NEWS BY THE MAIL.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XXXIII, Issue 11696, 22 July 1890, Page 3

NEWS BY THE MAIL.

AFRICAN SETTLEMENT. The Sfc, James' Gazette of June 11th, in regard to the negotiations now being carried on by England and Germany relative to territory in Africa, says : — • ' A probable settlement ■will be reached by terms of which the Germans -will evacuate and abandon their claims." The Gazette further says that a line will be drawn across Victoria Nyanza one degree south of the Equator to the boundary of the Congo State. All the disputed territory north of this line will be British and all south Gorman. The action of Dr Peters and tho treaties he has made with the native chiefs will be expressly disavowed at Berlin. The Government have also instructed the German officials in East Africa to , prevent Emm Pasha from entering Uganda while negotiations \are pending between Germany and England. The London Chronicle, commenting npon the statement in the Gazette's article, calls it an "ignominious surrender of British interests," and adds : " Littfe is left now to surrender but Egypt. The restoration of Alsace and Lorraine toFrance/whichwouldhavo given Europe the same hope of peace,' would have been a cheap price to demand from Germany for such a concession." Per contra, Stanley, in his public speeches and private utterances, has no words bnt those of praise for Lord Salisbury's wisdom in making the settlement. Ho is confident that if he could muster all the chiefs of the regions that England had acquired, they would acquiesce in the opinion that the state of the agreement would be a red-letter day in the African calendar. It is now possiblo, he says, to realise the great dream of those concerned in the exploration and civilisation of Africa from the Cape of Good Hope to Cairo, Advices from Zanzibar, received June 19th, say that letters from Dr Peters describe the treaties concluded by him with the King of Uganda, as ousting the English from that territory. Mahommed Biscasstn and three companion's were hanged at Bagomayo for tho murder of a Gorman merchant eight years ago. The Arabs have gone " into universal mourning as a mark of resentment. t^HE BEHEING SEA DISPUTE. | A despatch from Victoria, British Columbia, says that a full Victorian sealing fleet will enter tho Bearing Sea to hunt for seals, and take the chances of being overhauled by United States cruisers. The British warship Amphion will leave the dock at Esquimalt in" a few days for a cruise, it is believed, in the Bohring Sea. Exciting news is looked for from that quarter about the latter part of Jnly. The Washington Government, according to a despatch of June 21, says that the President and Secretary of State have received positive assurances from Bussia that the latter stands prepared to make good its representations given at the time of the Alaskan purchase that the Behring is a closed sea, and that if the United States desires the co-operation of Russia in enforcing this doctrine she can have it. England contends that the sea is free and open to all, and will enforce these claims. , Mr Blame has practically taken this matter off Minister Lincoln's hands, as though he wanted to handle it personally. THE TROUBLES IN NEWFOUNDLAND. [ There is a great outcry over Newfoundland affairs. The St. John's newspapers taunted the British naval officers, saying that they ought to wear petticoats instead of breeches, and carry a lawn tennis racquet instead of a sword, and that though the British men-oi-war were in Newfoundland waters ostensibly for fishing protection, these were there in reality to bolster, up French claims to the fisheries, and to give the officers an opportunity to play ..lawn tennis. .The report of .the captain of the steamship Harlow, which- went to the Bay of St. George with a cargo of provisions, is published in the Halifax papers of June ISth. He was not permitted to land any goods at the Bay, as the residents there refused to pay the Customs dues, and he proceeded up the coast as far as Flower's Cove, whore the people were found to be starring and reduced to such extreme want that they had nothing to eat but the rotten carcases of seals, and many, were at the point of death when the Harlow arrived. ■ The Paris Figaro of June 19fch deolares that Lord Salisbury will accept arbitration, and that if' France refuses he will repudiate the Treaty of Utreoht and opes negotiations for. a new treaty, giving the French to a reasonable extent the cod and lobster fishing grounds, and the colonials, the exclusive rights on the coasts and banks. As the case stands at present, . Lord Salisbury denies the right of France to take tho lobster, which. was unknown as a fish at the time, the old "treaty was concluded. FEARFUL DISASTER IN PENNSYLVANIA. • This morning (June 16) at 11.30 o'clock a sndden roar shook the lowly miners' dwellings on Hill's farm, Fayette County, near this place (Dunbar, P.A.). Hundreds of people who knew the town too well, and who feared another mine disaster, soon fonnd their apprehensions well grounded. In a moment the fearful news spread that the mine had exploded. A rush was made to the mouth of the pit, but ingress was impossible, as the smoke in, dense volumes- was issuing forth. Bifty-two miners had gone to work this morning, and were in the stope when the explosion occurred. Of these 62, 18 were in the left heading, and 32 in the right heading. * Those in the left heading got out all right. The retreat of tho others •was, however, cut . off, and not one escaped. Twenty-one were' married and had families. The mine it seems, has been somewhat troubled with water, and an air shaft had been drilled from the surface to the junction of the right and left^shafts, where the water seemed to be most 'abundant.- As the miners branched off from this point, they knew that an air hple had been drilled there, but they did not know the shaft was to be broken into to-day. This shaft, by the way, being a six-inch hole. A miner named Merwin had been left- in the right drift near where that branch joined the miners' exit, and in the coarse of his labours broke into the perpendicular shaft. The moment this was broken into a flood of water rushed in, and Merwin ana a man named Landy, standing by, yelled out for. someone to save the men in the right shaft, as the water poured down the drift in streams, and they feared they would drown. Young David Hays, who had seen the affair, leaped forward at the call and turned, down the drift towards his endangered'eomrades below. Just as ho had passed the air shaft that had been broken into, the rush of the water changed into an ugly roar, which blanched the cheeks of the men. The flow of the water soon changed to a deadly volume of fierce fire-damp, and as young Hays hung by the shaft a flash of blazing light slid through the shaft, from end to end. The daring young man carried an open burning miners' lamp in his hat, and he had hardly taken a step beyond the roaring shaft when a spark ignited the reservoir of deadly fire-damp, and he sank a corpse towirds the men he had hoped to save, and the men whom he had certainly doomed. In an instant an unquenchable fire sprang up in the nine-foot vein just between the entrance and the right drift, for ever shutting off the 32 men imprisoned there. Poor old David Hays, the father of tho mistaken heio, driven •,mad by the fate of his son, dashed into •the sulphurous smoke and was strangled, only to fall blindly by the side of his son, and to be dragged out an hour later by James Shelfin. Both were only recognised by their wives. The fire, fanned by the air from the main drift and from the fatal shaft, aoon spread into an awful conflagration. The miners from the left drift reached the surface blackened and bruised, but safe, and they tell a fearful story of the sight beyond the blazing coal on the right. Willing hearts and hands were not wanting on the outside, and Clerk Cook, -with Mine Inspector Keaghly, headed a, party of 100 who entered tho main shaft, and after groping on for a quarter of a mile, at last w ere dri yen back again by the deadly gas, only to recover breath for a moment, and again plunge in, to find that the right drift was impenetrable, and that uo man living could pass. They finally came upon two bodies and they were brought to the opening of tho mine. When two blackened corpses,

those of Shelfin and Hayes- the elder, were drawn into the daylight, a moan went up from a few of the hundreds about the pit, but their anguish was as nothing to the silent watches kept by the wives, children, and sweethearts of the men, whosa doom was all the more awful because unknown. At midnight the smoke an<i gas from the right shaft poured up the main exit in unbroken volumes, and after trials almost beyond human endurance, the rescuing party gave up all hopes of ever reaching their comraies' dead bodies from that entrance, and turned their attention to Ferguson's mine, a mile and a half away at least, as a more probable part. Sounds were heard from the entombed men as late as 1 o'clock this afternoon. These grew weaker and weaker, and half an hour later even the most hopeful of the willing rescuers could hear nothing. The men say that had they known the shaft was to be broken into they would never have entered the mine. Either water or gas would Burely follow. In fact, Borne of the men themselves say that it wan an accident pure and simple that could not have been avoided. The disaster is tbo worst ever known in the Connellsville region. The damage to the mine cannot now be estimated, but the owners fear the stope is lost.