CABLE BREVITIES.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1169, 27 July 1894, Page 34

CABLE BREVITIES.

There is a great demand for ships in the East, at the highest prices, owing to the number required to carry troops to Corea. News from the East states that the plague is abating at Hongkong. Two Javanese experts declared they had discovered the microbe of the disease, but one has since died and the other is seriously ill. It is believed that one effect of the plague will be to divert trade from Hongkong to other channels, particularly to Macao, the Portuguese settlement on the coast opposite. During operations for blowing up a sunken yacht in the Solent, a charge exploded in a boat, blowing three men to fragments. E. A. Petherick, bookseller in Sydney and Melbourne, has been made bankrupt on a motion at the instance of Longmans, publishers. The assets are stated to be about .£30,000.

The King of Belgium has appointed two delegates to negotiate with the French Government upon the Congo question. The Home Secretary has ordered an inquiry with a view to suppress massage houses in London, on the ground of immorality. There are reported to be numerous flagrant cases of open vice in these places, and it is asserted that society women are in the habit of visiting them. A Melbourne message states that a nugget weighing 161 b lias been found near Inglewood. The Premier of Tasmania has telegraphed to the Premiers of the other colonies suggesting the establishment of a joint store in the East End of London for the cool storage of colonial produce of all sorts.

Langston, Conroy, Roche, Turnbull, Flynn and Shillington have been arrested on the charge of being concerned with Prior in the shooting of Ashton during the signing of the Pastoralists’ agreement at the Wellshot station, Queensland. The Victorian Government have decided to retrench 500 men in the Railway Department, and 100 in the other branches of the Public Service, including the Chief Post Offices. Special facilities will be given to these men to settle on Crown lands, and a proposal is before the Cabinet to grant them leave of absence for three months on full pay, or six months on half pay. The Eastern Extension Cable Company had the wires specially kept clear for the rapid transmission of the Prince of Wales’ felicitous messages to India and the colonies on the 25th anniversary of the establishment of telegraphic communication with Great Britain. Replies were received from the Viceroy of India and the Governors of Singapore, Hongkong, Mauritius and the Australian colonies, within ten minutes of the despatch from the Imperial Institute.