British and Foreign News.

Hastings Standard, Issue 124, 18 September 1896, Page 4

British and Foreign News.

[Feb San Fkancisco Mail.]

Taking advantage of the cheapness of money, the directors of the New Zealand Shipping Company have issued £BOO,OOO 4 per cent debenture stock at par, the proceeds of which are to be devoted towards wiping out 4-J and 5 per cent debentures. The company's already strong position is likely to be materially strengthened by this action. The Maharajah of Viziauagram has offered the Indian Government a lakh of rupees towards the expenses of the Indian contingent now at Suakim. According to an inventory made by the Provincial Court of Brunn, the value of the personalty left by the late Baron Hirsch amounts to 150,000,000 francs, a sum considerably smaller than was expected. A novel spectacle was witnessed on

24th July on the Queen's Parade at Aldershot, when, in answer to the invitation of the Duke of Connaught, more than 500 military cyclists assembled with their machines. The parade was called with the object of ascertaining the number of cyclists available for field service, and every corps in the district was represented, the proportion of officers being of course very large. Peter Jackson, the well-known pugilist, who gave an address at the Bull and Gate, Kentish Town, was fined 5s at Bow-street on 28th July for being drunk and disorderly at the entrance to the Tivoli Music Hall. Professor Milne writes to The Times to point out that the recent disastrous tidal wave in Japan made itself felt on seismographs in Italy and the Isle of Wight. The feat of rowing across the Atlantic in an open boat 18ft long has been accomplished by two men named Harbo and Samuelson. Fifty-five days were occupied in the passage, the travellers reaching Scilly on the Ist August, in good health, but somewhat exhausted.

King Menelek has commissioned a Belgian engineer to establish a telegraph system throughout Abyssinia. It is intended shortly to make some important experiments at AMershot in dropping explosives of various kinds from balloons. The experiments will be made from different heights and under varying circumstances. The construction of war balloons is also receiving much attention at the present time in the Aldershot ballooning establishment, where improved balloons are being made for experimental purposes.

The Portuguese Government has issued a note to the press stating that Great Britain and Brazil have accepted the good offices of Portugal for a friendly solution of the question of the ownership of the island of Trinidad, and Portugal having stated her reasons for the conviction that the island belongs to Brazil, the British Government has acknowledged the right of Brazil to Trinidad. At the sixty-second High Court of the Ancient Order of Foresters, opened at Dundee on Brd August, Bro. Lindsay, High Chief Ranger, reported that the total membership was 888,304, and the total funds £5,617,080. On 4th August the High Court adopted a proposed alteration in the constitution by which the Order should be composed of "an unlimited number of male and female members over one year old." The orders for two battleships comprised in the British Government's naval programme have been placed, one with the Thames Ironworks and the other with Messrs Laird, of Birkenhead. Each of the new ships will be 890 ft long and 74ft beam, with a displacement of 12,950 tons. There will be 20 Belleville boilers.

A society of associated anarchists in London have begun the publication of a weekly paper called The Alarm—a name copied from a similar publication by S. E. Parsons in Chicago. Parsons was hanged for his connection with the Chicago riots in 1886. Sir Matthew White Ridley, Secretary of State for Home Affairs, refused on 11th August to communicate to the House of Commons a statement made in his private capacity by Lord Chief Justice Russell of Killowen with reference to the case of Mrs Florence Maybrick, the American woman who is serving a life sentence for the murder of her husband. The agitation for the release is being kept up on both sides of the water.

Mr J. F. Hogan, the secretary of the Colonial Party in the House of Commons, on July 27 asked Mr Chamberlain whether any progress had been made in the matter of nominating a colonial Judge as a member of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. Mr Chamberlain, in reply, stated that the Chief Justice of the Cape Colony had been appointed a member of the Privy Council. Mr Chamberlain, it seems, has received communications on the subject from the Governors of various colonies in Australasia, and is expecting to hear further in a short while.

A statue erected to the memory of Mary Campbell, Burns's Highland Mary, was unveiled by Lady Kelvin at Dunnon on August 1. Lord Kelvin presided, and the speakers included the Hon. William M'Cullough, M.L.C., New Zealand, who claimed that the Burns Club fulfilled an important function by helping to keep alive the sentiment of nationality in the colonies of the British Crown.

Queen Victoria has issued a message to the nation thanking them for their expressions of loyalty and affection as the period approaches at which the length of her reign will have exceeded that of any other English monarch.