MAIL NEWS. [Per Mariposa at Auckland.]

Tuapeka Times, Volume XXV, Issue 4252, 26 June 1895, Page 5

MAIL NEWS. [Per Mariposa at Auckland.]

Viscount Hiuton, who for many years has been grinding an organ through the streets of London, is now acting as showman for a kinetoscope. A memorial is to be erected to the late Rev. Dr Dale, of Birmingham. The Dowager Duchess of Marlborough will only be received by the Queen as Lady William Beresford, so that her new husband has cost her her title. C. L. Taylor, land agent for the Marquis of Ely, was shot and killed on May 2 while standing outside the courthouse at New Ross, County Cork, by a bailiff whom he had threatened to evict from his holdings. The affair caused great excitement. A mysterious explosion took place on May 17 in a railway carriage which was just arriving at the Walworth railway station, on the London, Chatham, aud Dover road. The sole occupant of the carriage was badly injured. Near him was found a brass cylinder nine inches long. The Primitive Methodist Conference, in session at Dudley, England, expelled on May 7 the Rev. Jonathan Bell from the ministry and communion. Bell had been running a-muck in a moral sense, it is alleged/ in both Europe and the United States. On the 7th the 'Pall Mall Gazette' printed a column article, alleged to be based on police inquiries, suggesting that an exsoldier named Grainger, a native of Cork, is the real "Jack the Ripper." Grainger is now serving a ten-years' term of penal servitude for stabbing a woman in the Whitechapel district last March. The Queen returned to London from the Continent on May 3 with her daughter Beatrice and son-in-law, Prince Henry of Battenburg. The Prince, with the Duke of Orleans, went junketing in Spain, and had a narrow escape of his life at a fair in Andalusia, where he kissed a rustic beauty. Her sweetheart and several hundred of his fellow-peasauts resented it, and there was a ragular fight with knives. Had it not been for the police both Battenburg and Orleans would have been killed. As it is, the Frenchman, according to common report, is now laid up from the wounds received in the fray. The London 'Daily News' of May 11 says it is understood that an agreement has virtually been arrived at with representatives of American mines by which the export of copper from the United States during 1895 will be restricted to a certain fixed amount, which is somewhat below the exports of 1594. The dinner of the Society of Authors in London, on May 23, which was presided over by Mr Bell, manager of the London 'Times,' was a notable gathering. The ' Daily Chronicle,' commenting next day on the dinner, remarked :—": — " That there is no serious breach between the greedy author and gracious publisher was shown by the presence of a number of publishers, who, from their happy appearances, showed that there is no danger of starvation among them." An English syndicate of many members have quietly secured a site in a central part of Chicago, and intend to erect a music hall similar to the Alhambra and other music halls of London. The London ' Observer,' a paper usually accurate, is a little off in an editorial of May 2 on the retirement of Admiral Meade from the United States Navy. The article applauds the moral courage of President Cleveland in risking defeat at the polls for the sake of (out ot friendship for England) dismissing Admiral Meade, and suggest that Lord Rosbery should ask the Government at Washington to reinstate the Admiral. Such a graceful act, according to the ' Observer,' could not fail to still closer bind the two peoples. The Queen returned to Windsor Castle from London on May 9, and on May 21 she will remove the Court to Balmoral, where she will remain for a month. The Princess of Wales will hold the remaining two drawing rooms. The Princess has greatly changed, and now looks like an old woman. The Duke of Saxe Coburg Gotha is amending very many public functions, and seems specially anxious to win public favor. He is afraid of the continued growling of Radicals and others over the pension he receives from British taxpayers. John Lawrence Toole, the well-known English actor, is suffering from paralysis, and it was announced on May 9 that he would permanently retire from the stage. The editor of the ' Manchester Courier ' predicts that Chauncey Depew, the oratorical railroad magnate, will be the next United States Minister to the Court of St. James. The Princess of Wales will have two sketches in the coming amateur art exhibition. A celebrated pearl necklace was sold, according to the terms of the late Duchess of Manton's will, for the benefit of the poor of East London, and was knocked down at £11,200. Bicycle riders have been granted the privilege of Hyde Park. At a meeting of the leading City bankers and merchants held at the banking-house of Glynn, Mills, Currie, and Co. on May 28 it was decided to form a gold standard defence association, and Mr Bertram Currie, chairman of the meeting, was elected president. An address was forwarded to the Chancellor of the Exchequer signed by those present at the meeting, to which Sir William Vernon Harcourt returned a reply concluding thus : " You may rely upon it that Her Majesty's Government will give no countenance to any change in the fundamental principles of our monetary system, nor to any discussion in which they may be called upon to take part, nor will they admit any doubt as to their intention to firmly adhere to the single standard." An English syndicate has bought the Morning Star mine, with a large tract of land in Marion County, Arkansas (U.S.), for £60,000. John Burns, the labor leader, was hooted while making a speech on Labor Day in Hyde Park. " Why don't you support Keir Hardie, traitor ?" someone shouted. Burns said : "If you don't want to hear me, I'll go home." This was followed by cries of "Go home." " You're no working man." The Queen of Holland, accompanied by the Queen regent (her mother), visited Her Majesty at Windsor on May 24. It is expected that the visit will mean preliminary arrangements for the marriage of the eldest son of the Duke of Edinburgh to Holland's young queen. A majority of the United States Supreme Court have agreed to wipe the income tax law recently passed by Congress off the Statute Book. Dr Parkhurst, the preacher apostle of reform, has won a victory in New York. Thomas Byrnes, the head of the police force, and the chief object of DrParkhurst's attacks, has, with several inspectors, been forced to retire. President Rosseveldt, of the Police Commission, joined forces with Dr Parkhurst. Byrnes retires on a pension of 3,000d0l per annum. Commander Dalliugton Booth and his wife, of the Salvation Army, renounced their allegiance to Queen Victoria in Jersey City on May 23, and became citizens of the United States. An immense gathering of Confederate veterans took place in Houston, Texas, on May 23, and the proceedings showed the fire was burning in each heart as ardently as it did in the sixties. It was proposed at the meeting that the South boycott all books

