British and Foreign News.

Hastings Standard, Issue 360, 30 June 1897, Page 4

British and Foreign News.

Five Anarchists .sentenced to death for complicity in the Barcelona dynamite outrages during the Conn; 8 C-bristi procession hist year were shoton 4th May in the moat at iionjmeh Castle. Just before the first vnUo.y w?.3 fired all cried together —'• Long live Anarchy! Long live Revolution ! Four of the prisoners fell dead immediately, but one remained on his knees not even wounded. At the second volley he fell, but was not killed outright, and it was not till a a tbird volley had been fired that he was pronounced dead. Thirteen Spanish Anarchists have been sentenced to more than ten years', seven to less than ten years' penal servitude, and 63 have been acquitted. A despatch from the Phillipines announces that the Spanish troops have captured Naic. The rebels lost 500 men killed and 200 taken prisoners. The Spanish forces lost 20 killed and 80 wounded. The long-deferred official opening of the Brussels Exhibition took place on 17th May. After the ceremony King Leopold inspected the most advanced of the industrial sections. In the Fine Ait Section of the British Court the admirable arrangement of so many of the masterpieces of the English artists of to-day has called for the ungrudging praise of Belgian connoisseurs. In the presence of the German Emperor a new vessel of the North-Ger-man Lloyd Steamship Company was launched on the 11th May at Stettin. The ship which received ' the name of Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse' will be the largest vessel afloat. She is 649 ft long, has a beam of 66ft, and a draught of 43ft. She has a displacement of 20,000 tons, and her speed will be 22 knots. A sentence of six years and three months' penal servitude was passed on 10th May by the Imperial Court at Leipzig upon an ex-sergeant named Meinecke for high treason. He was accused, on the evidence of a coal merchant named Hanne, of having assisted him in enabling French spies to obtain a knowledge of the interior of the Metz forts. Hanne himself is undergoing a sentence for having taken French officers into his service to convey coal into the fort. Meinecke aroused suspicion by the amount of money which he massed in a very short time and which enabled him to retire from the army. On Bth May the telegraph ship Monarch laid across the English Channel a new telephone cable, making the second which now connects England and (France. The French end was landed at Sangattee, four miles west of Calais, the English end being landed at Abbot's Cliff, three miles west of Dover. A third cable is to be laid by the French Government. The service of gold altar-vessels presented to St Paul's Cathedral by MiErnest T. Hooley, the millionaire, in commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the Queen's accession to the throne, consists of four patens, two flagons, and four chalices, all of pure goid. The whole weighs 300 ounces. M. Clemenceau having been challenged by the Prince de Chimay on account of an article in the Echo de Paris on the Prince's recent divorce, the duel came oil' on 25th April. In the first round both combatants were slightly wounded, M. Clemenceau in the armpit and the Prince de Chimay in the chest. The seconds at once stopped the encounter. The Times correspondent says that in 'this case the seconds had the good taste to keep the whole matter quiet, and everything went on without the accompaniment of reporters, loafers, women, or photographers. The example is a rare one. The duel has become so much a pretext for self-advertisement in France that in three cases out of four the parties would refuse to fight if they thought the papers would refuse to publish an account of their duel. Sir H. Thompson has just given to the Royal Observatory at Greenwich a telescope —or rather a combination of telescopes —which is probably the most powerful instrument at present existing for the prosecution of astronomical research by means of photography. It is twice the size of the largest photographic telescope hitherto possessed by the Observatory, and will form a worthy complement to the big 28in refractor completed a few years ago. The new photographic refractor has an object-glass 26in in diameter, with a focal length of 22ft 6in, and is the largest refractor as yet specially made for photographic purposes. A 12f in Merz refractor is mounted as a guiding telescope to enable the observer to watch the star while it is being photographed. A thtrd telescope is the Thompson photographic instrument of 9in aperture. The powerful reflecting telescope at the other end of the declination axis is of the Cassegrain form, and has a mirror 30in in diameter and 2Gsib in weight, the silver glass of which it is composed being 4in thick. This splendid instrument has been constructed by Sir Howard Grubb of Dublin. Petitions have been presented to the Imperial Parliament for the incorporation of the British Yukon Chartered Company. Fifteen, members of the British House of Commons and many leading London bankers are among the petitioners. The Dominion Government is asked for a 3 per cent-, guarantee on a bond issue of 1,250,000 dol. to enable the company to build a railway to the headwaters of navigation on the Yukon, thereby tapping about 8000 miles of navigable water and serving the great gold-bearing districts. Mgr. Constantine, Metropolitan of Epbesus, and locum tenew at the Phanar since the resignation of the late Patriarch, Anthymos, has been elected Patriarch of the Greek Church. He is a man of wide culture and considerable attainments. One of the greatest bridge-building feats America has seen for some time is now la progress at Niagara Falls. This is the joining of the two sections

of the great r.ew steel arch bridge across the Niagara gorge, which is to replace the old suspension bridge of i i:e Grand Trunk Ruiiway. The arch, v--'!:i?h Is to be consp'otod this laortb, will h.ivo a span vi 550 ft., with an upper deck for tb** ramvnv (,x double track) and a lower iioor tor a carriage wav. side walks, and trolly-car tracks. Nolbiug so daring and gigantic in the shape of mountain railways has yet been attempted as the scheme of Herr Guyer-Zeller for an electric railway up to the summit of the Jungfrau, 13,670 ft. above the sea level. The Scheidegg station, 2060 m. above sea level, will be the starting point. From here the railway will run on the western slope of theFallbodenhubel. At the foot of the Eiger Glacier it will turn due east, and later on due south in a tunnel winding round the solid body of the Eiger. From the Eiger Station the tunnel will proceed in a direct line towards the Monch and the Jungfraujoch, which point it will reach at a depth of 105 m below the surface. It will finally curve round the uppermost pinnacle of •Juegfrau, terminating on a plateau, well known to guides, ai, 4100;n above sea level. This plateau lies 65m below the summit. From this level a lift will take the passengers to the highest point. The same class of permanent way and rack rail will be used as that on the Wengern Alp line. The total length of the railway will be 12,443 m. The maximum gradient will be one in four and the minimum one in ten, quite an easy climb compared, say, with Pilatus. The journey is timed to occupy exactly 100 minutes. The fare will be 40t. The cost of the undertaking is estimated at between 8,000,000f. and 10,000,000f. By the terms of their concession the company must spend at least 100,000f. on the permanent observatory on the summit.