LATEST MAIL NEWS.

New Zealand Mail, 20 August 1902, Page 20

LATEST MAIL NEWS.

From the latest- English files to hand are taken the following interesting items : ;

Queen Alexandra’s Coronation dress was executed in Paris, although tlid costly materials were of Indian origin. Tlie dress is pure cloth of gold, the dazzling effect of which is subdued by a covering of nebulous, white silk tulle, dotted over with gold flowerets. The train is of gold brocade, with varying hues, upon its surface. Hie Queen of the Belgians is now in such feeble health that she lias to be carried up and down stairs.

The King received Prince Komatsu, tho Japanese representative at the Coronation, who presented the King yvith the Chain of- tho Order of the Chrysanthemum- from the Emperor of Japan, and also delivered to his .Majesty for the, Queen the Jewelled Order of the Crown from the Empress of Japan) Mr Barton, tlie Commonwealth Premier, has brought for presentation to flic King a walking-stick made from the timbers of Captain’s Cook famous exploring ship.

Admiral Keppel was received by the King and Queen at Buckingham Palace on the occasion of his ninety-third birthday.

Mr Samuel.. Hadfield, of Sheffield, a well-known musician and one of the pioneers of the.tonic sol-fa system, died suddenly while taking a vapour bath. Lord James, who acted as arbitrator on the wages question in tlio coal trade, has decided in favour of the coalowners’, and has:declared a reduction of 10 rcr cent.

At a sitting of the Royal Commission on Arsenical Poisoning, Mr llebner, of tlie Society of Chemical Industries, said that if the law were to insist upon beer being-.absolutely free from arsenic, they would have to close up all the breweries in England, Mr Delepiii.no, professor of chemistry, said that the outbreak of arsenical poisoning ..was due to the use of arsenical glucose, or invert sugar as malt substitutes in brewing. Spitalfiejds, which was formerly almost entirely occupied by English people, has now become a Jewish colony, and a.second Palestine. The Middlesex Comity Council will .expend. £1,000,000 on tlie construction of an electrical tram system. The rainfall for the first half of June was three times the average, Swallows have been dying from sheer starvation owing to the absence of insect life, A German inventor claims to have perfected -an. apparatus which enables a written message to be sent by wire. It is transmitted photographically.

A large British shipping combine ont side the Morgan Trust is in course n# formation. There is a proposed ainaW matron of twenty-three Lanarkshire col lieries.

A portrait by Romney realised 10 50ft guineas—a record price—in a London U ° u

A valuable horse was suffocated in q s stable at Maidenhead by the animal ac cidentally turning on the gas tap durinsr the night. b A young man experimented in p ar j|\, with a flying machine resembling a huv e ,pair cf wings. Happily he attempted to "fly across the Seine. He jumped from • a parapet 60ft high, but his wings re- * fused to work, and he fell into the "river - He sank to the bottom, but extricated himself from the machine, and, rising to the surface, swam ashore.

A mushroom measuring 37 inches in circumference lias been found near Barnet.'

The sum of .£54,500 was awarded for Simpson’s famous dining establishment the premises being required in connection with the Strand improvement.

A gentleman left the Isle of Man half a century ago for New Zealand. As nothing has been heard from him in the interval, legal steps were being taken to wind up the estate, his death being presumed from long silence. To the surprise of all concerned, a letter was received from the gentleman at the Antipodes stopping further proceedings. Cfp had been reading in the newspapers of his supposed death.

A doctor in Paris has inoculated himself with consumption matter from a diseased cow, to ascertain the possibility of human contamination from bovine tuberculosis.

A case of lupus of thirty years’ standing nas cured at Newcastle-iu-Tyue by means of the X-rays.

A vast area of bog in Ireland, comprising several hundred acres, split in two and moved a considerable distance-, occasioning much destruction of pro! party. A house was swallowed up tme no lives were lost:

“Prince Lobengula, whose marriage with an English lady caused a seosav.nn some time ago, and subsequently led to divorce proceedings, was fined for being drunk at Salford.

A bookmaker was fined £IOO in Liverpool for using a place for betting, and the magistrate intimated that if exemplary fines did not stop the nuisances, ho would impose imprisonment and hard labour.

Three schoolboys were ordered 1o be birched for breaking into ail iron church at Enfield and robbing contrib uion boxes.

A tragic affair occurred at Duisiau, near Newcastle-ou-Tyne, recently.- A farmer and his wife- went to church,' leaving in the house three servants, a youth and two girls. The youth was then reading the Bible. After their deaprture, lie is said to have made a murderous attack upon one of the girls with hammer, and then hanged himself. When his dead body was cut down lie was wearing his C.E. badge. It is thought the girl may recover. A doctor was killed by a carriers’ cart in Limerick. The widow and children sued the carriers for the negligence of their servant, and were awarded £3OOO damages.

The Legislature of British Columbia has refused to grant woman suffrage.: The ago at which the franchise :s opt-n to males is fixed at 18.

A young lady supposed to be an English woman of position, took a room in a Paris hotel and' shot herself dead on a pile of beautiful flowers.

At Market Deeping a farmer was lined., for placing poisoned grain to kill rooks,. as it resulted in the death i f ’ hiriy-.. four pigeons belonging to a neighbour. A lady passenger placed a dressing/ case containing £2OO worth of m.vollory-. in a corner of the waiting-room at Waterloo station. She strolled a few; yards from the door, and on her rot-imn the case had disappeared. An echo of Mrs Dyer, the executed-baby-farmer, comes from Bristol. in the garden cf a house there in which she resided six years ago the bodies of' four children liavo been accidentally mi--earthed. .

A lady’s maid, having saved £l2O, de_ cided to open a boarding establishment, and advertised for a husband who could join her in the venture. A German hairdresser answered the advertisement, and, having obtained the loan, of the money from her, married another lady. The victim sued him for the return of her money, and judgment was given in her favour for the full amount claimed.

Two negro boys, who were said, to have confessed to stoning a white, girl to death, were taken from prison in North Carolina by an infuriated mob. and hanged on a tree. The younger boy was made to climb the tree with the rope encircling his neck, and by threats from the frenzied crowd was forced to jump from tho tree, thus compassing his. owii death'. A banker’s servant in Russia, while'; conveying a large sunm of money to the 7 Imperial Bank, was accosted by, a re-, spectable-looking man, who, in tho. course of conversation, handed the servant a cigarette. After, a few draws from the cigarette the servant collapsed, from the effects of a. powerful poison ana the stranger made off with the money*-