ARRIVAL OF THE ENGLISH MAIL.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4285, 14 December 1874, Page 3

ARRIVAL OF THE ENGLISH MAIL.

The p.s. Lima, which arrived from the Manukau, lias brought on the English mail which the Cyphrenes carried from San Francisco. From the journals to hand we naake the following extracts : ENGLISH. Bishop, Selwyn has returned to England from America, after a short visit. The London papers announce the suspension of Farrard, Young, and "White, of Savage Gardens, in the corn trade—liabilities, £50,000; also of Lemon, Hart, and Son, wine and spirit dealers, of George-street, Tower Hill—liabilities, about £150,000. The following Gazette, dated from Buckingham Palace, was published on the 15th October :—" This morning, at a quarter to three o'clock, her Royal and Imperial Higliness the Duchess of Edinburgh was safely delivered of a prince. His Boyal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh was present, as also the Earl of Derby, in the absence of the Secretary of State for the Home Department. Her Royal and Imperial Highness and the infant prince are doing perfectly well. The happy event was made known by the firing of the Park and Tower guns." The despatches received from the steamer Faraday state that the fleet is now proceeding successfully with the laying of the direct United States cable, 126' miles of cable having been laid since the cable was spliced. A melancholy occurrence was discovered in Leith, Scotland, recently. Two sisters, named Ann Murray and Jane Murray, residing in Balfour-street, were known for some time to be indulging in intemperance, but, as their conduct was quiet and unobtrusive, little attention was paid to them by their neighbors until very recently. The last time they were both seen alive was on Tuesday. As nothing was heard of them from that time till Thursday evening the neighbors began to suspect that ail was not right. The door of their house was forced open, when a melancholy spectacle presented itself. Ann was found lying dead on the floor of an apartment, and beside her sat like a maniac her sister Jane. Both were in a eemi-nude state, and the surviving sister seemed to be unconscious of the other's decease. When questioned as to the state of her sister, Jane replied, " It is all right, and she will soon be well again." A medical gentleman was called in, and he pronounced that Ann had been dead for several hours. From what we have learned, the unhappy sisters have spent not less than £IOO in drink since spring.

Details show that the Dundee whaler Arctic was lost under extraordinary circumstances. When the vessel was hopelessly caught in the ice, the crew, 54 in number, made every possible effort to save provisions and clothing. While the operations were in progress, a fearful storm of wind and rain came on. The men were standing on the ice, without shelter, when one half of the vessel was crushed like a match box. Tho other half cau<*ht fire, and from the inflammable nature of the cargo, there was soon a fire of immense brilliancy. Tho heat caused the oil to melt, and all that remained of the ship sank amid a hissing cloud of steam. The Arctic had on board 17 whales, 32 white whales, 8 ear whales, 10 seals, 3 walrusses, and 3 bottlenosed whales. The crew suffered great privations before being rescued. An accident of an alarming character has occurred at the chief pit belonging to the Stand Lane Colliery Company (Limited), at Kadcliffe. The work of winding coal was proceeding as usual, when the guiding rods at the side of the shaft broke, and the cage and its contents, falling crosswise, were wedged between the uprights and the brickwork. The consequence was that operations were suddenly brought to a standstill, and the whole of the men and boys, numbering upwards of 200, were imprisoned in the pit for many hours. An apparatus was at length rigged up, and the miners were slowly and safely wound out of the pit by means of an unused shaft situated at a distance from the one in which the accident occurred. FOREIGN. The village of Prest, in the Schausegig, Switzerland, was almost wholly destroyed by fire, eighty-five houses being burned. Tho villagers were mainly poor people, who lose nearly all they possessed. Tho only church in the place was destroyed. It is reported that Germany, in consequence of the increase in tho Russian army, will add 20,000 troops to her annual contingent. A despatch from Rome (Nov. 7) says tho Popo intended to receive a deputation yesterday morning, but fainted on ontoring tho hall. His physicians declare his indisposition to be slight. A special despatch to the Standard (November 10) reports that 10,000 Republican troops are collected in tho approaches to Irun, for tho relief of the town, but the Carlists occupy the intervening passes in great force. Tho proposed marriage of tho Prince Imperial to tho daughter of the Russian Grand Duchess Mario is considered iu Bonapartist circle* as an important event.

