EUROPEAN NEWS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 35, 25 December 1861, Page 5

EUROPEAN NEWS

TO 26th OCTOBER. By the arrival of the " Genii" and " Helen M'Gaw" from Melbourne., yesterday morning, we are in possession of the Home News of the 26th October, in anticipation of the regular European mail, which had arrived in Melbourne per " Northam," and was to be forwarded by the " Aldinga" from Melbourne, on the 17th December. We publish below the principal items of intelligence :-*- Parliament was prorogued on the 22nd of October till December 17. A farewell dinner to All England Eleven in London on 19th October. Arc to be back in England in May. The Great Eastern was safely moored in Cork Harbour. The Cork people were in alarm lest she might be taken to Galway. But she will be brought over, to Milford Haven, and placed on the gridiron for repair. New lights are said to be breaking in on the Rugby Romance affair. Whatever blame may attach to the husband in this affair, the wife is said not to be spotless. Lieutenant-Colonel Burdett, the brother of Mrs. Hill, had offered himself as bail for Mr. Hill. Alderman Cubitt has been re-elected Lord Mayor of London. Viscount Eorth committed suicide by poisoning!;

himself with laudanum, at Gloucester, on the Bth October. An inquest was held on the body on the 10th of the same month, at which the jury returned a verdict of " Temporary insanity." On the Ist October The Times made its appearance at threepence per copy, and the Morning Post, Herald, and Advertiser, followed suit. In the obituary for the month we observe the names of Sir James Graham, Lord Ponsonby, the Earl of Eglinton, the Marchioness Dowager Conyngham, Mr. Loftus Charles Otway, C.8., Mr. Arthur Smith, Sir J. Hamlyn Williams, Major Sib thorp, M.P., Sir William Cubitt, Sir James Graham, the French actress Rose Cheri, and the celebrated actors Mr. Wm. Farren, and Mr. Vandenhoff. The,, Times contains a leading article on the importance of the Tasmanian coal fields in conaexion with steam navigation to Australia. It Iraws special attention to the details given by Mr. Charles Gould, the government geologist, in the report recently addressed by him to the colonial secretary of the island. The article concludes ihus : —" It is plain that if we are to have steam communication with Australia, it ought to be of bhe most complete kind, carried on by first-rate vessels at the highest rate of speed. Otherwise there is little gained by the use of steam at all, Mid it would be as well to trust to the clipper ships, and the old passage round the Cape. But, if ever a good steam line is to pay its own expenses, it will be by developing local resources, such as these Tasmanian coal fields. The Cesarewitch was won by Mr. W. Bevill's Andrey, Paste second, and Asteroid third. The betting was 100 to 1 against the winner. It has been rumoured that the Emperor of the French has made overtures for the purchase of the Great Eastern. The French Emperor has adjourned the further 2onsideration of the Roman question, and declines it present to withdraw his troops from Rome. The financial difficulties of France are becoming very embarrassing, and it is said that wider latitude is to be allowed to the Corps Legislatif in the liscussion of the budgets. The Roman Government has attempted to arrest Father Passaglia, but he has escaped from the Papal territory. Tha Austrian Government has ordered the colLection of the taxes for the year by a decree. The coronation of the King of Prussia was celebreted with great pomp. Everything passed off successfully. The military having entered several churches in Warsaw on the anniversary of Kosciusko's leath and arrested the male worshippers, the smirches have been closed by the ecclesiastical authorities to prevent further profanation. The arrangements respecting the proposed intervention in Mexico have been settled between th Governments of England, France, and Spain. A new company for the restoration of the Red Sea Telegraph is in course of formation. The Court has returned from Scotland. The commissioners of the International exhibition have had under their consideration a plan which has been submitted to them for conveying passengers from Hyde-park to the Exhibition building through a pneumatic tube. A great rifle contest is being arranged between English and Scotch volunteers ; Lieutenant Colonel Viscount Bury and Captain Horatio Ross being engaged'in settling the preliminary details. It appears that the project is proceeding favourably, and it seems very desirable that this should be the case, and such an annual contest would, to use Lord Bury's own words, " contribute its share towards promoting the permanence and stability of the volunteer movement, by creating a, noble and honourable emulation between the two countries." The Prince of Wales is again at Cambridge as a. student. He remained in the Highlands till about a fortnight ago. On his way to Cambridge tie honoured the Duke of Newcastle with a visit of a few days at Clumber, where great rejoicings celebrated the occasion. We stated in our last that Prince Alfred had sailed on a second voyage to Canada. Prince Leopold has been sent on account of delicate health, to Cannes, where he will probably stay during the winter. News from the west of Ireland justifies grave ipprehensions of the approach of a famine. There has been a most serious failure of crops, md already, to quote the language of a Dublin contemporary, " the sharp cry of distress begins to reach us." The Dundee Advertiser reports a melancholy story from the Arctic regions:—The whaler Alert has arrived at Peterhead, from Cumberland Straits, where she was frozen in the whole of last winter. The crew suffered great privations, and one-half of them died h'om cold and scurvy. The Alert left Peterhead last summer, not intending to winter in the north; but after several unsuccessful attempts to get out of the Gulf, was obliged to put back and bear up for Kitterton Island. Here the sufferings of the crew during a long Arctic winter were such as cannot be described. Unexpectedly detained in that dark and desolate region, and unprovided with the comforts necessary for subsistence in the intense frost which prevailed, one after another of the crew succumbed to the combined effects of cold and scurvy, until the half of the crew (ten) were dead, leaving only other ten, much enteebled by disease. unable to bring the vessel home themselves, tlie captains of the Alibi and Arctic, of Aberdeen, generously sent two boats' crews on board of the Alert to assist the remainder of her crew dome. " I am told," says a writer of gossip in the '■' Illustrated London News," "on authority which [ hold reliable, that a publishing firm has engaged i well-known author, whose ' sensation \ novel was the great success of last year, to write for :hem, 'at his leisure,' a novel for which he is to de paid .£5000." The author indicated is Mr VVilkie Collins, and for his sake we shall be glad ;o hear that this highly improbable anecdote has a *emote foundation in fact. We have to announce the sudden death of Sir lames Graham, who expired at an early hour yes;erday morning (October 25), at Netherby, the amily seat in Cumberland, from disease of the leart. Sir James has been in failing health for ;ome years, but so sudden a termination of his llness was not expected. Sir James's faculties vere bright and unimpaired to the last, and he lied expressing the utmost resignation. He was )f the same age and standing as Earl Russell—the rear of his birth being 1792.