MAIL ITEMS.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XXXII, Issue 5724, 27 January 1876, Page 3

MAIL ITEMS.

A NEW 11AILWAY DANGER. A Gcntitman booked from Leicester to Oxford a day or two ago by way of Nuncaton, and at the latter place got into a compartment of a second-class carriage in a London express. He had no sooner seated himself than a person with the appearance of a gentleman joined him, entered into convers ition .is to the weather, and convei&td freely f >r somQ tune. Ho also offered him a cigar, which he accepted, and after the tram had started induced him to drink fioin a flask containing liquor. Directly after drinking the Leicester gentleman lost all consciousness until he was aroused by the ticket examiner at Willcsden Junction, There he diico\cied that his pockets had been rifled and the whole of his money taken, which, foitunatcly, only amounted to 18s. (id He n<\er remembered the train reaching or leaving llugby Station, so that the drug used must ha\e done its work quickly and eSectua'ly.

ITALIAN TRAGEDIES. Two homble tiagedit"- .ue reported from Italy A woman's body, fiom which the internal "msccm had been icmo\cd, was found in a case at the 1 ail way station at lionio, winch had been se'it fiom Naples on the nth ultimo. A poitu had In ought ting bo\ on a truck at 8 o'clock m the morning The coin Mission agent lutcuuptid him, and a_,ieedwith the young mvi walking alongside as to the puoe of carnage to Home. The potter was easily found, and he could tvJl w hat house the case had been tak.n fiom. At this house a medical student In ul, who had induced to mn away with him a gul who posseted 21,0l)0f. Tlie notion tli it she was the wetim was up--et by hei .ippeatauic ; and the present theory is tint the mm del e<l woman was the mistiess of a [it lest who had h\ed in the same house and who Ind di'.appcaied. The other affair is L -,s mjsteiious. At Iueisa, near I loiciicc, two childien— a boy nine yeau old ,uid anothci boy of eight — disappeared m\ st'-nously about the 21&t ot last month. On the "20th a •woman heaul fiiyhtful shriek, ami recognised them as coming from a child she knew, a certain Amerigo Turchi, a boy nine yeais old, and that they proceeded from the workshop ot one Cailo Grandi, a caipenter. She rushed down into the street and alarmed the neighbours, who made for the workshop, which they founi closed, the boy crying loudly for help from within. Atter vain attempts to get Giandi to admit them, thej buisfc open the door and found him stiuggling to foice the boy into a hole He had cut the child fearfully about the head, and from his mouth blood was flowing, caused, as tho boy afterwarks narrated, bj a wedge Grandi had tried to force into hia mouth to gag him. After the man was sectiied it was observed that some of the bucks were loose, and on these being removed the first thing that was seen was a child's hand. The place was quickly dug up, and the mutilated bodies of the two boys who had disappeared ten days before were discovered ; and ou the hole being examined a number of other children's bones weie found at tho bottom. Grandi is a deformed man of diminutive stature, high round shoulders, very large head, upon which there was not a scrap of hair, and repulsive features. As is only too often the case in Italy, such unfortunate creatures become the object of open public ridicule. The boys of Incisa had been in the habit of teasing ami tormenting Grandi, and it was in revenge for this that he had, as opportunity ollered, enticed one and then another of the ringleaders into his workshop and there murdered them, burying them under the floor.

THE MYSTERIES OF THE CONVENT. A French paper, tho Ifa'hnal'i publ'shes some revelations concerning th abduction of a y iiung lady by the confessor of a convent in the department of the Aube. It would appear that the Mayor of Pouan, in obedience to ln-> wife's> wish, had consented to their <1 ui^hter being educated at the Convent of the Visitation. Some time ago, the edu cat on being supposed to ho completed, the joint; Li ly returned to her parents, who \u j.iA'jii) ti nuiry hc\ Mademoiselle, however, v. o.ild not listen to any pioposal of the kind. When one day •die did not ret'irn fiom her usual promenade, the an\iefcy of the parcucs may easily bo imagined. .Searches were made all over the locditv, until, at about ten p.m., the father held th" idea of calling at the convent the girl had left some time ago. At auch a h Mir the di >tractcd father was refused admission, and wa3 obliged to call again ca'-ly next morning when the superioress, after an hour's expectancy, came to liKjiiiie with the mo t inuoeoui. surprised look what the matter w.xs. •' I want my daughter," cried the mayor. "She 13 not here," drily replied the supeiioress, without offering to givo any fuither particulars. At last, however," frightened by the threats of the father, and overcome by the tears of the mother, the directress admitted that the young gul had slept at tho convent the night before, and had left next morning without saying whither she was going. The miyor at once called on tho bishop, at Troyes. The Vicar General re-as3iired him, and wrote to an abbe, who is "director of consciences " of tho convents in the diocese. The young girl was traced and returned home, where her mother w s lying dangerously ill in consequence of the painful occurrence. It has bince been ascertained that after leaving tho convent the unfortunate girl kept up a regular correspondence with the " duector," the abbe. The object of the Litter seems to havo been to maintain his fair penitent in a sta'e of religious evaltition until she became of age. The plan u[ the seducer was but too successful, the f^ul having left her parents on the day she attained lar majority.

