ARRIVAL OF THE ENGLISH MAIL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIII, Issue 7795, 15 November 1886, Page 6

ARRIVAL OF THE ENGLISH MAIL.

Thi R.M. 8.1. Alameda, from San Francisco, With the English and American mails, arrived On Saturday evening. From our London and American newspaper files we extract the following items of news :— THE STATE OF IRELAND. Affairs in Ireland are pursuing a course extremely satisfactory to the Government According to dispatches of the 16th General Sir Red vera Bailer's mission has accom-j plished mnch, and landlords are generally responding to Hartington's appeal to deal tenderly with their tenants. There are no such sweeping evictions as were predicted. Even United Ireland admits there has been an extraordinary reduction of judicial rents, and says it only remains on the tenants themselves to carry out Parnell's 50 per oent reduction. The branches of the Irish Rational League in the Counties of Cork and Waterford have been making ingairies regarding the condition of farms in lose districts, and have just reported. They •ay that the harvests have been bad ; that oats are selling at from 3s to 5s per barrel, and that the heavy fall in stock has rendered farmers unable to pay their rent. On account of the bad harvest the farmers demand a reduction from 45 to 50 per cent, in rents, and where a reduction is refused they will pay nothing. A number of landlords offer a redaction of 35 per cent. RIOTING IN INDIA. A dispatch from Delhi, October 9, says the situation which has grown out of religious rioting between the Hindoos and Mohammedans is extremely critical. Reinforcements have been sent to Delhi from Meerut to help preserve order. The Mohammedans on the Bth, attacked a small Hindoo temple, the Hindoos defended themselves, and a desperate fight ensued, in which the Mohammedans triumphed, the victors besmeared the temple ■With blood, smashed the idols, and destroyed the outbuildings. Twenty Hindoos were badly wounded. Serious riots also prevailed all over the districts of Jeypoor and Kattywar. The Bengal Government declined to interfered with nativie and religious customs by mitigating reforms, looking toward the abolishing of infant marriages and enforced widowhood. The Government insists that the question of reform, in these matters must for the present be left with the Hindoos themselves. PREPARING FOR REVOLUTION. According to the St. James' Gazette of October 11, enthusiastic socialists declare that thousands of men regularly drill in London, and they boast they are able to put 10,000 armed men into the street. Moderate Socialists fear that enthusiastic and sedulous secret teaching is telling dangerously in the East End where there is much poverty and ruffianism. STEAM BETWEEN CANADA AND AUSTRALIA. It is said the Canadian Pacific Railroad Company is pushing the building on the Clyde of six new steamers to be used on the route between Victoria, 8.C., and Australia, China and Japan, and that the British Government will be urged to subsidise these lines, THE LONDON POOR. The English Democratic Federation issued in London, on October 6, a manifesto, which says 1 " The unemployed are certain to experience distress still more severe than that experienced in 1885, and honest workmen and their families are doomed to a hopeless struggle with starvation during the coming winter. Show our piers, then, your despair and their danger. ' Leave your slums and follow the Lord Mayor's Show in November, silently and solemnly, in order to convince the rich, as they are driven to their banquet, that the most munificent charity on their part can never plaster over the cancer which their mad greed of wealth planted in the heart of our civilisation." A FATHER AND THREE SONS KILLED. A father and three sons, named Lakin, owners of a colliery at Newbold, Leicester, England, were suffocated by choke-damp on the 6th October. Many colliers were subsequently resoued from other parts of the mine. PRECAUTIONS AGAINST DYNAMITARDS. Sir Charles Warren, Chief of the London Polioe, has matured a plan for guarding the public buildings against dynamiters, which u likely to prove very effective. The bulk of the guaraers are dressed in plain clothes, and wont by a special code. THE INMAN STEAMSHIP COMPANY. A London despatch of the 22ud says— At a meeting of the Inmau Steamship Company's creditors to-day, it was resolved to sell the concern to the International Steamship Company for the sum of £205,000. The liabilities of the Inman Company secured to creditors amount to £174,500, and those to unsecured creditors £91,000. The company's steamers are valued at £165,500. _ The unsecured creditors will receive a little over ten shillings in the pound. THE CZAR SHOOTS ONE OF HIS i OFFICERS. The story that the Czar killed his chamberlain, Baron de Reutern, at the palace of Gatschlna, either with a sabre or a pistol, is confirmed by despatches of Ootober 23. The impression is that the occurrence was due to the ungovernable temper and the almost insane fits of passionate anger to which the Czar is notoriously subject, rather than to mere fear of personal attack. Dr. Reutern is brother to Mdlle. de Reutern, with whom the Grand Duke Alexis contracted a secret marriage ten or more years ago. The marriage made the present Czar and the late Czar furious, and the latter finally declared it void. . Other