GENERAL NEWS.

Western Star, Issue 224, 22 December 1877, Page 6

GENERAL NEWS.

Sweden has sold to France her only colony, the Bland of St. Barthehimy in the Antilles.

A miser nam d Sarrell, aged sixtv.fi ve, was found dead in Irs bed in Duhli ■ lately. In a drawer in his room was £B2 in gold, and deposits for shares in railway and mi ing companies to the amount of £17,735. A domestic servant named Hariet Smith, was lee ntly presented by the pain'ers of Maidstone with a valuable 'arch, in recognition of her c urage and presence of mind in dragging a painter through a bedroom window, w'-en by the fall of his ladder he was left cl in cmg to the roof of the house he was painting. The grl by her courageous conduc saved the man’s life.

A Harms; attempt to commit a robbery app avs to live taken place at Messrs Marlin and Watson’s premises, in v tuart Street, Dunedin, n Friday evening 7th inst. On Saturday morning the front door was found unlocked, and one of the large iron safes lying in the middle of the floor instead of in its wonted place behind the counter. A sledge-hammer and two or three chisels lay on the floor, and on inspection of the safe* it was found that the door had been wrenched from the body at ths hinges, but not suffi-

ciently to enable the contents to be extracted; The operators had then directed th' ir efforts to tearing off one side of the safe, and they had sucre- ded so far as to have raised the corner nearly enough to allow of a hand being inserted; but here they appear to have, been interrupted, or to have had no time to finish their work, the safe con'ained some cash and valuable papers Nothing else in the office was touched.

It is not unusual (says “ Athens,” in the Melbourne “ Leader”) to see clergymen of the two elder re'iqious denominations in Victoria putting in an occasional appearance at our places of public amusement. But probably for the first time in the history of the theatre in Melbourne, the Academy of Music was patronised On Tuesday evening by two courageous I’l'esbyterlan ministers, who from the stage box enjoyed the excellent acting of Mr Win. Creswick. Friends of both the stage and the pulpit will be pleased to hear this, and be glad to see their example followed'by others of their clerical brethren. Their presence may help to improve the tone of the surroundings of the stage ; and the hints that will be trained by the study of such a Master of the art of elocution as Mr, Creswick will most certainly improve (he pulpit. If I were a theatrical manager I’d fry the effect of placing all clergymen On the free list who would attend the dress circle in their clerical costume.

A letter from the Tbw. Thomas Wellson, resident missionary at Tamm to the heathen, gb-es a further account of the executiwn of a Taiina y**uth f r com di city in the murder of a man named Easterbrock, at Sulphur Is.and. Easter brock •was shot apparently by a native named Tubmango fur interference with his wife. Lieutenant Oaffen, of IT.M.S. Beagle-, seized and held a number o f hostages pending the capture of the murderer. Eight natives were killed trying.to capture Tubu.ingo, but he escaped. His younger brother, who took part in (he outrage, was seized* and after a full inquiry was hanged at the yardarm of the. Beag'e. At the suggestion of Mr Wellson, Lieutenant Caffen desisted from

further attempts to take the murderer, considering the probability of the natives punishing the culprit themselves.

Speaking of the late drought in Dunedin, a Timaru paper which thinks very little, evidently, of Otagonian cleanliivss, remarks : —“Luckily, if all we hear is true, the habits of the Majority of ihe Southern Metropolis are, such as to enable them to do with a very moderate allowance on water. It may be only a traveller’s fable, but wc have heard it repeatedly stated teat the tub is by no means a popular institution in Dunedin, and that, in their petal ons, the people there seldom dilute to any great extent the the light wine of the country. N.B. — (Whiskey.) What a sad condition they would be in just now, if (he Maine Liquor Law were in fo. ee amogst them, and they were compelled to depend for their sustenance on water alone.

At the half yearly meeting of the Great Northern Railway Company in Loudon Lord Colville, the chaiiman, announced that the two accidents at Abbots Rip ton and Arlesley had cost the Company £IOO,OOO m personal compensation alone. Operations connected with that stupendous undertaking* the submarine tunnel o ween England and France, have commenced at the other side of the Channel, pits having been sunk to a considerable depth. Un our side the work will be carried ou by the London, Chatham. and Dover ami the Eastern Railway Companies, on the other side by the Drench Railway Company. Each Company will posse s half the line, reckoning from Coast to Coast at low tide. When the tunnel is completed it will belong lo its founders, but on the expiration of thirty years the two Governments will be a de to take possession of it on certain conditions.

The “ San Domingo Gazette” p ibiishes a long account of the alleged discovery of the uody of Christopher Columbus in the metropolitan cathedral of the States. The Archui hop, die Governor of the province, the military commander, and oth>-r otlici.ias went in procession with troops to Lie cliu ch, where the sarcophagus was publicly examined a id pronounced from its inscription to contain the body of Columbus. A startling illustration of the extent to which foreign competition is undermining English labour is given in the arrival of the steamer Cambria with a ca>go w ich includes several hundred coffins, impor ed from Norway, ready foi immediate use. A farmer in the neighbourhood of Tavistock bought a'few weeks ago an old mahogany secretaire by auction at a farmhouse. In having it repaired a few days ago, he discovered a secret drawer, containing forty sovereigns, a gold en 'inelled ring, a lot of securities for mo.my, one of which was a certificate for £524 19s 7d, 3 per cent, consols. There was also an old scrap of paper dated 1700, lead ng to tile belief that forty guineas had originally been placed there, but they had been taken out in modern times and replaced by the sovereigns. Of the late Brigham Young, the “ Auburn News,” which styles him “the distinguished husband,” gives tlm following facts ; —“ At Port Byron, in this country, he painted boats. Afterwards he worked in a sawmill near Auburn, in the‘edge’ of (he now town of Throop, where he met his first wife, Angelina Works, who e two cousins, Canfield and Morris Worden, now reside in the Seventh Ward of this city. The wedding took p ace at the tavern of Mr Pine, of Port Byron,' to whom Brigham owed a board bill of 17 dollars when he went West in 1830, and which he paid 35 years later with two drafts on New York for SOdols. each. Brigham was. a good-natured, rather ignorant, and lazy genius, of whom the late William Hayden, of Port Bvron, remarked that he did not know that he was good for anything except to make axebelves —wh ch ne did remarkably well.”

A correspond nt of the Eoss-shhe journal writes : Thousands of the Lord’s people will, like myself, have been deeply grieved at reading the account of her Majesty’s sailing on Loch Maree last Sabbath, and presume such a profanation of the sacred day of rest has not been witnessed there, in the present generation at all events.” And further ; “ One would like to know what boat it was used on the • occasion alluded to, whether the hotelkeeper informed any of her Majesty’s suL* rfiat sailing on the loch on the Saba% would be looked upon by the community around as a serious ffence. and whether the men employed in rowing were residents or not. