwell: Tuesday, April 21, 1885. SPECIAL TELEGRAPHIC.

Cromwell Argus, Volume XVII, Issue 836, 21 April 1885, Page 2

Cromwell Argus AND NORTHERN GOLDFIELDS GAZETTE. Cromwell: Tuesday, April 21, 1885. SPECIAL TELEGRAPHIC.

(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.) DUNEDIN. Monday Evening. All works intended for the defence of the Colony are being pushed on. The Government have cabled for 2,000 stand of the latest MartiniHenri rifles and appointments. The White Star liner Coptic, just arrived, has been chartered by the Imperial Government as a fast cruiser for the New Zealand coast, and is to be at once fitted up for that purpose. Some uneasiness has been caused through thepublication of a paragraph from a N. S. Wales paper that a captain of an American schooner when on the voyage from Melbourne to Newcastle passed a Russian sloop of war under sail and steam, but had no communication with her. Father Fitzgerald, of Gore, died on Saturday morning. His body was brought to Dunedin today by the Express. A libel action is coming on at Wellington, C. W. Gotten (late of Dunedin) claiming damages from Daniel Clime for alieged slander by stating to a friend in the street that Cutteu had improved his property at the expense of the Island Bay Park Co. A heavy gale which set in at Wellington on Saturday night threw down half the Exhibition building in course of erection ; the damage is estimated at £4OO to £SOO. On the strength of a telegram from Home that the wife of a fraudulent bankrupt was on board with some of the plunder, the police at Auckland boarded the Coptic and discovered the woman as a steerage passenger. She disgorged £llOO, made up of eleven £IOO Bank of England notes. M‘Kelvie, the seaman who attempted to murder Thos. Steward at Auckland, was hotly pursued by the police. They got on his track, and when within 150 yards of himhe disappeared into some scrub and shot himself. His son told the police before they started that he would never be taken alive. CABLE NB¥S. London, April 17. The belief that a peaceful settlement will be effected of the difficulty between England and Russia appears to be hourly increasing. The Standard states to-day that the Ameer of Afghanistan is indisposed to press his claim to Penj-deh, and expresses the belief that everything demanded by Russia has been conceded except Zulufika which remains Afghan territory. St. Petersburg, April 17. In his latest dispatch to the Russian Government General Komaroff reports that the Afghans have evacuated all their posts on the frontier, and that the Russian troops remain stationary. It has transpired that in his late dispatch, General Komaroff announced that when Penjdeh and the posts in the neighborhood were evacuated by the Afghans and the latter fled to Herat, he deemed it expedient to place Penj-deh under temporary Russian administration. Suakin, April 18. A messenger has arrived with a letter to General Graham from the chiefs of the Amara tribe offering a force of 5000 men to join the British against Osman Dlgma.