accounts say that De Reutern made an attempt to kill the Czar, and the latter fired in selfdefence. PLOT AGAINST THE CZAR. A Nihilist plot on the life of the Czar Is reported. It is said that just before His Majesty's journey to Poland, a sentry stationed near Luga, one of the thousands put to watoh the line, observed a man lurking in a wood in close proximity to the railway. His suspicions being aroused, he gave an alarm. The wood was promptly surrounded, with the result that four men and one woman fell into the hands of the police. They were dressed as peasants, but, according to the story, were simply Nihilists disguised. On a careful examination being made of the line, a mine was discovered laid, and ready for explosion, under the track over whioh the Imperial train was to pass. SERIOUS RAILWAY ACCIDENT. The passenger train of the Canadian Pacific went through a trestle bridge 125 miles east of Winnipeg, on the morning of, the 4th of Ootober. Five cars, including the . mail car and four passenger coaches, were badly wrecked, and afterwards destroyed completely by fire. Several passengers were injured, some fatally. Valuable papers belonging to President Sutherland, .of the Hudson Bay Railway Company, who was just returning from England, were among the property destroyed. This is the first accident on the Canadian road. BRUTAL OUTRAGE BY MOONLIGHTERS. ' A moonlighting outrage possessing features of revolting atrooity and brutality was perpetrated on the 4th of Ootober at a dace called Glountenanfinane, near King Williamstown, conty Cork. The victims were two young ladies, named Kate and Bridget Jones, daughters of a respectable farmer, Daniel Jones, better known locally as Captain Jones. At half- past seven in the mornins a party of Moonlighters forced open the door of Mr. Jones's dwelling, and demanded a son of the young ladies who came to the door, apparently attraoted by the noise. They spiritedly refused the demand of the marauders, and were immediately shot without warning. They are both dangerously wounded— the elder, was shot above the right eye, and lies in a dying state, whilst the younger, Bridget, though less seriously hurt, received a bullet wound in her arm, whioh causes graVo doubt® ft! to her recovery. A CHAPTER OF TRAGEDIES. In the early part of Ootober, Madame - Gamier, living in the Rue de Rivoli. ' committed suicide upon hearing that her husband bad been arrested upon a charge of swindling. The husband's sister, who lived ; with her father, who is completely paralysed, upon hearing of her brother s arrest and her sister-in-law s suicide, was so upset that she .jumped in despair from the fourth floor into ' the street, ana was dashed to pieoes. Her ; father, before whose eyes this tragedy was enacted, has been removed to a hospital, And has completely lost his reason.

SUICIDE OP A PRINCELY GAMBLER. Prince Melissano, a member of one of the best Neapolitan families, committed suicide in Paris on returning from his club, where he had seen his name posted up as a defaulter. Prince Melissano had lost at the same club more than r £20,000 within two or three years, and had often applied for time, and made payment at the date promised* His creditor on this, as on previous occasions, had placed the debt en carte as it is called— that is to say, had deposited in the hands of the proper official a card stating that the Prince was to pay £60. The time having expired without the amount being paid, the official published the fact. When the ; Prince entered the club he noticed his name stuck np against the mirror. fie went close to the glass, looked at it, and then without saying a word, took up his hat and went home. There he placed a loaded revolver against his right temple, discharged it, and fell dead. More than six years ago the Prinoe had spent his last farthing, yet since then had lived in Paris, like a man worth £15,000 or £20,000 a year, without doing anything rendering him amenable to the tribunals. He had made the business of getting into debt a science, and most of his creditors allowed their claims to increase, in order not to have to confess that the money was snnk, and that so charming a nobleman was hopelessly insolvent. To such a length did he carry the art, that he created fresh resources, partially paying off a fraction of the army of old creditors at the expense of new ones. That was especially the case with gambling debts. The Prince was only a little over forty years old. A PRIEST KILLED AT THE ALTAR. The tragic death of Father Kavanagh has caused a great sensation in Dublin, where he was well known as one of the most prominent and eminent clergymen of the Irish Catholic Church. Later particulars from Eildare i show his death was not caused by the fall of the altar, but by the fall of a statue which stood above the altar. On being struck by the statue the unfortunate priest fell backward, his head striking a marble step, indieting a fearful wound, to which he succumbed in about an. hour. The melancholy event caused the greatest exoitement among the worshippers. It was through the intervention of the deceased that a settlement was effected between the Duke of Leinster and his tenantry at a critical period in the land agitation. He was a prominent figure in almost every Irish movement of importance. EXECUTIONS BY THE GUILLOTINE. Two criminals, Joseph Frey and Joseph Marie Pierre Rivi&re, one a mere boy and the other a young man, were early on Monday morning, October 4, guillotined in Paris. Last spring they murdered an old woman who kept a low lodginghouse. The Paris correspondent of the Times, describing the scene at the execution, writes :— The Abb 6 Colomb, vicar of Saint Sulpice, besought Riviere to think of God, and seek courage in prayer, and presented a crucifix, when he called out, "There is no longer a God ; leave mc in peace." The great door of the prison was then opened, and the prisoner, a strong young man of 30, walk 3d firmly towards the scaffold. At two steps from it the chaplain embraced Riviere, who pressed him against his breast. He also kissed the crucifix. Turning round, he called out in a loud voice, ''You oan tell Father Gr6vy that he, too, is a murderer." The executioner at these words sprang towards the condemned man and placed him on the guillotine, which quickly operated. When the magistrates entered Fray's room, five minutes after their visit to Riviere, they found him sound asleep. The prison-keeper woke him. He got out of bed and dressed himself quietly, while listening to what was said to him. The Abb 6 Faure, who had visited him in prison, and had been well received by him, exhorted . him to die as a Christian, He pushed back the abb 6 with a coarse gesture, saying, "Chaplain, leave me in peace. Do not apeak to me of your Bon Dieu; I have no need of him." Frey followed Riviire to the scaffold, at a distance of about 20 feet behind. When Riviisre was placed on the guillotine, the Abb 6 Faure threw himself before Frey to hide the scene, but the latter pushed him away with a rapid gesture of his two bound hands. He said, " Out of the way, abb 6, there is no need for you here." He looked quietly on. While he was being placed on the plank he cried out in a loud voice, "Good day to all." The knife fell, and the head and body rolled into the baskets whioh had received those of the other murderer. The double execution occupied five minutes. A terrible story comes from Algeria of the execution of an Arab. The knife fell twioe without effecting decapitation, when the executioner sent for a handsaw to divide the cervical vertebrae, after which the oonvict was replaced in the guillotine, which finally accomplished its work. AN EXTRAORDINARY MURDER. From the Pas de Calais comes a story of one of the moat extraordinary murders of the century. Last spring the body of a young girl of fifteen named Marie Le Dent, residing with her parents at Riviere les Arras, was found in a field in the neighbour hood stabbed in the heart and with carotid artery severed* A judicial investigation showed that neither robbery nor lust had been the motive of the crime. At length suspicion fell on two precocious lads, cousins, named Muchambled —the one, Henri, aged sixteen ; the other, Clement, about the same age, a smith's apprentice. On being pressed with questions they confessed, and, to explain the impulse under whioh they had acted, handed the magistrate a sort of memoir, entitled " Drame Horrible," written some weeks before the crime, in whioh they had traoed out in the most romanesque language the plan of the drama they had resolved to put into aotion. The opening passages revealed an acquaintance with the naturalistic literature of the day, mingled with certain phraseology borrowed from the novels of Fennimore Cooper, of which the two youths were devoted readers. In this strange memoir Henry Muchambled was called "Great Serpent" and Clement Fleet Deer." The horrible tragedy commenced thus " We had arrived at the age of sixteen like young men brought up in luxury and idleness. We had vegetated in the world, meeting with only trouble and torment. We were scarcely fifteen years old when we already loved a woman with all her seductions. We loved her with passion to such a point that if separated from her we should have died of grief and despair." The sequel of the story is that "Great Serpent" and Fleet Deer" resolved to murder the young girl, who is the heroine, and said to be in love with '•* Great Serpent." She had caused the two friends to be jealous of each other. The two cousins thought first of hanging Marie le Dent. They had bought a new ' rope for the purpose. They then changed their minds and borrowed a revolver to blow Marie's brains out with. Finally they decided to be more romantic and more savage, and to accomplish the crime with knives. They had bought at the fair at Arras two large knives. They had leather sheaths made for them, and for ten days before the commission of the crime they wore these knives in belts, "proud," they wrote, " to feel ourselves armed." At dusk on May 21 " Great Serpent" and " Fleet Deer" overtook Marie Le Dent just as she was passing through the woods on her way home to her parents' farm. Fleet Deer" threw himself upon the young girl, put his knee upon her chest and stabbed her seventeen timeß. "Great Serpent" meanwhile was watching to give the alarm in the oase of any passerby. The body of the poor child was discovered next evening bathed in blood, the throat gaping open, and the head nearly severed from the body. Suoh was the deed in all its brutality, thus carrying out the crime entirely as traced out in the " Drame Horrible." But here the reality ended. Instead of taking their own lives after having left