British and Foreign News.

Hastings Standard, Issue 319, 11 May 1897, Page 4

British and Foreign News.

It is stated in a Brussels journal that the German Emperor has accepted an invitation to visit the Brussels Exhibition this year. The will of Jean Francois Gravelet, better known as " Blondon," of Niagara House, Littfe* Ealing, has been proved, the personal estate being valued at £1445. It is stated that at the rate the transcontinental telegraph is being pushed on Blantyre will probably cable to Yrop via the Cape by the end of July. The London Times states that Mr Seddon, Premier of New Zealand, urges that a better type of vessel is needed for the Australian squadron. Six light fast ships are needed for New Zealand solely. A mansion in Piccadilly has been let for use during Jubilee week at no less than £5000; and £ISOO is being paid for the use of a house in Pall Mall on 22nd June. The use of St. Martin's churchyard, Charing-cross, for the celebration has been sold for £4OOO. The Paris Mint has been commissioned to coin sf. pieces for the Negus of Abyssinia. They will hear his effigy wearing a tiara surmounted by a Greek crorfs and the legend, " John Menelik 11., King of Kings o! Ethiopia." On the reverse side will be the Lion of Judah bearing a cross and the inscription, " Ethiopia stretches out her hand to God alone." Serious floods are reported throughout the Mississippi Valley. Seven railroads whose lines enter Memphis, Tennessee, are interrupted at various points. The river near the city is 40 miles wide, the water being higher than in the great flood of 1890. Kelief steamers go out daily to pick up the victims. Fifty persons have been drowned near Memphis, and 5000 refugees are there and at Dyersburg. A volunteer was, on a recent Saturday night, explaining the make of a Lee-Metford rille to some companions in a Liberal Club in Hoxton, London, when he inserted a cartridge and fired. The bullet passed through a crowd of people, though a wooden partition and a window, and, striking a young woman named Nevarcl, who was sitting in the back parlor of her mother's shop, caused her instant death. The draft treaty between the Orange Free State and the Transvaal is said to provide for the reciprocity of franchise rights and mutual action for defence in case of attack. The general impression at Johannesburg is, however, that the Bloemfontein agreement is hardly a success for President Kruger. The defensive alliance is no closer. It is expressly stated that a federal union, though wished for, is impossible for some years. Drastic measures have been submitted to the Belgian Chamber by the Senate to suppress the operations of bookmakers at horseraces. The only guise in which it will become legally possible to back one's opinion henceforth (if the measure should be passed) is by the pari iiuttnei, or authorised sweepstakes, instituted by societies which make it their aim to encourage horse-breeding, and which limit their profits in the transaction to a return of 8 per cent. The insurgents of Sus, Morocco, have surprised a Shereefiau punitive expedition, cutting the Sultan's force to pieces. Only a few men succeeded in eftecting their escape to Tarndant, the governor of which collected a force, pursued the insurgents, and defeated them. He afterwards sent 80 heads to the Sultan. In addition to this trophy, 43 human heads are now exposed on the gates of Morocco city, being those of a band of starving tribesmen who came to attack the Sultan's force encamped near the town. The French appear determined to make the unfortunate people of Madagascar realise (says the London correspondent of the Age) that they have come to stay, and they are managing to combine tyranny to the natives with insolence to the Protestant missionaries. Poor Queen Ranavalona is to be deported to Reunion or Paris, and her banishment is described as a check to England, or, to speak more correctly, to the propaganda of the English and Norwegian Bible Societies. The Patrie declares that Madagascar, covered with tri-color flags, and hedged round by French bayonets, will become an African Gibraltar in the midst of the Indian Ocean, causing gnashing of teeth, not only in London, but also in Bombay and the Mauritius. If such highfalutin affords any gratification to our mercurial neighbors, they are very welcome to indulge in it. The only feeling in this country is one of sorrow that in order to spite Great Britain the French should behave in an offensive and unmanly manner to a helpless woman, and should deprive her of her liberty as well as her crown. At last Arthur Deustrow, the ''millionaire murderer," has been hanged. This young man inherited a very large fortune from his father, a resident of St Louis, and he set out to spend it in riotous living. Returning one afternoon from the house of his mistress, he was met at the door of his house by his wife, an excellent and charming woman, and his little child. He had proposed to take his wife out to drive, but when she pleasantly enquired if he was ready to go, almost without a word of warning he shot her to death in the hallway. Then, grasping his little son, and holding him at arm's length, he sent a bullet through his brain. All that money could do was done to save this wretch from the gallows. He feigned insanity, and eminent attorneys were employed in his defence. Owing to continuances, mis-trials, appeals, and the like, three years elapsed before he paid the penalty of his crime. "I was insane " he said, a few hour 3 before he was hanged, " but it did me no good. I have nothing left but hope for forgiveness." It is unfortunate that just punishment should have been delayed so long by the use of wealth, in a case where the crime was so shocking and the prisoner's guilt so apparent.