NEWS BY THE MAIL.

Otago Witness, Issue 1630, 26 August 1871, Page 11

NEWS BY THE MAIL.

An Italian-English newspaper has boen started in London. Upwards of 12,000 men are now idle through the strike in South Wales. Sir Stafford .Northeote was offered, but declined, a peerage. British Columbia was to be formally united with Canada on the 20 th .Tuly. The last accounts state that Mr Spurgeon's health is improving. A Bill is before Parliament for the construction of street tramways in Edinburgh. Immeuse^ortitications are to be constructed at Strasburg. Miss Rye has taken 113 more children to Canada. They are all girls. A large amount of damage has been caused by freshets in the Wye and Severn. All the members of the Commune will be tried together. The hop harvest in Kent, it is feared, will be a poor one this year, A Gorman naval station is being formed at Wilhelinshaven. Mr Walter Montgomery has arrived in England from America. The harvest prospects in France are very unfavourable. The Lord Mayor of Dublin has died of i typhus fever. An innkeeper at Burton hanged himself lately because his wife had given change for i a forged £3 note. According to the Bishop of Manchester, the servants' " Sunday out " is one of the ! most fruitful sources of immorality. Payable quartz reefs and alluvial gold diggings are reported to have been discovered on the Limpopo Paver, South Africa. The Triennial Handel Festival has proved a greater success this year than in any previous year. The International Working Men's Association has issued a manifesto, accepting the responsibility of the burning of Paris. It is stated that the French police have received nearly -100,000 anonymous denunciations of alleged Communists. AMunich telegram announces the betrothal of the King of Bavaria to the Princess Marie of .Russia. Unwarned by past disasters, the population of Paris are said to be as gay and immoral as ever. It is said that Germany, Russia, and Austria have entered into a treaty to preserve the peace of Europe. The statement that the Marquis of Bute was about to marry Mi&s Fox is contradicted. The authorship of " The Coming Race is commonly attributed to Mr Laurence Oliphant. The new daily paper to be established in London will, it is said, be a Conservative rival to the Echo. The crops in India this year are reported to be the heaviest known for 2S years. Robert Hoiulin, the celebrated conjuror, has died at Gervais, near Blois, France, aged G5. The Gazette de France says that Marshal M'Mahon has reconsidered his decision to resign the command of the army. A feartul earthquake has taken place in China. By the fall of buildings, 229S jjeoi^le were killed. Eleven cases of suicide, and three of homicide, were registered in London in a single week. The Empress Eugenic is in treaty for the sale of her diamonds, which are valued at £320,000. j It has been decided to fix the active furce of the French army at 320,000, and a reserve of 900,000. The area under cotton in the United j States this year is 1,330,000 acres less than last year. Advices from Buenos Ayres say the epidemic has terminated. A day of thanksgiving was set apart at llio. The Xorth German Gazette sharply reproves the Catholic Bishops of Germany for their encroachments on the Civil Power. It is thought that the French Legitimists have dissolved, and the majority will join the Republicans. The American giant and giantess have been married in London. Miss Melly, the " two-headed nightingale," was bridesmaid. Sir John Pakington has accepted the office of President of the Social Science Congress to be held at Leeds in October. Nearly all the missing pieces of the Colonne Vendome have been recovered. It is thought the column can be exactly restored. At the request of the Volunteers themselves, Colonel the Hon. W. Colville has undertaken the command of the Wimbledon Camp this year. It is rumoured that the Duke of Sutherland, Mr John Pendor, and Mr Fowler, O. E. , are about to purchase the Suez Canal for £6,000,000. Its cost was £22,000,000. According to the Times' Paris correspondent, the number of Communists killed, wounded, and captured, is roughly estimated at 100,000. An unsuccessful attempt lias been made to assassinate the Prince of Servia by throwing a bomb at the carriage in which he was riding. Hundreds of shops are to let in Paris. The cab and omnibus horses are the veriest

