SAN FRANCISCO MAIL.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XVI, Issue 5574, 20 September 1889, Page 2

SAN FRANCISCO MAIL.

The British steamer Thordisa, while loading crude petroleum at Gibson's Point, Baltimore, on June 2Gth, caught fire from a light in the engine room, and the vessel and cargo were consumed. The oil was being shipped to France. Ifc was valued afc £3000, and the vessel at £20,000. By the burning of a portion of a flat on Seventh Avenue and SevenCy-eight-streefc New York, on August 19th, some ten or twelve peoplo lost their lives. The place was a regular death-trap, and a restaurant- keeper named Snyder was arrested for setting it on fire to get the insurance. A posse started over from Ashland, Wisconsin, on August; 19th, in pursuit of a ruffian who had laid an intoxicated companion across a railroad track, and in this position he was cub in pieces by a passing train. Lynching was the purpose of the pursuit. The engagement is announced of Miss Huntington, daughter of Collas P. Huntington, one of the ''big four" railroad magnates of California, to Prince Hatzfeldt, cousin of the German ambassador ii London. It is estimated thafc fche Prince's debts amounts fco 4,000,000 francs. Five hundred news boys struck in New York on August 12th against increased rates by the Evening Sun and Evening World. Tliey won tlieir fight finally, the papers acceding to their terms. The Rio Grande Western train, known as the '' Modoc " was held up on the Bth August by train robbers. They got 900 dollars from passengers and about 20 watches, bufc were unable to op t >n the express car, where the messenger lay with a magazine shot-gun and two revolvers. Willian Bowen, from Australia, aud more recently from Victoria, British Columbia, committ-fced suicide dy drowning in San Francisco on August Ist. He lost all his money on his trip to British Columbia, and on his return to San Francisco took his own life in the manner mentioned. Tho hop crop iv New York State is said to be almost an entire failure. A fearful hailstorm occurred in Oalflax County, New Mexico. Stones of immense size fell, killing 2000 out of a flock of 3000 slieep. A railroad excursion train was wrecked on the Knoxville, Cumberland Gap, and Louisville railroad, 23 miles from Knoxville, Tennessee, on August 22nd, by which three leading citizens of Knoxville were killed and fourteen badly injured. The excursionists embraced the chief business and professional men of the city. A formidable rivalry has been started to the Standard oil trust in Pittsburg. Several large capitalists have built immense refineries at San Diego, California, where oil transported from Pittsburg will be refined and shipped thence to Australia, China, Japan, India, the Pacific Islands, and other points in the Pacific Ocean. Captain Dias Troyers, 39 years old, a jeweller by trade, but who had been a sailor, conceived the idea of sailing across the Atlantic from Boston to Paris in a dingy 14ft long and oft wide, and drawing 22in. He wanted to see the Exposition, and sailed away alone from Boston on July 3rd. He was brought back on the 23rd by the schooner Martha A. Bradley, from the banks of Newfoundland, in a most deplorable condition, blind and nearly insane. Mr Balfour's Prison Bill passed the House of Commons on August 23rd after a heated debate, by a vote of 113 to 09. Fierce attacks were made on the Secretary for Ireland by Messrs Sexton, Parnell, and Blame. Slavin, the Australian heavy-weight, deposited on August 12th LIOO with the Sporting Life, London, with a challenge to fight J. L. Sullivan for LIOOO and the world's championship under the London prize ring rules. Edison, the electrician, is being honored in Europe. On the loth of August the Queen despatched Colonel Oouroud to Paris to present the inventor's phonograph, into which she had spoken, warmly congratulating him. King Humbert, of Italy, has appointed the distinguished American a grand officer of the Order of the Crown of Italy. William Mackay Porter, special examiner of the Pension Bureau of Washington, is under arrest in Belfast, charged with obtaining money under false pretences. Porter attempted to borrow money from Consul-General New, on the plea that when he arrived in London the banks were closed. Since Porter's arrest a letter has been received from his wife, asking for information about him. She says he recently became insane aud escaped two weeks ago. Her Lochmann, editor of a London journal, a weekly newspaper printed in German, shot his wife and child on Aug. 19th, and then committed suicide. An exhibition of co-operative societies has been opened afc the Crystal Palace, Sydenham. The display is highly interesting, and shows marked progress in the produce of co-operative industry. A festival was given at the palace on the 17th August in connection with the exhibition. The attendance was enormous, the turnstile recording over 40,000 entries. Ross Raymond, a notorious swindler of two continents, whs arrested in London on August 20th for cashing a fictitious draft, The Earl of Dunraven has written a letter to the New York Yacht Club, regretting the recent, misunderstanding in regard to fche American Cup challenge, and expressing a wish that a race with his yacfc, The Valkyrie, may be arranged in 1890. On August 2nd the American Association paid M. W. Rouet 560,0*50 francs for Milletfc's pictures, " The Angelus," bought at the Secretan sale. A disastrous tornado visited Southern Hungary on July 28. Twenty-one mills along the Danube were destroyed, and many houses and churches. A ferry-boat at Pesth, and a circus at Iziged, all crowded with human beings, were swept away and hundreds were drowned, dead bodies being strewn in every direction. The path of fche tornado presented an awful scene of desolation. It was nearly half a mile wide, in which the dead and dying people were embedded in wreckage. Many bodies of men, women, aud children and cattle were recovered from the Danube, and on this and other rivers several tine churches were ruined. Frau Schulz, an actress unhappy in love, committed suicide on August 14 on the stage of the Fursfc Theatre, immediately on the fall of the curtain. The National Bank of Milan aud the Savings Bank of Naples advanced on Aug 19th 24,000,000 lire to two Turin banks to arrest a panic caused by the suicide of Signoi- Copello, one of the leading bankers of "the city last-named. During a public concert at Rome on Aug. 19 a bomb was exploded near the Austrian Embassy, and eight persons were injured. A terrible tragedy is reported from Buffalo. On Wednesday evening Mr L. L. Crocker, a well-known citizen, prepared to take some of his children and a lady friend for a trip in his naphtha launch. While getting the machinery in order the naphtha exploded and caught fire, and the little vessel immediately became a mass of fierce flames. Mr Crocker made frantic but unavailing efforts to save his children, and barely escaped with his life. Tliree of his little ones and an engineer were burnt to death, tlieir bodies being charred almost out of recognition. The lady w:ik dreadfully burned about the face and body, and will be crippled and disfigured for life. Despatches from Yokohama, dated 30tJ, .July, report a frightful earthquake ijj

part of the island of Kinsine. The town of Kimmamote was entirely destroyed, a large number of people perished, and an enormous amount of property was destroyed. Almost in the centre of the town a deep ravine opened and swallowed the Governor's palace and the principal Imperial offices. Hardly a house was lef c standing. Ths Governor's wife and six children are missing, and it is believed tliey were killed. It is impossible to sayhow mauy peoplo lost their lives, but the latest despatches from Nagasaki put the number at 3000. Almost the whole town, which formerly contained 38,000 inhabitants, was destroyed. Many villages in the neighborhood, with their inliabitants, entirely disappeared.