A PEUULATIVE SON OF A CLERGYMAN. At the Bristol Quarter Sessions Jules Leroux, alias Itobin&ou, described, as twenty years of age, and a wine-merchant's assibtant, pleaded guilty to stealing £G 103. The prisoner is the son of a clergyman living in London, and for the past twelve month3 he has been pursuing an extraordinary comse of ciiinc. Ho is charged with being concerned in a burglaiy near London, at tho ho U30 of a friend of his father's, when property to the amount of about £ 100 was stolen ; and an inspector from Scotland yaul \Vii3 iu court to take the prisoner into custody on this charge, in case he should be acquitted on the other charge. The prisoner said he had been brought to the position he was in by having fallen in with two evil companions in London, and strenuously denied the charge of burglary. The recorder said prisoner had brought misery upon his faarily, and for their sake and that ot society in general, he felt bound to sentence him to five years' penal servitude. The prisoner, whos' 1 deuiei.ioar throughout theciso was that of complete indifference, took littb heed ot the sentence.

Till: BIG GUN DUEL l'Y>r homo tune pa,t the relative muits of tin- Woolwi Ji gun and the Krupp gnu have Iiluu discussed in milituy circles with groat warmth by their respective partisans. A shoit time ago a propos.il wa3 nude to Heir Kmpp to allow one of his guns to be tested a.; unat one consti uotcd on t!ie Woolwich pTinupIc. That gentleman declined t^ accede to this wish, and thcie seemed to be no chance of the much-wished-for contest earning off. L.\3twoek, however, the LouL of the Admiralty received a couimun ieatiou trom Herr Krupp, offering to scud one of his guus over for a, trial against a Woolwich "un ; and, after coufemng with the Secretary of State tue War on the subject, we undeiaUiid their Iordsliip3 have returned a favourable reply. It ia needless to say that tho artillery duel between thebe two sy3teai3 of coustructiou is looked, forward to, not only by oiHeers connected with the ttntish and Gernnu forces, but by civilians in both countries, with great interest Whatever the result nuy be, one thing is established, that the Woolwich gun of the une c ihbre and penetrating power as one oT Herr Kiupp's costs, by some thouaanda of pounda, considerably less than the German gun

I TURKEY AS A MILITARY POWEJK. I ( 'oimnenting upon the roported defeat of | the Turks by the insurgents, the Da'ibi /'ihrjiaph lem.uks —"Although ono shaip defeat cannot decide the fate of the HerzegoMua, jot it will mtLi-ne tho temper and strengthen tho hands of tho men who aie engaged in cutting out w.nk and framing a pi ui-sible platfoi in for tin. < Jieat Powers. An liKilcirtlike that now leported 18 calculated to •-UL'gesl leflection* on the military status of 'J in key E^t-uin her prudent deorepitudo, e ten up by corruption, obstructed on ali .lies by opon ami covert enemies, Trrkey still lepri'sents a vast amount of stored up \'tality rnd belligerent vigour, bho has a nomiuil array of 700,000 men, yielding, perhaps, an effective total of 400,000, onehalf of w hich could be put in the field ; and in lescno she has the lehgious fervonr of Asia heated at Constantinople, she is juaster or a position which, with ordinary c ue, gre it armies could not capture ; while fie invention of torpedoes, combined with shore batteries and floating defences, should make b >th the Daidanelks and the Boaphoius impregnable to a fleet. Although the signs apparent in the political atmobpheie do not indicate an early tempest, bi nigiug with it a desperate cri&is in Turkey's fortunes, yet the perils lurking under a singulaily complex state of international relations may at any moment rise above the suiLilg and piuvoke a violent solution of a long impending problem. It is, therefoie, piudcnt not to slide into the easy mistake of assuming fiat Turkey of to-day is merely the &hade of an utterly exhausted Power."

A cylone lids p^ocd over +Vie province of Allm, Hongkong, doing senous damage to the properties and occasioning the loss of about 1,000 lives. The viceioy of tho Fokien and Chekiang provinces oilers to "Cumshaw" owners of the along the Amoy and Foochow telegraph line, for every post kept btandmg <m their laud. The Chinese do not hesitate to spend thousands of taels in yuns, torpedoes, &c , but not one cent for the benefit of trade or shipping. China hi3 au amiy ot G31,G77 men, and 7,1-37 officers.