conveying false information concerning the Confederacy, its conception, and its motives. The recent edition of the ' Encyclopaedia Britannica' was mentioned as particularly erroneous in this branch of history. Mr A. D. Willis, a member of the New Zealand Parliament who has been making a trip around the world, arrived at the Grand Hotel, San Francisco, early in May, and immediately proceeded to enlighten the representatives on New Zealand ideas concerning governmental facts aud theories. He told of the woman suffrage, the Government ownership of railways and telegraph lines, of Government insurance, of Government banking co-operation, of public works, of the doing away with large land holdings, and said that Henry George's single tax theory and other things only dreamt of by the rest of the world are known in the practical every-day life of New Zealand. The local papers devoted columns to his conversation with their reporters. The widow of the late Robert Louis Stevenson, of Samoa, arrived in San Francisco on May 9. She comes to fulfil some of the last literary bequests of her husband, whose posthumous writings will go to Professor Colvin, of England. Elizabeth Eddy Stanton and other strongminded women propose to revise Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, the Psalms of David, the Song of Solomon, the Gospel of St. Matthew, and the Acts of the Apostles in the old Bible, and bring forth from them and their companion pieces a new Word of God, which will be published as 'The Woman's Bible.' Mrs Stanton and her colleagues assert that the old edition places the sex as inferior to men, and is the greatest obstacle the coming woman has to encounter in the struggle for equality. Deductively the creation of Adam and Eve was not an error of the Almighty, but of the translator who first attempted to give His Word to the English-speaking races. Mrs Stanton's helpers in the preparation of the new work are said to include Lady H. Somerset, Miss Frances Lords, Mrs Stanton Blatch (who is Mrs Stanton's daughter), and Mrs Alice Cliff Scatchern, all of England, and the following Americans :— Frances E. Willard, Rev. Phoebe Hanaford, Rev. Olymania Brown, Mrs Robert G. Bugerstall (wife of the famous Freethinker), Ellen B. Dietrick, Frances Brown, Matilda Joslyn Gage, Sarah A. Anderwood, Mary Alivermore, Lillie D. Blake, Mrs L. B. Chandler, Josephine K. Henry, C. A. F. Stibbin, Helen M. Gardener, Clara Bearick Calby, and Mrs A. B. Grannis. Mrs Chamber is to have the revision of the Book of Timothy wherein the lines run: "But I suffer not women to teach, nor to usurp authority over man, but to lie in silence." Matilda Gage will revise Matthew and Revelations, while Mrs Stanton herself will edit and expurgate Genesis in the eightieth year of her age. She will celebrate that anniversary in November. The task set is no light one, but the promoter hopes that the book will be completed this year, and thinks it will contain about 400 pages. The drawing room on the 18th was a great disappointment to debutantes. The Queen shirked her work, with the result that the Princess of Wales had to take it in hand almost at the last moment; and although the presentations to Her Royal Highness were by Royal command, and were considered equivalent to presentation to the Queen herself, there was much grumbling among the young women who had spent days in practising how to bend low, etc. ' The Times ' of May 24, in a leader on the Pacific mail subsidy scheme, says that if there is one feature by which the history of the twentieth century is likely to be distinguished beyond all others it bids fair to be the development of the open shores of the Pacific by a movement of the world's civilisation, like that already seen on the shores of the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. The article considers that the Government are justified in bestowing an annual subsidy of £100,000 on the Pacific mail and cable service, and it suggests that the amount now absorbed by Bechuanaland might be liberated by giving Bechuanaland to Cape Colony under a protectorate to a chartered company. Lord Rosebery and the Marquis of Ripon received a deputation from the Associated Chambers of Commerce on May 24. Sir A. K. Rollit explained the object of the visit, and said it was most desirable that the Government should grant adequate help and encouragement to the proposed steamship and cable lines via Canada to Australia. He concluded by urging that Great Britain should contribute her share, £75,000 yearly, to these schemes. Lord Rosebery did not reply, but informed the deputation that the Government were considering the matter. William Alexander Louis Stephens Douglas, Duke of Hamilton, is reported to have died at Algiers. He was the premier duke of Scotland, and the hereditary Keeper of Holyrood Palace. The deceased duke was married in 1873 to the eldest daughter of the Duke of Manchester, and leaves a daughter. The surviving brother is unmarried, and thus it is likely that the title will die out. ! A great demonstration was held in Phcenix Park, Dublin, on Sunday, May 12, in favor of the amnesty of Irish political prisoners. Archbishop Walsh sent £5, with which it is proposed to start an amnesty fund. Timothy Harrington, the Parnellite M.P. for Dublin, in his address said that whether the Irish political prisoners were guilty or innocent of the crimes charged, they had fully expiated them. A resolution was adopted by the meeting to the effect that the further detention of the prisoners is vindictive and revengeful and cruelty unworthy of a civilised Government. If the case of Miss " Birdie " Sutherland, a chorus girl in the Gaiety Theatre, against Dudley Churchill Majoribanks, eldest son of Baron Tweedmouth, for breach of promise ever comes to trial it will (according to a London despatch of May 18) be the most sensational affair since Miss Fortescue, the actress, won £10,000 from Lord Garmoyle on a similar charge. Miss Sutherland's real name is Annie Louise Watkins. She first met Dudley Majoribanks at the Prince of Wales Club. It was a case of love at first sight. He proposed and was accepted. When his parents learned of the affair they were very much disturbed. Mr Majoribanks went to Canada on a visit with his mother to the Earl ot Aberdeen, Go-vernor-General of Canada. The young man did not return with his mother to England, but remained in Canada, and the match was broken off. Miss Sutherland then placed the case in the hands of a well-known theatrical lawyer, who retained in her behalf Sir Edward Clarke. Mr C. F. Gill and several other legal lights have also been retained. The London 'Standard,' of May 18, published a despatch from Berlin to the effect that Russia demands the cession of the Island of Quelport, and not Port Lazaree as previously stated. The despatch adds that Japan demands 100,000,000 taels as an equivalent for giving up theßiao Tung Peninsula, but the negotiations on this point are not yet finished. It is further stated that the protest of Spain against the annexation by Japan of the Island of Formosa arrived too late. The Brussels correspondent of the ' Standard' says that by command of the Emperor the Chinese Admiralty was dissolved on March 24, owing to the abject incompetency of its officers. With a deficit of over 50,000,000d0l there is no prospect that the department will be re-established, or that China will buy any more warships abroad.

