ENGLISH NEWS.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume I, Issue 196, 20 October 1866, Page 3

ENGLISH NEWS.

The'rSpeech of the King of Prussia on -opening his Chambers on August 5, wfcs telegraphed'in exteuso to New York by the London correspondent of the New York Herald, at a cost of about £1000. Mr. Baron Martin, in charging the grand jury at the Liverpool Assizes, on August 8, said that never siuce he had been on the bench had he seen a more deplorable calendar than that of the present assizes, particularly with 'reference to the serious nature of •the crimes. Sixteen of the cases were of homicide, and in his opinion several of the •cases put down as manslaughter ought really to have been styled murder. One of the worst murders in the calendar was that of a mother savagely kicked to death by her son, while the others were the murders of children — not infants — by their own mothers. The arson cases were serious, two involving the destruction of property valued at £238,000. In the most serious of these cases, the defence •of the prisonei; — Sweeting by name — was an ■*' irresistible impulse," a plea in his (the 'learned judge's) opinion, not worthy of serious consideration. The Home News has the following, which was founded in fact, it appears, notwith- , standing the wonderful comparison of dates/ by the Colonist. At three o'clock on Mon-k. day morning, Angus t'6, a somewhat startling •discovery was made by the police on duty at the Houses of Parliament. A brown paper parcel was found, and what is called a slow match attached to it. On examination the parcel was found to contain five pounds of line gunpowder done up in nine smaller parcels. A piece of string was tied several times round the parcel and round the match, and it is supposed that the whole was thrown ■over the wall with the fuzee lighted. The The string had been itself used as a fuse, and was burnt to the point at the edge of the parcel. The spot at which the powder was thrown is about 15 pace 3 from the Little Abingdon-street side of the Victoria Tower.. At this spot the wall is nine feet high, and', it is supposed that the person who commit- ; ted this foolish and mischievous trick must ; have stood upon the steps of a public-house ,' at the extreme end of the wall. The powder, ; even if it had exploded, could not have done/ any harm to the Houses of Parliament be- : vond breaking a few windows. Dr. Lankester calculates that there are--16,000 women in London who have murdered children, and says the horrible sum is rather under than above the truth, as he only gives a baby to each to kill. This year he held inquests on the bodies of 80 children found dead in the streets, and he considered himself justified, in assuming that at least as many more were stowed away out of sight. A Paris correspondent states that the medical faculty of that city has made an agreeable discovery. It appears that the brewers of London send to Paris every year for a fabulous quantity of strychnine, which wholesome material gives the exact amount of bitter which is considered to impart to beer a pleasant flavor. The society proposes, says the writer, to draw up a report on this subject, which will be duly transmitted to the Medical Union of London. The serious consideration is that people drink an immense amount of English pale ale, stout, double X, etc., and that evidently the consumers are in imminent danger of attaining immortality by the unpleasant process of slow poison. A process for preserving meat by means of paraffine has been invented and patented by Professor Redwood, of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society. It consists in immersing fresh meat in melted paraffine at a temperature of about 240 deg. Fahrenheit for a time sufficient to concentrate the juices and completely exclude the air ; after which, the meat is coated with a film of parafiine, which prevents reabsorption of the air. The concentration may be carried on to any extent by extending the time during which the meat is kept in the bath of paraffine. It may seem scarcely credible, but it is actually a calculated fact that according to the present rate of the Atlantic cable's working, if kept fully occupied, it can earn upwards of £1,500,000 per year, and this estimate is "based only upon its being able to send

three words a minute, whereas it can do more than double. It is understood that an active movement is on foot for the resuscitation of the Agra and Masterman's Bank, with the view of preserving for the benefit of the shareholders the valuable business and connection of that establishment in the East. The directors of the bank are said to have appointed a committee, who are now daily considering it. On August 25, the fourth and final competition for the Silver Challenge Cup, given by Mr. John Latey, the honoraiy secretary of the London Swimming Club, for amateur members only, took place in the Serpentine over the usual course —from the grating end to Kensington bridge, abont 1000 yards.. W. Adams, C. Powell, and G. Vize started. The former won by upwards of 50 yards. / - Several American Fenians have been liberated from prison, on the understanding that they embark for America at once. It is thought that as a popular measure the new Lord-Lieutenant will relax somewhat the long imprisonment imposed ou some of the Fenian captives under the Habeas Corpus Suspension Act. /The newspapers of the northern parts of England state that the working classes there are registering the new-born children by the ...name of " Gladstone." The Atlantic cable is now sufficiently in working order to be used for messages conveying domestic intelligence, to such as can afford to pay £1 per word for it, from one side of the Atlantic to the other. The logbook of the gi'eat ship which conveyed the cable across has been published as a diary in the daily papers ; the monotony of success affords but little subject for narrative compared with the anxious trials of last year that ended in failure. The Great Eastern is now preparing to proceed on its more difficult task of grappling for the broken cable of last year. Apprehensions are entertained in America of the drying up of the " Father of Waters." "A Minnesota journal asserts that old steamboat men declare that the signs of the past four or five seasons point to the permanent drying up of the Mississipi River, reducing it from a stream navigable for the largest boats the whole season to one of uncertain navigation like the Missouri, passable at certain seasons, and the rest of the year shrunk to a mere creek, winding along among sandbars and shoals. ______«_-

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