BRITISH AND FOREIGN NEWS.

Evening Post, Volume LIV, Issue 18, 21 July 1897, Page 2

BRITISH AND FOREIGN NEWS.

OFFICIAL COBBUPTION IN INDIA. Malik Ahmad Khan, extra Assistant Commissioner of the Punjab, has been sentenced to three years' imprisonment for taking bribes, and one of his subordinates to a year's imprisonment. Two minor native officials on the famine relief works in the Central Provinces have each been sentenced to two years' rigorous imprisonment, with a fine of R5.5000 each for breach of trust. Close supervision by British officers alone prevents gross peculation on the relief works. THE GBEAT OBBHAN BXPLOSION. During a thunderstorm in Bavaria on 6th June, a powder factory near Stephanskirchen was struck by lightning. About H,ooolb of powder exploded, and 11 houses were shattered. Large trees were torn up by the roots. Even at Rosenheim; about an hour's journoy from the scene, doors were burst from their hinges and windows from their frames. Only one workman is said to have been injured. A SCOTTISH GRIEVANCE. A petition is being signed by Scottish members of the Imperial Parliament praying the Queen to direct that the words "Britain" and "British" be employed instead of "England" and "English" in official documents affecting the whole King'doru. TBOUBLE IN A SOCIALIST INDUSTBY. The co-operative glass works at Albi, in France, whioh were expected to extinguish the work at Carraaux, the scene of the great strike, are in a bad way. Dissensions have been rife between the men who have become managers and those who have remained subordinates. Some of tho latter have issued a placard in whiqfc they, state that, unable to bear starvation any longer, they will quit the works. They allege that--the entire capitxil of 500,000f. has been spent on the building, which is still unfinished, and that several weeks' - wages are in arrear, and that the managers refuse to produce any accounts. TB^P ATTACK ON THE KING OF ITALY. The trial of the man Acciarito for attempting the life of King Humbert of Italy began on the 28th May. In the course of his examination the prisoner violently attacked the present state of society as unjust. t His object was to strike tho representative of a class living iv comfort. His act was not one of premeditation, or he would have thrown a bomb. On the 29th the accused was sentenced to penal servitude for life. On hearing the sentence, Acciarito, who maintained a cynical demeanour to the end, cried, " To-day it is I ; to-morrow it will be the bourgeois Government. Long live the Revolution! Long live Anarchy !" THE PANIC IN PISA CATHEDBAL. While a special service was being conduoted in the Cathedral at Pisa on 29th May on tne occasion of the unveiling of the image, particularly venerated in Pisa, of the Madonna sot to gli Organi, which bad not been exposed to publio gaze for many years, a wax 4 taper fell, and set fire to a small portion of the decorations in the Cathedral. A terrible panic immediately ensued in a portion of the church, the immense crowd rushiug to the nearest exit. The fire was at once extinguished, but in the mad rush to escape nine people were crushed to death and 21 were injured, two seriously. The Cathedral was immediately closed, and the ceremonies were suspended. FIGHT WITH AN INDIAN MUBDEBEB. Almighty Voice, a Cree Indian, who was " wanted" for a murder committed long ago, was surrounded by mounted police near Prince 'Albert, Canada, on 28th May, but could not •be captured a* he kept up a fierce fire from an ambush. Three policemen were killed. One of them was Corporal Hockin, a son of Admiral Hockin, and formerly a captain in the Essex Regiment. ,One Indian was shot. b$ tlte police. AH the following night the" woods ' Were surrounded by the police, who had two field guns and were shelling the woods. Almighty Voice was shot dead on the 30th, with two companions, and there is bo fear of further trouble. THE SUEZ CANAL COMPANY. / In the report presented at the annual meeting of the Suez Canal Company on 9th June, the directors ask for a vote of . 250,000f for a statue of Ferdinand de Leweps at Port Said. The report states that ophthalmia, the endemic malady of Egyptian children, has almost disappeared frtm the compan/s works. The wives of members of the staff apply daily a lotion of .bo'racic acid to the children's eyes. A small school bas been opened at each desert station. The receipts of the Canal in 1896 ■were 82,222,000f, or 1,480,000f in excess of 1895. But for the Italian expenditure- there would, have been a de•crease- of 600,000f. The expenses were 37,714,060f. A revenue of 76,487,000f was derived from 3409 ships of 8,660.000 tons, while 308,243 passengers yielded 3,082,000f. A? many as 3211 ships passed through by night. The average transit was 15 .hours 63 minutes. There was comparative activity in outward traffic owing to a good demand for manufactured goods^ principally machines and railway materials, in th& Far East and Australia— 93o,ooo tons for English consignments alone, against 688,000 in 1893. A falling-off in English coal, however, neutralised the increase on 'manufactured goods. Prince d'Arenberg presided at the meeting, and the report was unanimously adopted, including the vote for the statue of the projector of the Canal. MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS. j At Urbana, Ohio, a negro, charged with , tusaulting a white woman, has been lynched. The Drapers' Company of London has offered to present Oxford University with a new building for the Radcliffe Library, costing £15,000. A scheme is being promoted for making the Loire navigable from Nantes to Angers, ■Tours, Blois, and Orleans. The small Norwegian town of Namsos has | been entirely burned. The inhabitants, numbering about 1800, were unable to save even their fruniture. Reports from the Argentine province of Catamarca state that the greatest distress prevails owing to the failure of last season's crops. The military authorities at Hongkong have purchased for £30,000 the' Mount Austin Hotel, which is to be converted into tarracks. The building is on the Peak, about 1400 ft above sea level. An important increase in the British Artillery is contemplated. The Viceroy's weekly telegram to the Secretary for India for the last week of May states that there is no important change in the situation with regard to the famine. The total number of persons on relief works is 4,064,000, The norr Russian Bank was opened at Peking on 27th May amid great felat, in presence of the French and Belgian Ministers, and all the members of the Russian colony. The Vienna tramway employes went out on strike on 6th Jane, the company having refused to meet their views respecting the reduction of the present 16 hours' work per day. The strike was settled after a ' long conference, at) which the company made fur-reaching concessions. Peasant riots' of a Socialist character have occurred in Hungary, the gendarmes having to fire to quell the disturbances. At Nadudvar one man was killed and about 30 wounded. At Alpar one was killed and several others wounded. Twenty-one agitators were arrested. On the 9th May the construction of the Merv-Kushk Railway, to run to the Afghan frontier opposite Merv, was inaugurated on the banks of the Murghab by the Governor, General Kuropatkin. The line, it is expected, will be finished by the autumn.

On 4th June the Russian Grand Duke Alexis laid the keels of three war cruisers — the Diana, the Pallada, and the Aurora — which are to be^oonstructed on the Neva. The arbitration tribunal appointed by the Swiss Federal Council at the request of Great Britain and the United States of Colombia to decide the dispute as to the' re-opening of the Medellin-Magdelena Railway was constituted at Lausanne on 31st May. By the bursting of a waterspout not far from Voiron, near Grenoble, iv Erance on 6th June, the town was flooded, two bridges and several buildings were swept away, and many .lives were lost. The damage is estimated at 10,000»000f. It appears that the waterspout burst on threo villages higher up the valley, and the Morge at once rose to such a height that a dam gave way, 12 bridges being either destroyed or injured.