GENERAL CABLES.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1695, 24 August 1904, Page 31

GENERAL CABLES.

LONDON, August 22. Prince Louis Alexander of Battenberg, personal aide-de-camp to the King, representing King Edward, as one of the sponsors, at the christening of the young Prince Alexis, has started for Peterhof, tho Czar’s palace near St. Petersburg. Prineo Louis carries with him an autograph letter from the King to the Czar. The Rev Dugald Campbell, in the course of a report submitted to the Aborigines Protection Society, scutes that terrible cruelties are practised in the ivory districts of Katanga, in the southern portion of tlie Congo Free State, and remote from thoso districts which were vsited by M. Casement, the British Con-sul-General. Mr Campbell denounces the execrable oppression in the Conge State. The battleship Mars (14,900 tons, 17.5 knots), instead of rounding the bar buoy at Queenstown harbour, passed to the south, and grounded at the tail-end of the spit bank. The flagship Caesar following, noticed the mistake, and Vice-Admiral Lord Charles Beresford signalled to the officers on the Mars to reverse the engines. If this order had not been given, the Mars would have been, firmly embedded 011 a hard, uneven bottom. She.was soon towed off, however. The Rev E. L. Wilson, late of Australia, has been remanded at the Westminster Police Court on a chaige of defrauding stamp collectors. Holbein and Haggerty started from Dover to swim the Channel on Saturday evening. Holbein is going strong, but Haggerty was seized with cramp and abandoned the swim after he had been 94 minutes in the water. ST. PETERSBURG, August 21. It i:j suspected that M. de Plehve’s murderer is an ex-student at Moscow named Sasanoff.

BOMBAY, August 22. Colonel McDonald reports 'that a party of mounted men, -while out reconnoitring eight miles from the mission camp, surprised . a hundred aimed Thibetans, capturing sixty-four. The latter declared that they were awaiting arrears of pay. OTTAWA, August 21. The Dominion Minister of Agriculture states that the reported damage by rust to crops in the north-west are entirely untrue. Wheat-cutting has commenced in Manitoba, and there are prospects of a splendid crop. TEHERAN, August 21. Twenty thousand deaths from cholera have occurred in Teheran in six weeks. The scourge is now abating. MELBOURNE, August 22. In the Warrnambool to Melbourne

road race on Saturday, J. Arnst's machine broke down. The rider was suffering from influenza. R. A rust finished tenth in 7hr 49min 22see. ' SYDNEY, August 22. Mr Watson is confident that the efforts which are now being made to brin~ about the existence of-a strong Demoratic party, by a union of Labour representatives and those members opposed to Mr Reid, will bo crowned with success. : At a meeting of the Melbourne Committee appointed to draft a constitution for.;, such an amalgamation the question of abolishing the sohdaiity pi dge has not yet been dealt with, but Mr Watson has no fears on this point. H.M.S. Phoebe <2575 tons, ID knots) replaces the Tauranga as drill-ship in New Zealand. The Encounter, a sister ship to the Challenger, relieves the Wallaroo early next year. George Horsley, cousin of Grace Darling, has died at Tweedmouth at the age of 87, He was a witness of the famous deed of heroism.