It is said that evidence is accumulating that Count Von Arnim has for some time back been setting Court circles against Bismarck, and that the Count seriously entertained an idea of shortly occupying a leading position in the Imperial Government. The Russian Government has ordered eighteen iron ships for its fleet in the Sea of Aral, and two light-draft steamers for service in the Amudury Biver. . A brutal murder of a mother by her son has just been committed at Ilheilhac-Cham-pinier (Dordogue). The man, named Lesport, and aged thirty-four, had frequent quarrels with the woman. A few days back he was about to draw a load of wheat from a barn against the wishes of his mother, who threatened to cut off a leg of the cow harnessed to the cart. As he persisted in his intention, she struck the animal with the handle of a billhook. The son then, knocked her down with a pickaxe, and repeated the blow twice on her head when she was on the ground. Then, finding she was dead, he took her by the legs and drew Her aside to let his cart pass, and went off whistling with his load of corn to market, leaving the body on the ground. He was arrested two hours after.

The French papers state that Charles Killick, an English jockey, has beeu arrested for stabbing a Paris coachman, under the following peculiar circumstances : —The victim was driving his vehicle with a fare when Killiek seized the bridle of his ricketty old horse, and said, " "Why, this is "Volunteer, that I won a dozen races with." On his refusing to leave go the driver struck him with his whip, on which the jockey rushed upon him and stabbed him twice in the bosom with a knife, and, while the two lady passengers were alighting in a fright, stabbed the horse as well. He then quietly delivered himself up to the police. AMERICAN. Sir Edward Thornton, Lord Caithness, Lord Bostwick, and Judge Peabody, are at present in New York. The President's son has "taken unto himself a wife. The lady is Ida Maria Honore, of Chicago, the daughter of a millionaire. The papers overflow with descriptions of the happy event and of the presents. Mackin and Co., bankers, Newark, N.J., failed on October 22, from over speculation in real estate. The World publishes a long article on the condition of trade in New York City and the prospects of the poor for the coming winter. Erom statistics adduced by the World it appears that fully one-third of the common or unskilled laborer-s in the city are now idle, comprising a population of 90,000 beings, now in want, who have been unemployed for six months, and with no prospects of work before next spring. The outlook for the poorer classes in the coming winter, the World says, is horrible.

The discussion in the New York Episcopal Convention to-day on the canon forbidding ritualism was very animated. It was finally adopted by the following vote : Of the 41 dioceses represented, 38 voted aye, 2 no, 1 being divided. Lay votes, dioceses represented, 38 ; aye 3, 34 ; noes, 3 ; divided, 1. Herman Schilling, aged twenty-three years, a watchman in a Cincinnati tannery, was missed this morning from his post. A search showed a bloody pitchforkjwith hair on it in an adjoining stable, and bloody tracks were traced to a furnace under which a hot fire had raged all night. In the mouth of the flue, down which an effort had been made to throw him, the body of the missing man, roasted to fragments, was found. Suspicion pointed to Andrew Egner and Fred Egner his son, whose daughter Schilling had been criminally intimate with, although not, as alleged by the Egners, her seducer, her moral character being had. Since her death, Egners has often made threats of killing Schilling. They were arrested, and with them one George Eufer, an employe of the tannery, who had been recently discharged at Schilling's instance, and who it is thought joined the plot, because he had fired the factory whose smoking ruins are opposite the tannery, and because Schilling suspected and was about to denounce him. The struggle in the stable at 11 o'clock in the night was overheard by one witness, who described the struggle as fearful. There is great excitement in the city over the murder.

VIA SAN FRANCISCO.