ITEMS BY THE MAIL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXII, Issue 7271, 9 March 1885, Page 5

ITEMS BY THE MAIL.

London, February 15. These is some prospect of Edmund Yates being released before he 'has completed the fall term to which be was sentenced. Confinement has already told both upon his spirits and health. . - ;•..-. ix,: Despatch from London, February 10, says Lord ftosebery has been appointed Lord Privy Seal and First Commissioner of Public Works. With Mr. Shaw-Lefevre he will occupy seats in the Cabinet. Fifteen hundred Irish have been dismissed from buildings in the course of construction in East London up to February 14, and reports have been received that a similar movement has been started at Manchester, Liverpool, and other provincial centres. A great corporation, called the Royal Soudan Trading Company, has been formed in Loudon and Alexandria upon the same basis as the old Bast India Company. One of its privileges will be the right •to build the railway between Berber and Suakim. Frank Adams, the London barrister, who recently married Miss Mary Coleridge, despite the savage opposition of her relatives, has begun an action for libel against his father-in-law, Chief Justice Coleridge. ■

The crofters arrested in the parishes of Kilmufr and Glendale, Isle of Skye, for resisting a sheriff, were landed at Portree on January 30th, guarded by .100 policemen and a number of marines.- A large crowd of people, sympathising,. with the prisoners, gathered at the- standing, and for a time it looked as if a' rescue would be attempted. From the landing 1 to the Court-house • the crowd kept up a series of yells, and several times made threatening . demonstrations. They were, however, held at bay by the guards. "•! The published biography of George Eliot disappoints, inasmuch as the editor has been too discreet—leaving the great authoress a saintly figure instead of a human being. O'Leary, the' Fenian, had a free fight at his lecture in Glasgow, on February Ist, excited by his reference to the names of Parnell, RoHsa, and Ford.

The Tichborne claimant has now fallen so low that he appears in a provincial variety company. _ in.. England, and takes his turn between an acrobat styled " the human serpent " and the comical mute. The English detective-force is to be reorganised, and a department of secret service men added, for the express purpose of tracking political and quasi-political offenders. It is said there were 40,000 Irish people out of work in London on February 3rd, and fully one-tenth of them have been discharged since the recent explosions. Ford, the London carriage-builder, recently shipped 1400 hansom cabs to New York. A weekly London paper declares that Garmoyle and Fortescue (i inney) will marry notwithstanding the lawsuit. The Prince of Wales recently requested one of his sons to appear at and conduit the services in the Boys' Refuge in the most squalid part of London. Ait the ticket-office, opposite the Somerset House, the duplicate of an emigrant ticket purchased by Lucille Dudley (Rosna's assailant) was exhibited on February 10. It is dated August 21. One of the transatlantic steamship lines is about to issue tickets entitling passengers to merely lodging and conveyance, meals to be charged at the end of the voyage. This is a concession to passengers subject to seasickness. . A soldier was bayonetted to death 'on February 7, at a London arsenal, by a comrade on sentry duty. He would not give the countersign, and continued to advance, in the darkness, on the sentry, and the latter, on the stranger attempting to pass the guard line, stabbed him to death. An investigation showed the tragedy to be the result of a silly practical" joke on the part of the dead man, who wished to annoy his friend, the soldier on duty. There is renewed activity in' British shipping interests, in view of coming contracts. Two new big steamers are ordered on the Tyne, to be registered ' separately under the British Limited Liabilities Act, and to be sailed under the British flag, while every share of the stock in both vessels is owned by American citizens., , . John Lee, the ex-convict, who murdered Miss Kee, a wealthy lady, in her mansion at Babbicombe, near Torquay, on the 14th of November last, has been convicted and sentenced to death. It was stated in London diplomatic circles, according to a despatch of February 4, that the Governments of Russia and America are conferring in regard to a treaty tor the extradition of dynamiter*. It is announced that a marriage is arranged between Princess Clementine, daughter of King Leopold, of Belgium, and Prince Albert Victor, eldest sou of the Prince of Wales. Sir Vernon Haroourt is said to be in a state of nervouß|aUrm, and extraordinary means are taken to guard against personal danger. Sir Andrew Clarke and the Duke of Westminster each gave young Herbert Gladstone a £100 cheque, as a present, on his wedding day. . . •