AT HOME AND ABROAD.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1190, 21 December 1894, Page 15

AT HOME AND ABROAD.

THE PARNELL ANNIVERSARY.

A demonstration in memory of the late Mr Parnell took place in Dublin in the shape of a procession from St. Stephen’s Green to the .grave of the deceased leader in Glasnevin Cemetery. - The affair was elaborately organised, being designed as a kind of rally of the Independent Party, and contingents were brought in from all parts of the country; but the greater part of the procession, , which numbered about 10,000 persons, was composed of inhabitants of Dublin. No speaking took place in the cemetery, but a large meeting of the Parnellite party was held on the following night in the Rotunda v Mr John Redmond, M.P., presided, and in the course of a long speech declared that the hanging up of Home Rule after its rejection by the House of Lords had necessarily resulted in its disappearance from the list of urgent Imperial political questions, while the hope of its revival through a great agitation against the House of Lords was sheer midsummer madness. The Irish Land Bill had no more chance of passing than the Evicted Tenants Bill. The Government was powerless for good. He would not be surprised if Mr Gladstone’s letter denouncing local option caused difficulties in the Liberal Party, which would give the nine. Parnellite votes a .deciding voice. He advocated an early dissolution of Parliament in order to bring Home Rule again to the front; and a resolution in this sense, and also one demanding an amnesty for. the political prisoners, were subsequently carried.

THE UNIFICATION OF LONDON. A cablegram was published a few days ago to the effect that the London County Council had approved of the unification proposal of the Royal Commission. In this connection we note that on the 19th October Mr B. F. C. Costelloe gave an interesting address to the Fabian Society on the Unification of London, though the exact title of the subject was the “ Terrification ” of London, the word coined by the Pall Mall Gazette to represent the opposite idea; of a plurality of metropolitan municipal boroughs, which Sir David Evans and Mr Chamberlain support, v. It was, Mr Costelloe remarked, strange that the former Mayor of Birmingham should support such an idea except on the hypothesis that he was afraid that the unified metropolis might surpass his own municipality of Birmingham. Dividing his great subject into a discussion of possible administrative areas and possible administrative powers, he pointed out that marvellous complication of interests involved in the existing areas made it desirable to change theiii as little as possible. More especially, also, as no alteration can be made without invoking the machinery of Parliament. Turning to the question of municipal powers, he observed that this really became a question of time, either of the official or. the representative, and that of the latter was at present about as much occupied as

possible. At the same time, the maintenance of a strong central control to override and guard against local interests was indispensable. THE EMPEROR OF CHINA. Mr Kennaway Douglas, Professor of Chinese at King’s College, and Keeper of the Oriental Books and Manuscripts at the British Museum, has been lecturing to a Tyneside audience upon the characteristics of the Chinese. He thinks there are few men more miserable than the Emperor of China Heaven” and “the Solitary Man.” The last phrase, says Professor Douglas, exactly describes his condition. His life is a round of receptions—at 2in the morning, winter and summer—of attendance at dramatic performances, and of the fulfilment of elaborate religious duties. Though surrounded by flatterers, he lives a life of isolation —unknown personally to his subjects, and hedged about with ceremonial.

TERRIFIC GALE IN NEW YORK. A terrific gale raged at New York on the night of October 9th. In the height of the storm an unoccupied seven-story building in Monroe street fell in, demolishing a house adjoining it. The building destroyed was the extension of a large tenement house. About 50 persons, men, women and children, were sleeping in the various rooms when the walls of the next house came crashing down. One woman was impaled alive by a board which was driven through her body as she lay in bed. The bodies of three other victims have been found, and it is feared that several other persons have lost their lives and are buried in the ruins. The new building which collaped had only just been completed. While it was being built fears were expressed that the supports were not of sufficient strength. A second dwellinghouse was destroyed during the storm, but although about a dozen persons were sleeping in it none of them were killed. A later telegram says: —The tenement house is 72, Monroe street, occupied for the most part by Jews. The name of the woman killed through being impaled by a board is Bertha Karoner. The others killed were Solomon Karoner, twenty-one years of age, Abraham Karoner, nine years, Meyer Speiner, sixty-two years, and his wife, Jenny Speiner, sixty years. Both the last-mentioned were suffocated. Another body has not been identified. Bessie, Rosie, Isaac and Eli Abrams are missing. Eight persons, most of them members of the Karoner and Abrams family, were seriously hurt, while 'many others Bruises .and: scratches, nobody in the building, in fact, escaping injury. The search among the debris continues, and two more bodies have been discovered. The cries of the survivors as the bodies of their relatives were brought out were heartrending.

THE SALTA FUGITIVE. The following curious story is told by the South American and General News : — The source of the report with regard to an alleged escape of Jabez Balfour from prison is probably to be found in a startling rumour which has been current at Buenos Ayres, and seems to have met with a certain amount of credence there. According to this rumour, a gentleman of very high standing and great influence in English society has intervened in the case — not, of course, in what may be called his official, but in his personal capacity—with the request that Balfour shall, at the last moment, be allowed to escape. A gentleman who has recently returned from South America gives it as his opinion that an escape will take place with the connivance of the Argentine authorities; and when it is remembered that Salta, the present place of Balfour’s detention, is so near the Bolivian frontier that a relaxation of vigilance for a few hours only would render pursuit hopeless, the story does not seem so improbable as it would at first sig'ht appear. It is stated that the gentleman who is said to have intervened was a fellow-member with Balfour of a certain non-political organisation, and that the reason for his intervention must be sought in this fact.