NEWS BY THE MAIL.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4146, 4 July 1874, Page 5

NEWS BY THE MAIL.

ENGLAND. The Rev. John Craig, vicar of Leamington, who was prominently before the public in the Leamington scandal preached recently under singular circumstances. For nine mouths he has been confined to his bed with senile gangrene, which has totally consumed his right foot. Latterly, to the surprise of everybody, the limb has begun to heal and signs of recovery appear. The vicar-, the other Sunday, insisted upon preaching, and for that purpose was carried from his bed to the pulpit, where ho sat bolstered up in a chair, and preached to an immense congregation.' At tho conclusion of the service he was carried back to bed. The Crown has relieved Dr. Hayman, recently head-master of Rugby School, from the painful position in which ho was recently placed, by conferring upon him tho living of Aldingham, in the county of Lancaster. The Qrashdanin, a Russian paper noted for its good court intelligence, says that in numerous letters to her family and friends tho Duchess of Edinburgh describes her life in England as one of perfect happiness. She speaks with great gratitude of the cordial and friendly reception she has met until from all with whom she has come into contact—the Queen, the Royal family, the Court, and the people at large. The letters have occasioned great satisfaction in St. Petersburg. Father Ignatius, in concluding a mission sermon to a congregation numbering several thousand persons, at the Grand Concert Hall, Brighton, on a recent Sunday evening, said many good persons would not come to hoar him because he was a monk, and he would therefore tell them why he was a monk. Because he believed the nineteenth century was an atheistical, immoral, self-opinionated, miserable ace, and that it was going harum-scarum to the devil. In proof of which he pointed out that social evils were increasing every day, that the streets are teeming with the filthiest vice, and that the hoys and girls in onr schools are steeped in sin. He believed the nineteenth century was all wrong, and therefore he had come out of it.

Child Stealing.—Mr. Arnold was occupied a considerable time on May 1 in investigating a charge of child-stealing against Frances Stuart, a woman fifty years of age. She was charged with stealing a boy aged twelve months, the child of her daughter, Mrs. Henrietta Scrivener, of 4, Lordship’s Place, Chelsea. It appeared that on Tuesday last the child was safe at home at five in the evening, and at seven it was gone. The prisoner, taking the cliild with her, on the same night called at the house of a Mr. Sparvell, at Sand’s End, Pulliam, and remained till the next day. She then left, and called at a Mrs. Ireland’s, and both stated that she treated the child very kindly. On Wednesday evening a letter was received from the prisoner addressed to Mr. Scrivener, in which she stated that, as he often made her heart ache, she would make his, and that at that moment she and the child were in the -water. On Friday afternoon the prisoner went to Bacon’s Hotel, Great Queen Street, Long Acre, and naked for her other daughter. The latter went and got a policeman, and on his return it was discovered that prisoner had thrown a letter down the area, in which she informed her daughter that she had better come out at once, as she had done murder, and wanted her daughter to give her up to justice, as she had killed the dear boy. It appeared that after the child had disappeared the mother went everywhere to find it, and although Mrs. Ireland had seen the prisoner and the child, she concealed the fact from the mother. Mr. Arnold asked her what explanation she could give of such conduct ? Mrs. Ireland could not explain it. Inspector Sherlock said the child had not been found ; and the prisoner admitted at the station that she had written the last letter. Mr. Arnold asked the prisoner what she had to say about the child. Prisoner declined to say anything at present about the child. Her son-in-law had beaten her about, and she had intended to make his heart ache as he had hers. Mr. Arnold again asked her where the child was. She refused to tell, and was remanded.

IRELAND, The Duke of Abercom made his state entry into Dublin aa Viceroy of Ireland, in succession to Earl Spencer, on April 18. It was said that the Duke had not accepted without hesitation this re-appointment to a post which he had filled on a former occasion, with equal distinction and efficiency, at a critical and anxious time. Supported by a Chief Secretary, whose administrative capabilities were then only serving an apprenticeship to that magnificent Proconsulate in which he was destined to a tragic fate, the nobleman who is now once more the representative of Her Majesty in the Irish capital won golden opinions by the brilliance of his Court, the splendour of his equipages, and the ample generosity of his entertainments. Nowhere, perhaps, is it more true than in the sister island that monarchy to be respected must show itself monarchical, and surround itself with the external attributes of sovereignity. In other words, it must have faith in its own principle and prerogatives, and appeal to the imagination of the crowd, as well as to the reason of statesmen and politicians. There have been Viceroys of Ireland who, with the best intentions, could never rise with the occasion above the sphere of party, into the serener air which a sovereign should breathe.

