NEWS BY THE MAIL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9186, 16 October 1888, Page 6

NEWS BY THE MAIL.

From our English and American newspaper files received by the mail steamer Mariposa yesterday, we extract the following items : — PAINFUL AFFAIR IN DUBLIN. A horrible attempt to commit suicide was made on Monday afternoon, September 3, in a field near the Grand Canal, Dublin. Mr. James 'Gannon, a medical student, aged 36, residing in Kingston, had been suffering from delusions, and left home early on Monday morning, his brother, with whom he lodged, however, not noticing anything in his demeanour to create alarm. Mr. Gannon seems to have made his way to Dublin, and at about one o'clock a little girl saw him holding a pocket-handkerchief to his eyes, which were bleeding dreadfully. The girl ran for her mother, who went into the held and found Gannon lving clown. She assisted him up and guided the unhappy man to her house, where she procured a basin of water to bathe his face. To her horror she then perceived that he was sightless, the eyes having disappeared altogether, two ghastly bleeding holes being all that could be seen. She asked him what had happened, but he replied in a stupid manner that he would tell her nothing, adding, "I am blind; let me rest for an hour." The woman, the wife of a railway signalman, called her husband, who went at once for the police. Two policemen went to the cottage and conveyed the wretched man to one of the Dublin hospitals. The medical man found that both eyes had been taken out of their sockets, and there was evidence that the injuries had been selfinflicted. The entire disappearance of the optics caused great surprise, and police oilicers were at once despatched to search, and found them in a dry dyke about one hundred yards from where Gannon was found by the woman. In the dyke were also found a hazel stick aid a piece of twisted wire, both of which were stained with blood. It is surmised that the unfortunate gentleman first used the wire before tearing out his eyes with his hands. Gannon's family were communicated with, and his brother (Mr. Edward Gannon) and a friend (Dr. McDermott) soon arrived at the hospital. The brother conversed with the patient, who told him that he would .tell him all about it later on, but not then. A CHILD CHARGED WITH MURDER A mysterious tragedy occurred in Asylum Road, Birmingham, on Saturday night, September 1. Mrs. Ada Fereday. the wife of a working man, went out marketing about six o'clock in the evening, leaving her infant, six months old, lying in the bassinette perambulator in front of the tire. She also left in the house two older children, her cousin, a boy aged 12, and a girl aged 10. Mrs. Fereday's father was also lying drunk and asleep on a sofa. On her return the boy had gonn out, but the little girl said, " Oh, look at the blood on the Moor." She then found that the infant had been deeply cut near its ankle, and that a table-knife ~vas lving in the perambulator. The girl Alice Forrester stated at first that she hod done it as a boy in the street had told her it would bring her good luck. The mother took the baby to a surgery, where an assistant sewed up the wound in the foot that was shown to him. ."Soon after, while nursing the infant, the mother found that the other foot was also bleeding, and on examining that found that it was nearly cut off. The infant was taken to the General Hospital, where it died about ten minutes after. The police at first suspected the mother and grandfather, but were satisfied that they were innocent, and that the fatal injuries were indicted by one or both the children, whom they retained in custody. The boy states that "he went out and knew nothing about it, and the girl, revoking the statement first made to tne mother, also professes ignorance. Mr. Harris, the surgeon of the General Hospital, who examined the child, says it is hardly likely that a girl aged ten, or even a boy aged twelve, could have inflicted the injuries on the deceased— tainly not with the knife which was found in the perambulator, which was an ordinary table knife, not very sharp. He could hardly have performed the work himself with such an instrument. On this theory he has instructed the police to look out for another knife with a sharper blade. The time in which such injuries were indicted would not be long. They seem to have been made with a razor, so clean are the cute, and two sweeps of such a blade would be sudJcient to sever a child's foot—the work of a few seconds—and the child might not cry on account of the torce of the shock. At the time the child was brought to the hospital the people had no notion, apparently, that it was dying ; they brought it just to have the wounds dressed, but he saw the serious state of the case, and caused them to be detained. TWO SEAMEN BATTERED TO DEATH. A Daily Telegraph Paris telegram states that a terrible tragedy took place at sea on board the French ship Tarapaea, which has just entered the port of Dunkirk. The Tarapaca is a four-master, owned by a Bordeaux firm, and was coming home from Chili with a cargo of nitrate of soda. The vessel was manned by a large crew, some of whom were South Americans, or foreign castaways and deserters, who were shipped at Iquique. When in mid-Atlantic some of the