NEWS BY THE MAIL.

Thames Star, Volume IX, Issue 3051, 25 November 1878, Page 1

NEWS BY THE MAIL.

(FBOM THE HOME NEWi.)

* A memorial has just been presented by the Church of England Working Men's Society to the Archbishop of Canterbury upon the subject of th.c marriage of divorced persons, and his grace has replied to the memorial. The memorial was as follows :—" Whereas by the Word of God 'whosoever putteth away his wife-and marrieth another committeth adultery,' and that the law qf the Church in her times of greatest laxity never sanctioned the re-marriage of a criminated person in a divorce, we, your petitioners, humbly pray that yoar lordship will take .such action as may be necessary in order to move the clergy in your diocese personally to refuse to say the service of holy matrimony, and also to refuse to allow it to be said by others, in ■ cases where both or either of the parties are divorced persons. Your petitioners also humbly pray that your lordship will refuse to assist in the contraction of such marriages by refusing the issue of licences by surrogates for such celebrations." To this memorial the Archbishop of Canterbury has replied as follows:—" I beg leave to. acknowledge the receipt of the petition which yon have forwarded me on behalf of the Church of England Working Men's Society. It appears to me that a part at least of your petition virtually calls for a repeal of the Act of Parliament 20 and 21 Vie, cap. 85, sec. 58. Your proper course*, therefore, ' with respect to this part of your memorial will be to petition Parliament for the repeal or alteration of the Act. With regard to the other pointy in your memorial not having reference' to i patters prescribed by Act of Parliament, I shall not fail to give serious consideration to your wishes, and will again, as I have already done, consult thereon with the officers of. my ecclesiastical courts.— A. C. Cantuab."

' A terrible crime was committed' in Bradford on' Sept. 28. A grocer named John Smith li?es in Westgrove street, next door to a married couple named Owston, who had a .family of four children. The Owstons had lately lived Tory unhappily in consequence of the wife's intemperance and extravagance. She was in the habit of obtaining drink at Smith's, and her husband was jealous of the intimacy. Owston armed himself with, a large knife used for cutting carpets, and attacked his wife with it, inflicting a fatal gash in her throat. He then burst into Smith's shop through the window, seized Smith, and cut his face terribly. A man grapple with Owston and enabled Smith to get. But for this Smith would certainly have been killed. • Owston then cut his own throat, but the wound : was not fatal. The jnurderer was apprehended in the kitchen of his own house, where his wife's dead body lay. He wrote a confession there and then, stating that he had committed the crime through jealousy, as he believed Smith and his wife intended to run away together. It is thought probable that both the wounded men- will recover from their injuries.' A paragraph which is running the Vound of the newspapers informed us a few days since that the JPope, having jtaken into his consideration the English occupation of Cyprus and the sad condition of the members of the " Catholic " [Church in that island, has, through Cardinal Howard,, requested the Duke of (Norfolk and the Earl of Denbigh to apply jto the British Government for "protection and assistance, if need be," to certain missionaries whom he is about to send thither for the promotion of " religion and education/ The Romanists of Cyprus are very few in number, the majority of the inhabitants belonging to the Greek Church, and the remainder being mostly Mahomedans. It is possible that since Cyprus came into British hands the number of Romanists may have considerably increased through the influx of Maltese and other adventurers. These, however, cannot have been specially in the Pope's mind when he spoke of the sufferings of times past. But whatever may be the number of Cypriote Romanists, it is noteworthy that the Pope and the Romish Church made no particular exertion in their behalf and showed no sympathy with .them in their afflictions during their long' period of oppression under Moslem rule, but that suddenly, on the transference of the island from Turkish to British government, sympathy and pious zeal Are called forth and demonstrated. Carl yon Gebler, a young historian of sreat promise, died during the early days of this month at Gratz, in Styria. Although only twenty-seven years of age he had already achieved a great reputation by his work on "Galileo Galilei and the Roman Curia," which attracted the attention of students and critics all over Europe. People could believe that an author who showed such learning, courage, and judgment was only a lieutenant of Austrians. His industry and love of truth were equal to his ability, and although laboring under an affection of the chest he spent a whole summer in Rome, in order to make himself thoroughly acquainted, with everything connected with the proceedings against the' Florentine physicist. The results of his investigations were given to the world in the first complete edition of the " Original Acts of the Trial of Galilei." -But his labour in connection with this work gave the finishing stroke to his health. His early death is to be greatly regretted, for it is known that on more than one subject he had made studies which would some day have borne fruit. For the last twelvemonth he was engaged in examining documents connected with the history and trial of Joan of Arc, and he proposed writing an exhaustive work on this theme.

A sad accident occurred, lately at the Gymnasium itt Prague. Professor Fischer was found poisoned in'the physical laboratory. He was only twenty-flye years of age, but a person of the greatest

promise, by reason of his great abilities and industry, and his devotion to chemistry. All the circumstances connected with him exclude the suspicion of suicide. Air that is known of the catastrophe is that, being in the laboratory, he sent a servant to the storekeeper for some salammoniac and some cyanide of potassium. He mixed them and tasted the mixture, saying to the servant, " Science has advanced so far as even to be able to render harmless so dangerous an agent as cyanide of potassium." But he had scarcely tasted the mixture when he was seized with violent pains. He at once told the servant to fetch a physician, but but before he came Dr. Fischer, was beyond human aid. He was known to entertain the persuasion that cyanide of potassium could be rendered harmless, and the problem of how to accomplish this was a frequent object of his meditations. A memorandum on this theme was found among his papers. Doubtless he fell a victim to a rash experiment.