THE MAY MAILS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 117, 12 July 1873, Page 14

THE MAY MAILS.

Our files by the mail furnish the following miscellaneous pickings: — On the question of Irish higher education, the Ministry made a kind of compact with Mr Fawcett, and thus enabled him to obtain a success. Mr Gladstone bound Mr Fawcett to restrict his bill to the abolition of tests in the Dublin University, reserving to Government the right to deal in a larger way with the matter. The bill passed the Commons, and has been read a second time in the Lords.

Government itself has brought forward a scheme for the reform of local taxation, but a portion only of the measures to be proposed is before Parliament. This portion, which renders liable to rating metalliferous mines, woods, and various other property hitherto exempted, has excited the displeasure of " the country party." which complains that nothing was done for it by the Budget, and that now the Government is seeking to rivet chains which ought to be relaxed. The sympathy of the country itself is not aroused for the party that takes its name. There was a preliminary attempt to make the Ministry show its hand, and Mr Lowe had to deal with the Opposition, which he did in rather a rough fashion, and showed that he understood the use of claptrap, if he does not often descend to employ it. He actually complimented the lower orders (on whom a few years ago he lavished such contumely that they stuck up his words in their workshops)', declaring that they were neither saints nor idiots, and that they would understand that the Conservatives sought to obtain relief for the rich at the expense of the poor. Mr Gladstone managed to put a gentler gloss on .his Chancellor's language, but it was intended for the elections, and may not be without its utility.

Mr Bright has .left London for a few days, and has gone home to Bochdale. The improvement in his health con. tinues, but he nevertheless feels the necessity of a little rest after his recent attendance in Parliament, which he will resume in a short time.

Mr George Smith, the leader of the " Daily Telegraph " expedition to Assyria, telegraphs, under date Mosul, '26th April, an announcement of successful explorations and important discoveries. He states that he has obtained upvyards of eighty new inscriptions. One is an important stele of Merodach-Baladan, King of Babylon, period 1300 8.C.; another dated 1320 8.C., gives the particulars of the restoration of the causeway to the great Temple of Assur ; and there are also tablets of curious and ancient Babylonian legends, as well as historical memorials of Sargon, Esarhaddon. Assurbanipal, Kebuchadnezar, ISTobonidus Cambyses, and Darius. Mr Smith says he has also excavated Nimroud with important results, and one of his most recent discoveries is that of a perfectly new text of the annals of TiglathPileser. THE EMPEROR'S WILL. The solicitors to the Empress Eugenie have furnished the papers with the text of the Emperor Napoleon's will. The personalty has beeu sworn under £120,000, but it is stated that there are claims which will reduce the amount actually available to the Empress Eugenie, as administratrix, to half that amount. The following is a translation of the will, which is dated 24th April, 1865 :

" This is my will. I commend my son and my wife to the high constituted authorities of the State ( aux grands corps de l'Etat), to the people, and the army. The Empress Eugenie possesses all the qualities requisite for conducting the Regency well, and my son displays a disposition and judgment which will render him worthy of his high destinies. Let him never forget the motto of the head of our family, "Everything for the French people.' Let him fix in his mind the writings of the prisoner of St Helena; let him study the Emperor's deeds and correspondence; finally, let him remember, when circumstances s;> permit, that the cause of the people's is the cause of France. Power is a heavy burden, because one cannot alwa}-s do all the good one could wish, and because your contemporaries seldom render you justice, so that, in

order to fulfil one's mission, one must have faith in, and consciousness of, one's duty. It is necessary to consider that from Heaven on high those whom you have loved regard and protect you ; it is the soul of my illustrious uncle that has always inspired and sustained me. The like will apply to my son, for he will always be worthy of his name. I leave to the Empress Eugenie all my private property. It is my desire that on the majority of my son she shall inhabit the Elysee and Biarritz. I trust that my memory will be dear to her, and that after my death she will forget the griefs I may have caused her. With regard to my son, let him keep as a talisman the seal I used to wear attached to my watch, and which comes from my mother ; let him carefully preserve everything that comes tv* me from the Emperor, my uncle, and let him be convinced that my heart and soul remain with him. I make no mention of my faithful servants. lam convinced that the Empress and my son will never abandon them. I shall die in the Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman religion, which my son will always honor by his piety. THE VIENNA EXHIBITION. At Vienna thore is for strangers but one thought—or rather there are two — the Exhibition, and the possibility of sojourning there to visit it, in presence of the gigantic extortions by every one who can manage to quadruple ordinary prices. The building is a grand success, and the opening was a most imposing spectacle, but there is at least a month's work to be done before the contents of the place can be received and arranged. Great numbers of packages have not yet arrived. The English department was most honorably forward, notwithstanding that on the German every facility was afforded to Germans and none to us. But the sterling merit of British productions has asserted itself, and the Austrians admit that we have more than done our duty in assisting them to offer a splendid sight to Europe. As yet we have not many details of the Exhibition, for the best possible reason, its incompleteness, so the correspondents make articles upon the unheard-of greed of the Viennese. The Americans are pouring over in such numbers that their vessels are filled, and passages cannot be obtained unless secured weeks in advance At the opening on 17th May, upwards of 20,000 persons were under the dome, which is more than treble the size of St Peter's at Rome, but, so far from there being any crowd within that vast ring of archways and piers, there was room for double the number present.

THE PLIMSOLL AGITATION. Mr Plimsoll's movement for the protection of seamen continues to excite a good deal of interest, and meetings are held all over the country. The Yorkshire Miners' Association, in enclosing their draft for £IOOO to Mr Plimsoll, in aid of his defence fund, state that it is given "as a sacred duty, in gratitude for the assistance received by the miners from other classes of the community in obtaining that protection which they now enjoy under the new Mines Inspection Act while following their dangerous occupation." The Baptist Union of Great Britain and Ireland, at its annual meeting last week, passed a resolution expressing warm sympathy with Mr Plimsoll's movement, and a deputation was appointed to wait upon Mr Gladstone to urge the Government to support the bill introduced into Parliament by the hou member.

Among the meetings held lately in support of Mr Plimsoll's movement was one at Manchester on Monday night, at which a letter was read from the Roman Catholic Bishop of Salford, Dr Herbert Vaughan, in which the right reverend prelate wrote : —" I am heart and soul with your movement, which is one of justice and humanity. There is probably no one who has travelled much by sea who will not be able to corroborate the truth of Mr Plimsoll's general statement, and to justify it by additional evidence. A few years ago I sailed round Cape Horn in a vessel carrying 500 or 600 souls. On reaching port in England the captain had the copper plates on the ship's bottom removed. Ail the planks and timbers were so rotten that he could thrust his walking stick through them. It was the merest chance that she had not been lost with all on board."