men became mutinous, and the captain, assisted by the first mate, the boatswain, and a few of the sailors, had to defend the quarter-deck, which was besieged by the mutineers from the forecastle, bloodthirsty encounters were fought with firearms, cutlasses, and inarlinspikea, and two sailors were battered to death. After their bodies had been thrown overboard comparative tranquillity was restored on the vessel. Several seamen have reached port in a precarious condition, and the captain and nrst mate have been suspended, while full investigation is being made by the maritime authorities into all the circumstances of this new tragedy on the high seas. THIRTY LASHES FOR HITTING A JUDGE. The following story of an attack in open Court by a prisoner on his Judge comes from Nassau, the capital of the Bahamas. On the 27th July the Supreme Court was opened by Chief Justice Austin, and the first business was the sentencing of one Thomas Taylor to seven years' penal servitude. As soon as the sentence was uttered the prisoner darted from the police, reached the bench, and struck the Judge heavily twice with a large baton. He was prevented from delivering the first blow directly on the Judge's head by a light screen, and when the second was delivered Taylor was impeded by one of the officers of the Court. Taylor was overcome after a considerable struggle, the railing of the witnessbox being torn away. The Chief Justice was not seriously injured, and three days after the occurrence ho had recovered sufficiently to pass judgment on his assailant. Taylor was sentenced to _ thirty lashes in Nassau Prison the following afternoon, and to be kept in penal servitude for the rest of his life. RUSSIAN OVERTURES TO AUSTRIA. News has been received in Vienna, the Standard's correspondent telegraphs, to the effect that very potent influences have been brought to bear of late on the Russian Court, with a view to bring about something more than a mere formal understanding with Germany. As German policy, however, must largely depend on Austria, Russia will also attempt an understanding with the latter Power. Several of the Russian papers, including more especially Prince MeshtcherskiesGrashdanin, the Novoe Vremya, and Novosta, recently discussed the question as to the possibility of a rapprochement between Russia and Austria, and the last mentioned of these papers stated that, to achieve this result, it was indispensably necessary for Austria to take the first step, and attempt to come to an understanding with Russia on the Bulgarian question. In reply to these articles, the Presse remarks that " Austria feels no necessity to take any such first step. She is pursuing no active policy in Bulgaria, and is quite content with things as they are there. It is for Russia, to say what she wants, if she is not satisfied with the present situation. She must not only tell us this, but she must also let us know by what means, legal and in harmony with treaty obligations, she proposes to carry out her Bulgarian policy." SINGULAR MISHAP TO A NEW WARSHIP. A serious and quite unprecedented misfortune has, the Times says, happened to the sloop Nyrnpho, which is completing for commission at Portsmouth. Ihe vessel, which was laid down in July last year, was only floated out of dock a few months ago. At the time the water was admitted the after and upper portions of the hull, as well as the rudder, where coppered, the ends of the pro-peller-shaft, to which the twin-screws are fitted, being covered with paint to prevent their rusting. When, on Wednesday, the water was pumped out of No. 1 dock, whither the sloop had been taken to be prepared for her steam trials by the Greenock Foundry Company, an alarming stato of tilings was discovered. While she was in the ship basin the water seems to have percolated through tin: composition, and act up a powerful uaJvttiiio battery between the copper and

the steel. As a result, the exposed parts of the propeller shafting are seriously damaged, ruts an inch broad having been eaten out of the steel in some places as though gouged with a chisel. The key-pieces are bitten away at the sides, while deep holes are everywhere visible. The propeller shafts are 45 foot long, each manufactured out of a single ingot, and the injury is so great that new ones will probably have to be fitted. Where the nuts screwed into the ends the threads are in a state of perfect preservation, and had the usual precaution of covering the exposed surfaces with zinc caps been followed, no harm would have been sustained. A TRAGIC STORY OF FRENCH LIFE. The results of free love in France have been strikingly exemplified by a fearful family drama which is just now being unfolded before the Assize Court of the department of the Deux-Sevres. The facts briefly stated are these :—ln 1880 M. Chevallereau, a law student at Poitiers, lived with a pretty milliner, Julia Ferrand. She bore him four children, one of whom, a daughter, died. After several years of cohabitation, M. Chevallereau, at the instigation of his father and his friends, threw on Julia, and refused to recognise her children, who were thereby reduced witli their mother to destitution. One of the sons— Honore—partially lost his reason, and had to be placed in an asylum. The two others—Gaston and Ernest—who were struggling