THE ENGLISH APRIL MAIL.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4126, 11 June 1874, Page 3

THE ENGLISH APRIL MAIL.

From the English journals of the 1/th of April, to hand by the Suez mail, we make the following extracts; — ANGLO-AUSTEALIAN ITEMS. No official news has been received in London from Fiji as to the cession to England of that group of islands. It is stated that the supplies of tin-ore from Australia have so cheapened the article in the English market, that a number of the Cornish mines will be closed. The traffic receipts of the Eastern Extension, Australasia, and China Telegraph Company (Limited), for the month of March, amounted to £19,530, against £l/,9SS for the corresponding period of 1873. The several emigration agents have been active in procuring emigrants. Dr. Feathcrston (says the Taropcati Jfail) finds the work increasing to such an extent, that he has been obliged to take extra rooms at Westminster Chambers, and employ a much larger staff. Since March 20, nine vessels have left the country for New Zealand, freighted with emigrants. Lady Barker, author of “Station Life in New Zealand,” and other charming works, has been appointed superintendent of the new National School of Cookery, South Kensington. She is the wife of Mr. Frederick Napier Broome, one of the principal descriptive writers on the staff of the Times. One of Mr. Broome's latest achievements was the graphic account of the wedding festivities at St. Petersburg, telegraphed at length to the Times. MISCELLANEOUS, With a wholesome fear of being denied intercourse with the traders of the coast before his eyes, King Koffee has at last signed the treaty of peace which had been drawn up by Sir Garnet Wolseley. His ambassadors have carried it to Government House at Capo Coast Castle where they affixed their signatures to it. Thus the last act of a war, which it is hoped may not bo without some beneficial results to the tribes upon the coast, has at length been completed. The members of the embassy were all leading chiefs. Two clasps will be given with the Ashantoo War modal, one bearing the word “ Amoaful,” and the other “Coomassie.” The medal riband will bo black and yellow, striped. Mr. McMahon has made application to Mi'. Justice Lush, in chambers, for an order on the prosecution to produce the roll of alltheproeeediugs in the late Tichborne trial, with a view of commmoucing proceedings on a writ of error for a reversal of judgment. Tichborniana is rampant just now, and the friends of the Claimant have had a meeting at Southampton. Among those present were Mr. Guildford Onslow, Mr. Skipworth, the gentleman who wont to prison for contempt of court, and Mr. Councillor Puvkess. Much sympathy was expressed for the wife and children of the late Claimant, who were also present. The total number of idiots or imbeciles in England and Wales is 29,152, the equality of the sexes being remarkable —namely, 11,728 males and 11,721 females. Compared with the entire population, the ratio is 1 idiot or imbecile in 7<i 1 persons, or 13 per 10,000 persons living. Tile number of the insane in England and Wales is 39,567 —18,116 males and 21,121 females—being in the proportion of 1 in every 571 of the general population. A handsome gift lias been presented by the ladies of Christchurch to the Prince Imperial. It is an inkstand in the shape of a beehive. The hive is of gold, and rests on a silver base, richly gilt and enamelled. Ten bees, most artistically constructed, arc placed at suitable intervals on the hive or base. Valuable jewels add to the beauty of the object. It is currently reported that during the ensuing summer their Eoyal Highnesses the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh will visit Ireland,*as the guests of the Duke and Duchess of Ahereoru, Mr. Thomas Carlyle has been re-elected President of the Edinburgh Philosophical Institution, one of the very few public, if honerai’y, positions he takes pleasure in filling. At the Liverpool Assizes on April 9, before Mr. Justice Denman, an action was brought by Miss Mary Mathoson, daughter of a Glasgow merchant, to recover damages for breach of promise of marriage. The defendant was Mr. Ecclcs Shomick Eccies, a cotton broker, of Liverpool, and the damages were laid at 18000. Tile courtship had lasted only two mouths, and at the end of that time the defendant wrote to the young lady's father, breaking off the match ; Ids reasons being that she did not take sufficient interest in his pursuits, and her disregard for tile game of cricket, of which ho was passionately fond. The jury awarded £2OOO damages. Through the use of naked lights in one of the deepest mines in the world—the Astloy Deep Pit, at Duldnfield, near Manchester—a fearful explosion has been caused, attended with great sacrifice of live. On April 14, about 150 men were at work in the mine. Six or seven of them were repairing a tunnel that had been damaged by fire a few years ago, when part of the roof fell in, and the liberated gas coming in contact with the naked lights they were using, blew np all the workings in the vicinity. Ninety-one men, who were fortunately near the foot of the shaft, were at once rescued, llclicf parties worked all night 1

in the desperate hope of saving others. In the moruiug, one man was brought up alive; and afterwards ten men and boys were discovered in a tunnel uninjured. Previously, three lirothors had saved themselves by making a circuit of the return air-way. On April 15, thirty dead bodies were recovered, and the total number of the killed is supposed to be about forty. A women’s whisky war has been commenced in Manchester. The fair ground at Knott Mill, which during the Easter week had been given up to the annual fair, was on Sunday the scene of a very different gathering. ITom a temporary platform, consisting of a lorry, about a dozen working men’s wives addressed an attentive crowd on the evils of intemperance. The chairwoman said she had been a teetotaller twenty-seven years, and had never regretted it. Some of the speakers wore members of Good Templar lodgers, and were st3 7 led “ sisters,” and all had, in some way or other, been brought over to total abstinence through the terrible examples of drunken husbands or fathers. One woman introduced herself as “no far away bird, but the daughter of old Joe Blank', the dmnkeimest man in Deansgatoanother speaker, also locally connected, said she “had been twenty-one years driuk-cursed, having for a husband the greatest drunkard that ever walked the streets of Manchester.” This woman’s husband, who was at one time never without au excuse to thrash her, was now a reformed character. At the close of the speeches a number of persons took the temperance pledge. A story is going the rounds of the Press relative to the Premier and his recent visit to Brctby Park. This fiction is based upon idle and foolish surmise, and is as ridiculous as it is unfounded. It is that Mr. Disraeli was going to marry the Dowager-Countess of Chesterfield, who was born in 1802. Recently, the Scotsman mentioned that a bible bound in calf, and bearing the name of “ William Sim,” a Dundee man, and the date 1830, had been discovered in the stomach of a codfish. Tins fact alone was remarkable enough, but still more extraordinary is another circumstance connected with the affair, also reported by the Scotsman. On the very same day on -which the strange discovery was made known to the public through its columns, the heirs of the deceased Mr. Sira succeeded in obtaining a warrant in the outer House of the Court of Session (from the Lord Ordinary Mure) to uplift several hundreds of pounds belonging to the said -William Sim, who was described in the legal proceedings as a sailor, a native of Dundee, who had gone to sea about 183-1, and had not since been heard of. There can be little doubt that the Bible thus preserved in the codfish’s stomach belonged to the lost William Sim, of Dundee.