THE SAN FRANCISCO MAIL.

Otago Witness, Issue 2260, 24 June 1897, Page 38

THE SAN FRANCISCO MAIL.

GENERAL NEWS. Colonel John Hay, the newly - appointed Ambassador to the Court of St. James from the United States, received on unusual distinction on May 30 while presenting his credentials to her Majesty at Windsor Castle. A Royal carriage conveyed him and his wife from their residence to Paddington station, and also from Windsor station to the casUe, where luncheon was served. The Marquis of Saliabuiy j and Sir William James Colville accompanied | the Ambassador, whose audience with the Queen ! was brief and formal. Mrs Hay was presented to the Queen by the Countess of Errol, lady-in-waiting. Colonel and Mrs Hay remained three ; hours at Windsor Castle, returning to the j Windsor station in a Royal carriage, and they , were also met at Paddington station by a Royal i carriage, which conveyed them to their reei- J dence. If Colonel Hay makes no objection, Mr Whitelaw Reid will bd the Special Ambassador i of the United States at the ceremonies attend- ; iug Queen Victoria's Jubilee. j The British and Germau Courts are agitated, i according to a Londou despatch of May 1, over ! a scandal in the family of the Duke of Saxe- ' Coburg-Gotha (the Duke of Edinburgh), The second daughter of the duke, the Princess Vie- '• toria Melita, refuses to live with nor husband, , Ernest Louis, Grand Duka oE Hesse, to whom j she was married ou April 19, 1894, in the presence of Emperor William and Qaeen Victoria, • at Coburg, and remains wiLh her sister, Princess Mario Alexandria Victoria, wife of Prince ' Ferdinand .of Roumania, at Bucharest. . The ' Coburg?, Queen Victoria, and others all take , the part ot the husband, who is now staying with the Coburgs at Gotha. j To avoid probable demonatrations Oscar j Wilde, who on May 25, 1895, was sentenced to ; two years' imprisonment at hard labour for ; immoral practices, was not released from Reading Gaol, where he has served out his sentence, ■ but was transferred on May 1 to Holloway : Prison, London, under a special arrangement made by the Home Secretary. He was ' liberated at 9 a.m. on May 19. Contrary to ' expectation, there were no friends to meet him either at Reading or at Holloway. The prison | fare seems to have suited him, as he weighs ; quite 141b more than when he entered gaol. Wilde has gone to the Huburbs of London tor a : few weeks' rest, after which he will resume his literary work. He may go to France or Italy for a few month 3, but «ayß his present expecta- ' tion is to "return to London at no distant date. ] It has been discovered by a Japanese correspondent at Bangkok that the King of. ' Siam is going to England to solicit protection ; for his country, his view being that England is ' now his sole reliance against spoliation. The | King, it is said, is particularly fearful of French interference, and it is reported that he has turned to Japan and China for aid, and has met with rebuffs. France has been a. terror to him during many years, and at length the King realises that unless Great Britain comes to his rescue the downfall of his independents j sovereignty o»nnot be long delayed. . Queen Victoria did a graceful act on Thurs- , day, May 6, that delighted Mr and Mrs : Gladstone. She summoned them and their granddaughter, Dorothy Drew, to Windsor Castle. Her Majesty wanted to see the child who figured to prominently in Mr Gladstone's private life. Miss Drew had luncheon and a pleasant interview with the Queeu, and after- . wards returned to Londou. She was accom- i panied by her mother, and travelled with the Princess Louise. On Monday, May 10« the Prince and Princess of Wales, and Princess Charles of Denmark (P*inces3 Maud of Wales), who had been spending the Sunday with the Duke of Westminster at Edem Hall, Chester, drove to Hawarden and lunched with Mr and Mrs Gladstone. Each member of the Royal Family planted a tree at Hawarden as a memorial of the occasion. i Mr John W. Foster, who goes to England aa& representative of the United States to see what arrangements can be made to preserve the seals in Hawaiian waters, arrived at Southampton on May 26 ' The Marchioness of Mariborough (nee Vandorbilt) has refused to subscribe to the hospital fund that is being raised by Americans residing in England on tho occasion of the Queea'a Jubilee, on the ground that she is no longer a citizen of the United States. Mark Twain is in London and working hard on nig new book. Mr H. M. Chamberlain, of Denver, U.S.A., • wav killed while bicycling near Staines, ' England. He was a prominent American i politician. The Rev. J. O. Deaning, American mifisionary »fc Narsinghpur, India, has written to' Lord Radstock, secretary for the Christian succour in that country, to the f-ffocfc that tho famine fund has been maladministered owing' to incompetency. When General Horaca Porter, tho United ' States Ambassador to Francs, presented his credentials on May 26 at the Elysea Palace, I the Director of the Protocol insisted that he must make his address in French, and General Porter was obliged to submit. He knew tlie language quite well, as ib happened. A young artisan was arrested on May 26 in & port in Tsarskoa-Selo, 17 miles from St. Petersburg, where he had secreted himself for the purpose of assassinating the Czar. He had a dagger and revolver in his possession. The London Star is flooding that metropolis with startling placards announcing coming articles on the Standard Oil Trust, and says : — "The Paris horrors are surpassed. Men, women, and children here are roasted alive in order to put money into the pockets of the American trust. Rockefeller has obtained absolute control of the oil trade of Great Britain by forcing retailers to sell the refuse oils prohibited in America, and is responsible for the terrible aeries of lamp explosions." The Star urges the Government to legislate in the matter. Sir Robert Peel, it is announced, is to be married to a daughter of Baron Graffendeio, of Switzerland. There has been no communication from the British Government to the Washington authorities concerning Hawaii, and the report emanating from Japan that Great Britain had expressed disapproval of Hawaiian annexation to the United States is denied by the officials. In the House of Commons, the president of the Board of Trade, Mr C. T. Ritchie, replying to Sir Howard Vincent (Conservative and Freetrader), said the Government were not prepared to compel companies applying for new railway charters to buy their equipments in the United Kingdom. In the case of the Waterloo City railway, Mr Ritchie added : " Twenty-two cars had been ordered in America because out of the seven English firms tendering for the work not one was able to deliver the stock in the time required by the railway company." Prince Francis Joseph of Battenberg and Princess Anne of Montenegro were married at Cebtinje. In tho House of Commons, on May 13, a bill

