ENGLISH NEWS

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 337, 29 August 1868, Page 2

ENGLISH NEWS

(Erom the Home News.) A memorial has been presented to the Queen, praying that the proposed disendowment of the United Church in Ireland be not allowed, signed by 145,000 women. Among the deaths of the month is that of Bobert Chambers, the exchampion of the Tyne and the Thames. There has been another terrible explosion caused by mtro-glycerine. It occurred at Quenast, in Belgium. The nitro-glycerine was to be employed in blasting operations. It was being unloaded from a waggon, when the explosion occurred. Ten persons were instantly killed —literally blown to atoms, and great damage was done in the immediate neighborhood. Fenianism is now fairly dead at Home —strangled on the gallows on which Barrett was gibbette.i, and finally extinguished by the feal of O'Farrell at Sydney. Ireland is once more in perfect tranquility, and would remain so if* only the sympathisers and grievance-mongers would leave her alone. Messrs. Sulivan and Piggot of the Nation and the Irishman, have been released from gaol, and, of course, their first impulse was to blaspheme the bloody Anglo-Saxon, and to swear eternal hostility to that cruel oppressor —cruel most of all in this, that he persists in not oppressing. The notorious George Francis Train appeared the other day at Liverpool on the Exchange, but was received with such a storm of hooting and hissing, thae he was glad to take refuge in a cab. He has since delivered a lecture or two ; but, in spite of his piquant placards, no one will go to hear him snd so that dismal buffoon is played out. In Canada, it is confidently affirmed that the Fenians under their new general (U'Neil), intend to make another raid this summer. Something of the kind is urgently needed to keep up the subscriptions from the Irish servant girls. There has been a great meeting of the brotherhood in Philadelphia, and an address from the president, announcing that the time had come for vigorous measures, and for revenging the wrongs of Ireland by taking possession of Canada. In furtherance of that very Irish proceeding, it is declared that there is a sum of 250,000 dollars ready in the treasury. But that will scarcely do more, it has been suggested, than pay the railway fare of the Fenian army to the borders. In the meantime, the Canadian authorities are fully on the alert, and should the Fenians be mad enough to carry out their threats, they are assured of a proper reception. From the Continent there is rumor of a new attempt by Garibaldi upon Rome, the knowledge of which has come to the French Government, and has led to sharp correspondence with Italy. It is scarsely probable that the Italians will once more afford an epportunity for a French intervention, but any thing may be expected from the daring of Garibaldi The visit of the Prince Napoleon to Hungary, and thence to Turkey, has beon invested with a good deal of political significance. The quid-nuncs will have it that the Prince is a kind of traveller in the political notions of his cousin, and th&t there is a secret design for a new alliance against

Russia and Prussia. None of the warlike preparations to which I lately called attention on the part of France have been suspended, and every now and then a spiteful article appears against Prussia. Bismarck having been recently ill, it was maliciously suggested by the French that his complaint is " delirium tremens," induced by brandy-drinking.

" BEAUTIFUL FOR EVER." The fame of Madame Rachel is world-wide, but recent disclosures exhibit an audacity on her part almost sublime, and a degree of imbecile credulity on the purt of one of her dupes that affords an admirable companion picture to the case of Mrs. Lyon, The tale divulged last week at the Marlborough Police Court shows that there are depths of human gullibility quite unfathomable. Mrs. Borradaile, a woman well advanced in years and wrinkles, deposes that in 1866 she called on Madame Rachel, for the purpose of being made " beautiful for ever." She was told that it would be a costly process, and also that if she did not mind further paying heavily an advantageous matrimonial alliance might bo arranged for her. Then followed what Mrs. Borradaile's counsel truly said was almost incredible. The widow advanced £IOOO, used the prescribed cosmetics, and took baths at a particular house. After she had done so she was told that the bath she had entered was so constructed that those within could be seen through crevices, and that in this way a nobleman had been permitted to observe her, was smitten with her charms, and was impatient to marry her. Instead of resenting such treatment as-an outrage upon her sex, the frail woman was taken in by the clumsy story, and had an interview with a person who personated Lord Ranelagh. She afterwards entrusts Madame Rachel with one large sum after another for the use of this romantic inamorata. £I2OO were paid for diamonds to adorn a coronet, which were returned with a penalty cf £IOO, but the money was never disgorged by Madame Rachel. Next she buys a trousseau which is sent for her to the same obliging friend, and is never seen again. Other sums go to the pretended Lord Ranelagh for volunteering purposes : and altogether she is plundered of some £4OOO by the conspirators. Awaking at length from her delusion, her love and confidence were changed to hate and revenge, and she has commenced a prosecution against Madame Rachel for conspiracy and fraud. The woman decorator had to find sustantial bail. Lord Ranelagh is, or course, perfectly innocent of any complicity in the vile deception. The hearing of the charge against Madame Rachel was resumed on Tuesday. Mrs. Bor rodaile was again examined, and in the course of her evidence made some extraordinary statements. She declared positively that Lord Ranelagh, who was in court, was the gentleman to whom she was introduced by Madame Rachel in 1866, and she adhered to this through a long and searching cross-examination at the hands of Mr, Digby Seymour. His Lordship's name was also introduced into a passage m the witness' previous history, wherein her husband was represented as having slain a man in a duel in consequence of the intimacy between the murdered man and Mrs. Borrodaile. The further hearing of the case was again adjourned ; Lord Ranelagh repeating what he had already stated, " that he had nothing whatever to do with the case." To this Mr. Seymour, the leading counsel for Madame Rachel, replied, that " nomember of Lordßanelagh'sfamily need blush for any part that his Lordship had taken in the affair."

On Thursday the Foley Troupe gave their farewell entertainment for the benefit of Johnny and Katey Foley. The house was exceedingly well filled, the pit and stalls beius* crammed, and the benefit must have been a substantial one. The first piece was " The Rough Diamond," in which Katey shone most particularly, and it is not unreasonable to prognosticate that she will one day make a firstclass actress. Mr Temple as Lord Plato and Mr Anderson as Sir "William Evergreen were particularly good. The interlude consisted of dancing by Madame Tournear and Messrs Peel and Coghlen, in addition to some excellent nigger busiuess by the latter, which convulsed the audience with laughter. i\atey sang a very nice song with great taste, but little Johnny was too hoarse to appear with effect in this line. The concluding piece was " The Limerick Boy" in which Johnny Foley took the leading character exceedingly well. The troupe proceed, we believe, to Hokitika by first boat.