SAN FRANCISCO MAIL.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5714, 6 November 1896, Page 1

SAN FRANCISCO MAIL.

GENEBAL SUMMAEY. (Per B.M.S Mariposa at Auckland.)

During the year 1895, according to the Board of Trade's report, 1024 persons were killed by railway accidents in England, 83 of whom were passengers.

Thb Lpndon Times, Oct. 12, expresses the belief that the rival claims of Sir W. V. Harcourt and Mr Asquith for the position of the leadership of the Liberal Party will compel the re-call of Mr Gladstone to try to unite the party.

A new expedition on novel lines '■was organised at Glasgow on Sept. 26 itnder the leadership of Maurice, an explorer. The purpose is to determine, by special means, the exact location of the North Pole. It will start north in May, 1897. Professor A. A. Andree will start again on his Arctic balloon trip ia July, 1897.

• A fire occurred in the People's Palace Tariety Theatre, Hamburg, on Sept. 30, during a performance, causing a panic, during which several persons were crushed to death, and a number seriously injured. The building was completely destroyed.

Amongst the things suggested for eele 7 brating, in June next, the completion of sixty years of Queen Victoria's reign, is a special review of colonial and other forces in Hyde Park.

In a speech at Leven, on Oct. 2, Mr H. Asquith, Secretary of State for the Home Department under Lord Eosebery's Ad^ ministration, said that when he left office in June, 1895, no medical reasons existed for releasing the Irish dynamiters. If the Liberal Party had released these men, and a new plot had been /discovered so qtiickly, there would have been a universal roar of incredulity and indignation. Eegarding Armenia, lie urged that coercion should be used, and that the Sultan should be removed; but he admitted that force employed by England would not be safe without the co-operation of Bussia.

Alderman George I\ Phillips, sheriff of the County of London, and brother-in-law of Sir Edward Lawson, the principal proprietor of the Daily Telegraph, was elected 1 Lord Mayor on Sept. 29, to succeed Sir Walter Wilkin.

A terrific gale swept the city of London and the British coast on Sept. 23 and 24. Trees in the London pai'ks were levelled, and great damage was wrought among coast and fishing craft. The loss of life was slight. The Red Star steamship Rhynland, at Queenstown, from Philadelphia, was swept fore and aft by heavy seas, and the mail-boat running between Dover and Calais was badly damaged.

Ik a collision between an express and .an excursion train on Sept. 21, at the March Cambridgeshire Station, Great Eastern Railway, seventeen persons were seriously injured. The foundations of a new Roman Catholic Cathedral at Westminster, the dearest project of Cardinal Vaughan, have been completed. Forty - two prominent Roman Catholics subscribed .£IOOO each towards the erection of the sacred edifice.

London is now well into' the autiimn fever visitation. There are 41.75 patients in the hospitals, of whom 3649 are 'suffering from scarlet fever.

The Chicago wheat pit was a scene of mild excitement on Oct. 1, the market advancing to a point 2^ cents above the final figures of the clay before. The advance was not all held, some of the big holders dumping to make a present dollar. The reason for the " bulge " can be told in two words — foreign news. It was not the higher price quoted at Liverpool and on the Continent, but reports of wheat engagements for shipment to India from Liverpool, hitherto an unheard-of transaction. Reports of similar engagements from San Francisco lent force to the statement that the Indian crop was a failure. The close showed substantial advances all round. , A fleet of ships arrived at San Francisco during the first week in October to load wheat for Europe.