in Paris, sought out their father at Poitiers ; but he threatened to shoot them if they returned there again. The boys therefore went away in fear and trembling ; but in a few months' time, poverty pinching them worse than ever, they resolved to try then luck at Poitiers once more. They bought a revolver, and on the way to their father's house practised with it on some trees. On entering the paternal chateau they were received by a housekeeper, who gave them two glasses of wine ; but when M. Chevallereau came in he threw the glasses out of the door and his sons after them. Ernest Ferrand then drew out his revolver and shot his father, who tottered to his room and expired. The boy Honore, who was in an asyium, on hearing that his brothers were arrested, committed suicide. Gaston and Ernest were put on their trial for the murder before a Niort jury, which after 20 minutes'deliberation "acquitted" them. TERRIBLE SCENES AT WAKES. Shortly after midnight on Tuesday, September 4. an exciting scene was witnessed in connection with an Irish wake held at 24, Elliott's-row, St. George's Road, Southwark. The house is in the occupation of a man named John Burke, whose father, aged 74, died a few days before, and his corpse was being " waked'" by his relations and friends alter the usual Irish custom. As the family and friends were assembled in the kitchen one of the parties went to the first-floor front, where the body of the deceased was laid out in a coffin, and to his horror discovered that the room was on fire. An alarm was instantly raised, and the whole neighbourhood was soon aroused. Hearing the alarm. Policeconstable Cox, 12S L., hastened to the scene, and with the assistance of the occupier of premise? succeeded in extinguishing the fire and rescuing the corpse before it was cremated, but not before the coffin was partially chaired. Thomas Larrigan, a labourer, was committed for trial at Liverpool on a charge of stabbing. A wake was being held in the prisoner's nouse, when a quarrel arose, and the prisoner, it is alleged, inflicted serious injuries with a knife upon Thomas Gallagher, one ear being almost cut off. There were also wounds about the face, shoulders, and ° *' TWO FEARFUL CRIMES. Two fearful crimes are reported from Pesth. In the one case a tailor, named Gnadig, poured through a funnel melted lead into the right ear of his sleeping wife. Finding she was not dead, tiie wretch then proceeded to strangle her, but was interrupted by the arrival of the neighbours, who found the unfortunate woman still alive, but in a desnerate condition. The murderer is still at large. The other case is that of a butcher, who fired a revolver at his brother-in-law, and, believing he was dead, went home and killed his victim's child, a baby ten months old. He then attempted to commit suicide. TERRIBLE RAILWAY ACCIDENT IN* FRANCE. Twelve persons were killed and 40 injured bv a shocking railway accident which took place at 2.30 a.m. on Wednesday, September 5, between Blaisy and Lyons, France. The express from Italy and Macon, which leaves Dijon at 2.11, went off the rails at Velars, five miles from Dijon, and obstructed both lines. The express for Geneva, leaving Paris at 9.2. r > and due at Dijon at 2.37, ran at full speed into it. The shock was fearful. Both engines were overturned, and eight of the carriages were dashed to pieces. The driver of the Macon train was killed and the stoker seriously injured. The manager of the Lyons company was in the Macon train, but was uninjured. The tocsin was rung to bring help from the villagers of Velars, and navvies arrived from Dijon, whither the injured were conveyed. The accident is attributed to a sleeper having given way. Three of the killed were brothers, sons of M. Bachet, of Paris. An artillery captain and his wife and child were in the Macon train. The captain and the child were killed. A ladv coming from Italy in the Macon train, on feefing the shock, crept into the corner of the compartment. On hearing frantic cries all round she opened the door, and was about to alight, but she was horrified to see that she would have stepped on the body of a man whose head had been severed from his bodv. She rushed backed into the carriage, and could notrfor two hours be induced to alight. The revised list of the killed is as follows : —Stengell engine-driver ; Miss Marriott, of Cromwell Road, London; M. Mandose, of Paris ; Mdme. MjHndosse, mother of the preceding; M. Aiexandre Bachet, Artillery captain, of Vincennes ; M. Bachet, of Asnieres, brother of the preceding; Madame Marie Bachet: M. Lorette, of Paris; and an unknown gentleman, about 35 vears of age, very stout, with brown moustache, dressed in a summer suit, linen marked "A.C.," old Moliere boots, with a second-class ticket from Paris to Turin. The injured passengers who were conveyed to the hospital at Dijon are the objects of great solicitude. The condition of five of them is said to be very grave. Their names are given as M. Laueffer, of Paris; Captain Mariott; Mr. Edward Lewis Owens, an English student; M. Mariotte, a Swiss butcher, residing in America; M. Barenghall, of London: M. Frizzi, of Vevey; and M. Cirolle and Madame Nicolle, of Lyons. Eleven other injured passengers have been lodged at various hotels, and are said to be progressing favourably.