GENERAL ITEMS,

Otago Witness, Issue 1874, 21 October 1887, Page 15

GENERAL ITEMS,

Greenway Smith and Greenway's Bank at Warwick failed on September 5. The bank had been established for a century, and had the highest reputation for soundness. It is feared the failure will cause widespread ruin. The Staffordshire Joint Stock Bank will take the business of the failed bank, which will go into liquidation. , On September 18. Maurice Bernhardt, son of the actress, badly, maltreated and wounded a Parisian journalist named Alexis, who had orifcicised his mother's acting. , At the military banquet at .Toulouse on September 13, General Beart declared that France | now knew her strength,, and she was ready and waiting to avenge her wrongs. M. Cales, member of, the Chamber of Deputies, followed in the same strain. The speeches exoite comment, and ; the Paris papers are endeavouring to soften their effect. , The . Comte de Paris, in his manifesto issued on the 13th September, approves of the recent

action of the Royalists in the Chamber, but experience gives small ground to hope for a peaceful transition from Republican to Monarchical control, which he is satisfied is desired by France. The Count promises to reduce the military* burdens, to shelter the army from political influence, to restore religious liberty, to remove the weakness of the working classes, and to retain all liberties secured under the Republic. It is said that the Count was induced to issue the manifesto by his wife. It has fallen flat, except as a subject to be ridiculed, even by the Paris correspondent of the London Times, who is said to be a strong partisan of the Comte. The Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria has conferred upon M. Pasteur the decoration of the Order of the Iron Crown, with the title of. Baron. The Australian Consul at Bombay reports that 31,328 deaths from cholera have occurred in Oude since last May. The cholera, according to despatches of September 18, was, making frightful ravages in Messina and Rome. Death in many cases ensued an hour after the attack. Thirty thousand people have fled from Messina, and business is suspended. The disease is ravaging Catania aud the entire environs of Naples. There were seven new cases and four deaths in Rome on September 18 ; in Palermo, eight cases and five deaths.