ENGLISH MAIL NEWS.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 5020, 30 May 1889, Page 3

ENGLISH MAIL NEWS.

LONDON HOSPITALS. At a mass meeting in furtherance of the proposed penny a week collection in aid of the London Hospitals the Lord Mayor insisted on the great necessity there was for contributions ’in support of'the Hospitals. Leaving out St. Bartholomew’s and St. Thomas’ Hospitals—the one having ample endowment and the other being a royal hospital—there were provided within the metropolitan hospitals 9,480 beds. Last year 6,483 beds only wero filled, leaving 2,637 beds unoccupied, simply because the managers had not sufficient funds to enable them to bear the expense of (filling Jibe beds. At Quy’s Hospital—a South London institution - 600 beds- were provided, but only 410 could bo occupied from this cause. Making allowance for the beds which must be kept vacant ready for accidents and other emergencies, he calculated that that there was a balance of 200 beds, which could bo filled were funds sufficient. The average cost of each bed was something like £1 per week, which came to this : that £104,000 more was wanted (every year in order to fill the unoccupied beds. He believed that the middle and lees wealthy classes were sincerely desirous of contributing towards the hospitals, so after careful consideration it had been decided that the best form of obtaining a systematic, regular, and permanent contribution to the hospitals was by a penny a week collection in shops, workshops/factories, warehouses, and every other centre of industry. A BEATS ENGLISHMAN. A correspondent of the Exchange Telegraph Company gives detaits of a despera'e fight recently between two Englishmen (brothers) named Williams, whe had gone up the Missouri on a hunting expedition, and a party of Indians. The encounter took place while the Englishmen wero trapping bears. Their assailants first seized the traps and then surrounded the cabin occupied by the hunters. Their first volley killed one of the brothers (Tom Williams) whereupon the other, taking his brother’s revolver, faced the Indians, 15 in number, with a revolver in each hand. With every discharge an Indian fell, and when the number of the savages was reduced to five panic seized them and they fled, leaving the surviving brother wounded and almost disabled. Notwithstanding his condition the hunter buried his brother’s body, and managed to reach Fort Stevenson on floating ico drifting down the Missouri. ‘ A FATHER'S SACRIFICE.

Mr Moore, a surgeon who resided near Uxbridge, recently lost his life in a vain attempt to save that of his little sou. Mr Moore’s child, six years of age, was attacked by that dreadful disease, diphtheria, a short time ago, and it proved so virulent that it became necessary to have the operation of tracheotomy performed. The artificial passage into the throat thus created became in the end blocked, so that the life of the child could not be prolonged without clearing it, and that can only be done by some one sucking out the contents of the tube. It will be remembered that some time ago a young doctor heroically risked his life and lost it at one of our hospitals in his effort to save the life of a patient in Ibis way. Mr Moore was equally unfortunate. More than once the devoted father sucked the fatal tube, and sad to say both he and his son now lie in the same grave. A NAQBOW ESCAPE. The story told by the captain of a Norwegian barque, the Irna, of the wonderful escape of some of his crew, will to many people seem almost incredible, i Similar incidents, however, have been reported before ; si ill, they are sufficiently astonishing. When the Irna was in the North Sea a mighty wave came sweeping towards her. It swept over her whole length, carrying with it the deck cargo, which consisted of timber, and also a largo portion of the vessel’s bulwarks. This was not all, however. With the wave also went overboard three of the crew, who were lost sight of in the ocean for a considerable time, and whom their companions never expected to see again. Their surprise can be judged when they saw the three safe and sound in the rigging, into which another wave or the return wash of the same one had borne them. TECHNICAL EDUCATION. Speaking in support of a movement to provide technical and recreative institutes for North London, the Marquis of Hartington said It was now pretty generally known that the main aim and object of education was to fit those who received it for their future duties and labours in life. The existing system of education in primary and mainly in secondary schools was one that might be well calculated to fit a young man entering life for the position of a clerk or accountant, or almost any class of literary labour, but it did very little, if anything at oil, to fit a young man for entrance into that numerous class of occupations which were not purely of a literary character. Unless some considerable change was introduced soon into the course of primary and secondary education the system would be enormously over supplving the clerical or literary branch of labour, and doing little or nothing to supply the demand for a more trained intelligence in the other branches of industry.

ETTSSO-AFGHAN FRONTIER. A despatch from Yinnea says that travellers who have arrived at Constantinople from Bokhara state that Russian military movements on a large scale have been latterly taking place on the Afghan frontier, the number of Russian troops in the Kerki region being estimated at 60,000. It is also stated that the road from Herat to the Persian province of Khorassan is already open to Russia, and that the Persian trade to Turkestan and the Caucasus is no longer impeded by duties or restrictions of any kind. GENERAL BOULANGER’S TRIAL. A Paris message of April 14lh says that while the charge of an attempt against the safety of the btate contained in the preliminary indictment against General Boulanger may break down, there is another, concerning which proof will undoubtedly bo forthcoming. I allude to the receiving of foreign money to carry out his purpose. The material charge, if sifted, will be that, while acting as the representative of the French Government at the Centennial fetes in America, the first step was made on the road along which the General has latterly gone so far. ° The sum subscribed in all amounted—if I am to believe a good authority—to £66,000. Since then further aid has been given on a sliding scale, as Boulangism has gone up or down in the market. The Boulangist " syndicate ” is partly in London and partly in New York.

ITALY AND ABYSSINIA. I A despatch from Home dated April 16th says The Italian Government has definitely decided to take no further action in Abyssinia This decision was undoubtedly come to under the conviction that public opinion was opposed to any further extension of Italy’s responsibilities in that region, indeed, it is not impossible that the Government may, and at no distant date, withdraw the Italian troops from Massowah. ENGLISH YOGS. A fog in the country, says a London paper, is at all events clean.' In a city like London, where the factories have been for the most nart banished to the outskirts, a fog is not lethal, but merely dirty. It can suddenly convert day into night, simply because of the existence of the smoke nuisance, which was so vigorously attacked by the peers yesterday. But in a city like Glasgow, where you have chemical works and blast furnaces actually within the town itself, a fog is not only dirty but poisonous; and again we say it is so because it works in league with (he smoke nuisance. The black particles aud poisonous fumes emitted from domestic and factory chimneys get entangled in the " fibres ’ of the fog, and render all fogs deadly in manufacturing towns. In London, however, the smoke nuisance merely converts a mist into a black pall spread between us and the sun. It has been said that the eolidjstuff which settles down on London from its smoko every day, would, it heaped up, raise a highly respectable pyramid. HABD TIMES IN ITALY. On April l lth correspondent at Rome report!! : C9«timw tp reach here from

the provinces, giving heartrending accounts of the misery existing almost everywhere is consequence of the economic crisis. Failures are reported daily, with the result that labour is diminished and suffering greatly increased. In Borne also the industrial situation is most unsatisfactory. This morning a meeting of the unemployed was held in the district known as tho Prati de Costello, to ventilate tho grievances and needs of the workless. Tho police were present in large force, but no disturbance occurred. Some hundreds, if no thousands, of unemployed workmen have lately been sent back to their homes by the authorities, but notwithstandiug this, the number of men entirely workless seems to increase daily. At present the situation is merely very serious ; it may, however, easily become dangerous.