the unfortunate Marie a prey to the worms and ants, as described in their story, they went home, and would have preserved their secret had not the vigilance of the police led to their arrest. They were sentenced to fifteen years' hard labour, and their parents to pay '4000 francs to poor Marie's father. THE PANAMA CANAL. Recent official news (October 12) from the isthmus shows very satisfactory progress in the work of excavating the canal. Daring July 869,000 cubic meters of earth were removed, and the average for 1886 will be about one million of cubic meters per month. At the last general assembly of the stockholders of the Canal Company, M. De Lesseps promised that the excavation for 1880, should be 12,000,000 cubic meters; for 1887, double that amount; for 1888, the next vear. and one-half the year following, 54,000.000 meters. This will make 90, 000,000 meters extraoted since December 31, 1885, which, -added to the 18,000,000 extracted before that date, will complete the 108 000,000 cubic meters which the estimates for the work call for. Excavation

will, therefore, be oompleted, it is believed, by July, ISS9. Per contra, Senor Santiago Torrico, of the Peruvian navy, who, for four and a-half years previous to last February, was in charge of the "surveillance des mandates de paiemsnt" of the company, says " Unlets a different set of men take hold of the work, the Panama Canal will never be oompleted. The manner in whioh those gentlemen live is simply princely: gorgeously furnished ' houses, carriages, and palace Oars are what are to be considered essentially necessary to the company's ohiefs in order that they may carry on the work to a successful close, and the company's money pays the bill. -One man who dealt in furniture, etc., made, in two years, 600,000 dollars out of the job, and that is a sample of the competition axis ting in the ranks." MISCELLANEOUS. Excessively warm weather prevailed all over the Continent on Ootober 5. In London the thermometer was 80 degrees. Two shocks of earthquake were felt throughout Balta, one of the Shetland Islands, on the night of Ootober 4. The betrothal of Prince Albert Victor of Wales, and Prinoess Alexandrina of Anhalt, is authoritatively denied. An English tourist, named Boyd, mysteriously disappeared at Basle, Switzerland, on Ootober 4. Public opinion is about equally divided between accident and foul play, as the cause. On the 6th of October Hanlan accepted Ross's ohallenge to row a race on the Thames for £500 aside. The coal mine owners of Fifeshire, Scotland, refused on the 14th October to give the men the 10 per cent, rise in wages demanded, and the result is that 35,000 miners throughout Sootland will suffer from a lookout. The Belgian miners at Charleroi went out on a strike, October 6. They attempted to kill their manager, but he escaped, though badly wounded. Otto von Sohleinitz, nephew of the deceased minister, has been arrested, at Berlin, for forgery and extortion. Sir Arthur Sullivan's "Golden Legend" was produced at the Leeds Musical Festival on October 16, and is pronounced his best musical work. Frightful ravages from oholera are reported from Vladivostok and Corea. The Royal Enniskillen Fusileers rioted at Aldershot on Ootober 6, resisting draft service to Africa. Mr. Gladstone received a deputation of Irish ladies at Hawarden on October 4, bearing a petition for Home Rale containing the signatures of 500,000 Irishwomen. Meyer Karl Rothschild, head of the bank* ing firm, died at Berlin on October 16* A new military journal has been started in Paris, to pave Boulanger's way to the Presidency. Talk of war with Germany is general. Queen Christina of Spain signed, on October 6, a decree freeing absolutely the Cuban slaves. The Spanish Cabinet resigned on October 9, and a new one has been formed, with Senor Sagasta as Premier. A petroleum spring has been discovered in Sligo, Ireland, Rev. Augustus Stopford Brooke, Unitarian minister, Dublin, became insane on October 13. Many escapes of prominent Nihilists are reported from Siberia. Mr. S. S. Cox, U.S. Minister in Turkey, resigned on October 23. The new American steel oruiiers are reported failures, being of insufficient speed. There is a prospect of the RobertsonBoucicault divorce suit being compromised. Seven Chicago Anarchists have been sentenced to be hanged. Germany has determined to supply her whole army with repeating rifles. M. Lavedon, the military critic, writes to Le Figaro that General Boulanger has prepared a well-conceived plan, in conjunction with staff officers of high rank, for a continental campaign. The strictest taboo of everything German is being observed in France. M. Lockenel, the Minister of Commerce, has ordered the polioe to proaeonte all persons selling boxes of toys imported from Germany, and containing a map of France without Alsace. The Frenoh Government propose an outlay of 28,000,000 francs for the construction of men-of-war ships, and of 12,000,000 for the construction of ports of refuge, the entire work to be completed within four years. The tobacoo crop of Kentucky is reported a comparative failure, owing to the prevalence of early Ootober frosts. Osman Digma's stronghold, from which his followers were routed on Ootober 5, has been fully ocoupied by a British foroe and ,their allies. The whole region round about has been effectually cleared of rebels.