OUR MAIL BAG.

Mataura Ensign, Issue 709, 10 March 1900, Page 4

OUR MAIL BAG.

NEWS FROM EVERYWHERE. THE DITCH OF DEATH. . ' The Chicago ship canal (says the 'Central News ') is now open for traffic. The canal has been constructed at a cost of 33,000,000 dollars. The canal is also a sewer", as it is to be used to drain the oity. The inhabitants of towns and villages along its route have given it the nickname " The ditch of death," and efforts are being made to have the canal forcibly olosed. It is feared it will disseminate typhoid fever far and wide alone its path. " GENERAL JOODERT. The special correspondent of the ' Glasgow Mail ' at Estcourt says that it is now established beyond all doubt that General Joubert is.seriously injured, and will take no further part in the war. His horse was shot under him, he was thrown off, and the animal, rolling over him, caused serious injury to the spine. AN AMERICAN COMPLIMENT. ' The Times,' of Los Angelos, U.S.A., of Jan. 17, says:— "The New Zealanders are giving tho Boers some of their own medicine by proceeding against them with h flexible force, that is as shifty as a drove of jaok rabbits. Soon the art of bushwhacking will be acquired in England by the British, and then there will be something doing along all the kopjes from Modder River to Pretoria." WAR MtE.ARATIONS. Messrs Kynock and Co., of Birmingham, and the Chilworth Powder Company, have each received orders to supply 2000 barrels of gunpowder to the Woolwich Arsenal. Messrs Viokers, Son and Maxim have received orders from the British Government to manufacture as many 4.7 in and 6in quick-firing guns as they can turn out, until otherwise notified. Other manufacturing firms who have received contracts from the Government are under orders to execute them as expeditiously as FnENCH CANADIAN LOYALTY. There aro certain religious papers, chiefly French, which take a strong antagonistic view as regards Great Britain in connection with the war now proceeding in. South Africa. Amongst these is a paper published in" Quebec in the l'rench language, the' Semaioe Religeuse' which recently contained an "fr 1 .! 6 ,- 0t a very disloyal character, and attributing to certain Canadian Bishops opinions and statements which were never either uttered or entertained. These charges Archbishop Bruchesi, in a published letter, emphatically contradicts, declaring that the utterances of the Canadian Bishops never contained a word on which a charge of disoyalty could be based. The' Archbishop's letter concludes as follows :—" We, the Roman Catholic hierarchy of Quebec, are loyal, and shall be so. We love France, and what Englishman would reproach us for doing so? We recognise in England a generous and powerful ration, under whose flag Providence placd us to protect our religion and our liberties. We joyfully proclaim ourselves British subjects, and pray that Great Britain may keep her glorious place among the nations of the world, because we feel that God has great designs for her, and that we, the small French-Canadian race, have all to suffer if her prestige is lowered."