AMERICA.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXII, Issue 7179, 3 June 1885, Page 3

AMERICA.

The box given to President Monroe by the Mikado of Japan about 1823, and which has lain in an out-of-the-way nook in the Treasury vaults at Washington ever since, waa opened on May sth, and was found to contain a bottle of diamonds, a bottle of pearls, ' and a lump of gold. The Pacific mail steamers have'protected themselves against banditi raids at the Isthmus, and have each mounted four pieces of ordnance and a Gatling gun on each quarter. Peter Duryea, of New York, offers a purse of 6000 dollars, open to all, for a race of five miles, to be rowed over the Lachine course, provided that William Beach, Edward Hanlan, and Wallace Ross enter. Gen. Irvine M'Dowell, who commanded the first battle at Bull's Run, and was many years in command of the military department of the Pacific, died at San Francisco on May 4th. A good deal of trouble has been caused in San Francisco by the striking of the sailors. The " Jacks" are taking the business into their own hands, and they have formed a TJ&ion, ignoring boarding-house-keepers, crimps, shipping masters, and all the parasites who have lived off them. In consequence the wages have gone up to 35 and 40 dollars per month. James Roßgood and Co., the Boston publishers, failed on May 4th with liabilities reaching £150,000. The assets are nominally large. It is now said that General Barrios, of Guatemala, whose movements in Central America had such a disastrous failure, was deliberately assassinated by one of hia own men, through the intrigues of Zaldivar, the President of San Salvador. General Barrios's widow and family arrived at San Francisco from Guatemala on the 22nd April, Antonio, the eldest son, is a student at the West Point Military Academy. They intend to remain in the United States. The_ Edmunds law againßt polygamy is being enforced so closely among the Mormons at Utah that the Saints are holding mass meetings to express indignation, arid a formal appeal and protest have been issued to the President and the people of the United States. A point is made that the law runs against no one who is not a Mormon, and that the Gentiles in Utah live iti. a state of concubinage and walk the streets unchallenged.