GENERAL NEWS

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1675, 6 April 1904, Page 58

GENERAL NEWS

RAILWAY COLLISION IN CANADA.

Ten persons were killed and 12 injured in a collision between two passenger trains on the Canadian Pacific Railway at Arnprior, Ontario. The accident happened at five o’clock in the morning. A through express from Ottawa, which should have been given the right of way. crashed into a slow accommodation train owing to a telegraphist’s mistake in handling orders.’ Most of those killed and injured were on the express. The newly-formed Railway Commission will investigate the accident as its first work of any importance. TERRIBLE DISASTER IN POLAND. A terrible accident has cast a gloom over the population of Dombrovo and Sosnowioe m Poland, about 50 labourers belonging to these towns having lest their lives by the falling in of an immense mound of earth, from which they were taking material for the construction of the embankment cf a branch line on the Warsaw-Vienna Railway. At the moment when the mass cf earth was falling in upon the labourers, who were working at the base of the mound, a huge volume of flame rose from the ground and enveloped the victims. The ten bodies which were first recovered were charred to such an extent that the flesh was falling from the bones. The cause of the explosion has not yet been definitely ascertained, but it is known that the mound for the last thirty years had been situated over some disused smelting works. The official in charge of the works, who was away at the time of the accident, became insane on hearing what had happened. MATRIMONY EXTRAORDINARY. America being the land of cheap and easy divorce, it is not surprising that now and again some curious matrimonial experiences are recorded. But few, if any, cases have been so remarkable as that of a certain American lady who lias married and divorced her husband three times in seven years, not to speak of having married and divorced another man during the same period. According to last accounts, she was on the eve of once more marrying her muchdivorced husband. Her experiences have been more lively than agreeable. The daughter of a wealthy man, she married a dancing-master, much to her father’s disgust. Finding that tastes disagreed, she obtained a divorce on the ground of incompatibility c«f temper. A few years later she remarried him. hut on his giving way to intemperance she again obtained a divorce. Then she married another man in humble circumstances, presented him with a fortune as a wedding gift, but subsequently had to divorce him for cruelty. Then once again she re-married her first love, and yet again—for some reason unknown—divorced him. Probably by this they are for the fourth time man and wife. THE LADY AND THE BURGLAR. An extraordinary case of b'urglaily was perpetrated recently at Presitengrange House, Prestompans, Haddingtonshire, Scotland, when a purse containing a sum of money, a watch, and other valuables were stolen. The house, the residence of Lady Susan Grant Suttie. stands within its own grounds well back from the public road, and is close to- P.restonpans. Climbing up an outside waiter-pipe, the burglar reached' the third story, where he entered the house by opening an unsecured window. After searching several rooms—he left an abundant litter of half-burnt matcheshe entered the bed room occupied by Lady Beatrice Dalrymple, who was a guest of Lady Susan’s, and was daring enough to light a candie. This awakened the la(ly, who, however, lay still, pretending to be asleep. She saw the man lift her watch and coolly wind it. Afterwards he cleared out and she gave the alarm, and soon the police or Musselburgh, Prestonpans, Trancin'; and Portobello were on the alert. Two Musselburgh constables met a sus-picious-looking person within a mile of the house and asked him to. return with them. He did so, and on the way back the officers observed him throwing, away something. They stopped to see what had been dropped, and then tho man bolted, throwing away other articles as he ran westward. The officers gave chase, but the man, being an active fellow, escaped in the darkness. Policemen were on the watch all the way to Edinburgh, but failed to find him. Howe?er, the suspect is apparently known, and a search in a certain house in Portobello on Tuesday afternoon .respited in a, number cf articles being discovered, the possession of which he will be called upon to explain when lie is captured. Most of the articles missing from Preston grange House have been recovered along the Musselburgh road, as though they had been dropped in the course of a hasty flight. ANTIQUITIES OF EGYPT. Again and again has Egypt been pillaged, but, strange to say, it is the Nile that is now the destroying enemy

of the ancient structures which have so long stood the test of time. Under the heading ‘•'The Reconstruction of Karnak,” Mr John Ward, F.S.A., gives us in the “Monthly Review” an interesting and largely illustrated article describing the mischief, and also the steps now being taken to prevent its spread. The amojunt of deposit from the river is very great, amounting to several inches in a century. The bed of the Nile consequently, in four or five thousand years, has been elevated some 20ft above wliat it was in the days of the founders cf the temples. The entire soil of Egypt is alluvial; the water percolates and finds its level; and the consequence is that the foundations of the ancient temples are water-logged. At High Nile tho columns of the temples of Luxor and those of Karnak are submerged several feet. At Low Nile they stand on dry ground; the soft sandstone of which they are built is saturated for half the year, while it is exposed to the. 1 urning sunshine for the other half. The Nile water being highly charged with mineral salts, these crystallise on the blocks of stone, and exfoliate, reducing them to a state of sand. Experiments were tried to test the possibility of underpinning and restoring t.lie .rotten substratum with hydraulic cement. Those were found to be successful and Lord Cromer has provided the funds for work on a large scale. The operations are under Professor Maspero, the director of antiquities for Egypt, and M. Lograin, who was a student (under the professor in .Paris, and Mr Ward speaks with enthusiasm of their knowledge and their skill. The work at Ivarnak is gigantic in character, but gradually the fallen .ruins are being regplaojd, and those pillars that were, falling are being secured. M. Legrain is making remarkable discoveries also l . He. has cleared a splendid avenue of ram-headed sphinxes, and has discovered the quay which marked the former course cf the Nile. On tliis was found engraved the register of the height of the High Nile in 670 8.0.. with the cartouche of Tirhaka, the king who hailed from Ethiopia, and who is mentioned in the Bible as the deliverer of Hezekiah from the -hosts of Sennacherib. One conclusion to be drawn from the article is how highly beneficial it is for Egypt and the world that the charge of the country .should be in tho hands of Great Britain, and of an able administrator with power to act. TO LHASSA. Mail advices show that the fiercest enemy which tho Thibetan expedition under General Macdonald and Colonel Younghusband bass had to encounter lias been eternal snow. Marching at- altitudes varying from 6000 ft to 14,700 ft., the little force has accomplished- a feat equal to that of crossing the Alps ; has braved tho ascent of tho Jelapla Pass, the terrible descent into the Cliumbi Valley, encountering the depths of winter and the mildness of spring in a single day’s march. The only offensive operations recorded are the flogging of various porters who refused to march further. This was accomplished with so much success that order was immediately restored, and the Gurkhas, Pioneers, mountain guns, and maxims were enabled to continue their march unchecked to Phari, where the Governor of the Thibetan forts came in decked with ancestral jewels and mightily relieved to findi that lie was not going to be killed. The Lamas are performing strange pre-Buddhistic ceremonies and acts of magic designed to check the invaders; the laity, however., are cheerfully bringing in local produce and offering orthodox Buddhistic thanks, to the Providence that sent them so unexpected an array of customers. Letters received from members of the expedition speak of icicles two feet thick and of officers and men whose night quarters are nests dug in the ground and upholstered with arnisful of dry grass. The. severity of the atmospheire at these altitudes makes breathing difficult, but only Dr Pilkington, of the 23rd Pioneers, lias been invalided to die base.