SAN FRANCISCO MAIL.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCVII, Issue 11227, 26 March 1897, Page 6

SAN FRANCISCO MAIL.

[Per R.M.S. Alameda at Auckland.) GENERAL SUMMARY. (Dates from Europe up to March 4) , [Per Press Association.] A London despatch of March 2 says that the farewell banquet to the United States Ambassador, Mr Bayard, given by the Lord Mayor at the Mansion House on the evening of the date named was beyond question one of. the finest compliments ever paid to an American outside of his own country. There were present three hundred men, all distinguished in Euglish polities, arts or letters. Mr Bayard s speech was a warm endorsement of the policy of the Premier, Lord Salisbury. The Pope, although, reported in feeble health, was strong enough on Feb. 7 to celebrate mass before fifty-seven persons representing different nationalities. Serious riots have occurred at Hamburg following the recent collapse of thodockers .strike. The workmen, incensed at their failure, attacked the Labourers ns they emerged from the docks at Altoona and St Paul’s, on Saturday, Feb. 6. Knives and revolvers wore freely used. It was 2 a.m. on Sunday before a large force of mounted police succeeded in clearing the streets. Dr Torsin, of the Pasteur Institute, loft Marseilles on Feb. 7 for Bombay, where be proposes to light the bubonic plague with a serum that is possessed by no other man. A despatch to the Daily Telegraph from Vienna confirms the report that Hichase Munkacsy,' the celebrated artist, is hopelessly insane, A commission, appointed by the Cambridge University, to consider the question of granting degrees to women, has reported in favour of tho proposition. The University is recommended to grant degrees in arts, letters, laws, sciences and music to women. Miss Ada Ward, a young Loudon actress of brilliant promise, has left tho stage of that city, and joined tho Salvation Army ranks. Her conversion is the sensation of the hour in the “swell” clubs of Loudon. A special from Paris, March 1, says that the' Monastery of St Bernard has been partially destroyed by an avalanche. The loft wing -was demolished. The monks had to tunnel through tho snow in order to make an exit. -There was no loss of life. Twenty members of tbe crew of the British steamer Cayanus were drowned in the wreck of that vessel near Ushant, France, recently. The steamer was bound from Bilbao, Spain, to Glasgow. By the sinking of the steamship South Womera, off the coast of Japan on Feb. 4, some eighty passengers were drowned. Mr Samuel Smith, a Liberal M.P., formerly president of tile Liverpool Chamber of Commerce, and author of a work bearing the title “Credibility of the Christian Religion,!’ moved in tho House of Commons on Feb. 9, tho disestablishment and diseudowment of the Church of England. He contended that Established Churches were inimical to the popular rights. Mr Balfour said that the motion was a shame and a waste of time of the House. It was rejected by. 204 to 86. The Bishop of London, co-operating with Bishop Barry and the Rector of St James’s Church, a fashionable church in Piccadilly, has organised a crusade by a series of midnight meetings against tho parade of vice in that locality. Meetings are held in St James’s Church, and are largely attended by a miscellaneous congregation. Tho speakers are the .Bishop of London, the Bishop of Durham and Bishop Barry. The speeches are short and forcible, with no mincing of words. Princess Charles of Denmark, formerly Princess Maude of Wales, has written a one-act comedietta with which Ellen Terry is so enamoured that she persuaded Sir Henry Irving to produce it. The Hertford art collection left by Sir Richard Wallace, the English philanthropist, to his widow, has by her been bequeathed to the nation. It, is valued at .£350,000, and is only rivalled by tho Borghis collection, of Rome, and that of Lichtenstein, of Vienna. The plague and famine in India have produced a crisis in the Lancashire cotton trade, and led to tho stoppage of thousands of looms. -The employers contemplate a reduction of 10 per cent in wages. East Lancashire is the place chiefly affected. At a meeting of the English AntiTobacco and Anti-Narcotic League held in London on Feb. 11, tho Vice-President (Mr Morton) made a speech in which, with all seriousness, ho attributed the present alarming state of the Czar Nicholas’s health to persistent cigarette-smoking.