Delegates from the leading French Credit Bank met on May 11 and 13 at the office of the Credit Lyonaise, Paris, to decide upon opening the French market to the Chinese loan. The Bank of Paris was placed at the head of the committee, and the manager of the bank discussed on the 16th the subject with M. Hanotaux, Minister of Foreign Affairs. The ' Politique Colonial ' asserts that the Chinese loan of £50,000,000 is to be issued from London, Paris, and Berlin. A despatch from Tientsin to the London 'Times 1 of May 23 says that an Imperial proclamation has been issued announcing the ratification of the treaty of peace between China and Japan. It is declared that the Government deeply pondered over the advice which has been offered to it to continue the war rather than surrender. But the crisis demanded a decision, as no victory had been obtained on land or sea owing to the incompetency of the leaders, who had only been able to recruit the rabble. The enemy, the proclamation says, were menacing Pekin, and the country was in a terrible condition. The proclamation then goes on to say : " Could we permit alarms to disturb the dwelling of Her Sacred Majesty, Heaven had not withheld its anger." It is understood that Russia will claim the fruits of Japan's victories by demanding a protectorate over Corea. Evidence has been discovered that Bokuysicka, recently appointed Acting • Prime Minister of Corea, has formed an alliance with the Russian Minister at Seoul. Count Mouye, Japanese Minister to Corea, has returred to Japan, believing that reform in Corea is hopeless. A despatch to London of May 27 says that a fleet of Japanese warships had arrived at Tamsin on the north-west coast of Formosa, and that fighting was expected. The 'Standard' followed on the 28th with a despatch from Shanghai, stating that the Chinese officials at Tamsin had refused to allow the Japanese to land, whereupon the ships then returned to Macao for instructions. The Republican leader in Formosa cabled a salutation to the King of Spain on May 27, and asked for protection.