scare-crows, all the fat onea having beejl eaten. The Princess of Wales has resumed the practical study of art, under the direction of Mr Cave Thomas. It is reported that, at a riot in Vienna, the Socialists attacked the Ultramontanea, The police were powerless, and the military were used to suppress the disturbance. The report that Count Moltke was to he present at the great military encampment at Aldershot next month, is said to be without foundation, At the Upper Forest Tin Works, near Swansea, has been rolled the thinnest sheet of iron ever produced. It requires 4800 such to make an inch in thickness. A subterranean fire is known to be raging in Sheffield, and fears are entertained that it is an old colliery which extends to the very centre of the town. The Royal Commission on Coal have ascertained that, assuming a certain annual increase in the rate of consumption, sufficient economically gettable coal exists in Great Britain and Ireland to last from 800 to 1000 years. The motion in the House of Commons fin favour of a royal residence in Ireland is to be withdrawn, on the ground of the moment being inopportune fordiscussing the question. There is great distress in Paris. People are applying for parish relief. It is calculated that there are 240,000 creatures of charity. Labour is scarce, and there is uneasiness relative to overdue rent. The Sheffield express train on the North Midland Railroad collided with a freight train near Chester Station on July 19th. Two passengers were killed outright, and 30 are reported injured, some fatally. One of the [Siamese twins is lying at the point of death, at then* home in North Carolina, The other is in good health. In anticipation of death, arrangements have been made for the immediate separation of the living from the dead brother. The gown which the Archbishop of Paris wore at his execution has been cut into small pieces, and distributed amongst the Parisian clergy. The principal part has been deposited in Xotre Dame, where there are also relics of Archbishops Afire and Sibour. The jury in the Tichbomc case privately informed the Judge that they were convinced that the plaintiff was an impostor, and that they were ready to give a verdict to that effect, without hearing a single witness for the defence. The Judge refused to give his consent, and the trial will proceed. The census taken at midnight on Sunday, April 3rd, 1871, throughout Great Britain, has just been officially announced. The entire population of England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and Isle of Man, including the army, navy, and merchant marine abroad, is.- Males, 15,549,271 ; females, 11>,267,537: total, 31,009,910. The preponderance of females over males is 715,5(35. The unexpected strength develi>ped by the Republicans in the provinces of France discourages the partisans of Monarchy. The failure of the Imperial interest surprises nobody, but the weakness of the Legitimises produces a sensation. It is feared the Assembly will be more divided than ever, and that it will be impossible to obtain a compact working majority, or to determine which party has the balance of power. A correspondent of the Daily News in Paris gives an account of a visit he has just paid to the Faubourg St. Antoine, the great industrial district of Paris, with the view of forming some idea of the state of opinion among the working men there. In the first workshop he visited the men were all partizans of the Commune, and the "patron" believed that every one had been fighting f< r it. They were strongly opposed to the piesent Government, but showed even mere antipathy to a Bonapartist restoration. Several of the men asked eagerly about emigration to the United States. In three or fov.r more workshops which the correspondent visited he found the same feeling existing. All chance of a rising in the Faubourg St. Antoiue seemed at an end, but the sense of defeat still rankled in the minds of the working classes. A special despatch to the New York Herald, from Berlin, June 23, s.iys : "Serious complications have arisen between Germany and England, and sever.il despatches are passing between Bismarck and Granville. The Government observes an impenetrable silence on the subject of the present difficulty, but 1 am informcl that Bismarck has addressed a note to the German Representatives in London, informing them that the Imperial Government desired to acquire Heligoland, and empowering him to make propositions to the British Government for the purchase of the island. Earl Granville replied in the same manner, saying that England will not part with Heligoland, and that the British Government could entertain no propositions looking to the cession of that island ; upon which Bismarck again addressed the British Government, through Count Bernstorff, declaring that the acquisition of Heligoland was necessary for the protection of the German coast, citing as an instance the facilities for coaling and immunity from attack which the French fleet enjoyed at Heligoland, by which it was enabled to blockade Hamburg and paralyse the commerce of the German coast. He looked upon Heligoland, on account of its close proximity, as German territory, and its possession by any foreign Power as a standing menace to Germany. Earl Granville again replied that England was only bound to consider her own interest ; that the wish of the German Power to acquire Heligoland did not constitute her right to it, as the island had never been under German rule."