to prevent the importation of goods manufactured in foreign prisons passed ft second raading. The Sultan has proposed to send his son, Mehemmed-Selim Eil'endi, to represent him at the Jubilee. If his Majesty carries out his intention, it is more than likely that there will be some exciting scenes during the procession through the streets of London. The Liberal newspapers are furious at the reply of the Marquis of Salisbury to the request from Washington for a, re-inquiry into the Behring Sea fisheries dispute — viz , that ho is not favourable. . He objects on the ground of the expenses. The new Irish organisation ia spreading rapidly. A despatch of May 1 says that Cork, Waterford, Kilkenny, and Wioklow have already started branches, and an active policy on the pecuniary question will ba immediately started in the House of Commons by the Parnellites, who intend to resist every vote of supply, on the ground that Ireland is paying more than her share. A special telegram from Johannesburg, Transvaal, published ia London on May 20, ia to tha effect that a gentleman who has been a resident of South Africa for & score of years claims to ba the younger brother of the late Duke ot Hamilton, who died on May 16, 1895, and therefore to be heir to the dukedom. He alleges that he lof fc Scotland in 1875, after killing a man in'a duel, and was supposed to have died shortly after- ■ ward*. He is said to have convincing proofs of his allegations, and expects to return to England and claim the title and the estates. The dukedom of Hamilton is unexampled, in the peerage of any country for the extent and diversity of its titles. The condition of the London money market for May, compared ,-with April, shows that money is plentiful, and that' there is little progpect of a change. The Stock Exchange hag greatly improved in tone now that it ia seen that Europe it not likely to be plunged into » war. The southern provinces of Spain are represented to be in a most deplorable condition owing to the failure of tbe crops from prolonged drought, and as a consequence of this, coupled with the effort! of the collectors to gather the last peseta from starving people in taxes, which since tbe outbreak of the Cuban trouble have been intolerable in amount, agricultural labourers have been driven to something very like a rebellion. Bands of desperate man are scouring the country-side committing all kinds of excesses. The Ootroi Buildings, where the taxes are collected upon produce coming into towns, have been sucked, farms pillaged and bnrned, shops looted, and yet the Government cannot -spare soldiers to suppress the brigands or money to succour the starving people. Hundreds, in fact, have died of starvation, yet the authorities appear to see no cause foe shame.