Koval Visit to Iceland. —A correspondent in Dublin telegraphs as follows :—“ The Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh having intimated their acceptance of the Duke of Abercorn’s invitation to visit Ireland during the coming autumn. His Grace was emboldened to ask the presence of Her Majesty on an occasion so auspicious, and which would, in his opinion, be so grateful to the Irish people. It is now well understood that the Queen has accepted the invitation of His Grace. The Eoyal visit will be signalised by celebrations of an unusually elaborate character. It is expected that Her Majesty will hold a levee and drawing room, the third of the kind since the year 1821, when King George IV. visited Ireland, the second occasion being on the Queen’s visit in 1340. Her Majesty intends to renew her acquaintance with the beauties of Killamey, to which she has been invited by the Earl of Keumare, whose mansion is at present being redecorated for her reception. The Prince and Princess of Wales, Prince Arthur, the Duke of Cambridge, the Princess Mary Adelaide and the Duke of Teck, and, if the season should suit, the King and Queen of the Belgians, will be of His Grace’s party.” A bailiff of the Marquis of Drogheda, named Coyle, has been fired at in his own house, at a place called Clonegath, near Monasterevan. The intending assassin missed his mark, as the bullet struck the wall of the room without in any way injuring the bailiff. An old grudge about not serving a tenant on the estate is alleged to be the cause of the outrage. No evictions are known on the estates of the Marquis of Drogheda. AMERICA. A -Stiianok Cash. —The heirs of two brothers, named Jacques and Francois Lefevre, have, according to the Indianapolis Sentinel, just presented a memorial to the Indiana Senate, which “ reads like a tragic romance.” Jacques Lefevre came to Indiana about the year 1830, and settled in Lawrence County, near St. Francisvillo, on the banks of the Wabash. Eor fifteen years he toiled industriously on his farm, chopping wood and selling it for fuel to passing steamboats. In 1845 he was murdered—shot while standing near his wood-pile waiting for an approaching steamer. An inquest was hold, but the mystery of the assassination was not solved, and the incident gradually dropped out of tho recollection of tho people in tho neighborhood. Eight years later Francois Lefevre came over from France to collect what might bo duo to the estate of his brother and to live on his farm, but a few months after his arrival, he, too, was shot on precisely the same spot where his brother fell, and his murderer was never apprehended nor any clue obtained to his identity. The Lefevre estate consisted of seventy-three acres, and since Jacques was shot, although the

farm has produced nothing, the taxes haye been regularly paid by the heirs. They have repeatedly endeavored to sell the estate since tho murder of Fx-an9ois, but notwithstanding the fact that it was offered as low as §2 50c. an acx-e, nobody could he found willing to risk his life by taking up his abode on tho illomeued place. For this reason the heix-s petitioned tho Legislature to accept the Lefevro estate on behalf of the Commonwealth, to be devoted to any public use for the county of Lawrence on the condition that the same shall be known as “ The Bloody Field,” or by any other denomination reminding the actual generation of the impunity with which this double murder was committed. They also ask that tho sum of the taxes paid on the estate from 18-15 to the px-esent time may be reimbursed to them, and a Bill drawn in the interest of the petitxonex-s is now before the Indiana Senate.

The PiIESIDENT ON THE CURRENCY QUESTION.—The President has vetoed the financial Bill, adding 9100,000,000 to the cux-rency. He bases the veto on the ground that the Bill increased the paper circulation without pi*oviding the means of redemption. The President in his veto message says the fact is undeniable that the Bill increases the paper circulation to $100,000,000. This he believes to be a departure fx-om the tine px-inciples of finance. He earnestly recommends legislation securing as speedily as praticable a return to specie payments, anil refers to repeated Government pledges to make px-ovision at the eax-liest practicable moment fox- redemption of United States notes in coin. He recommends that the revenue be increased sufficiently to meet the exu-rent expenditure, as a preparatory measure to the resumption of specie payments. The Congress has not yet acted on the veto, but it is impossible to get two-thirds to vote fox- the Bill, so that the veto will be sustained.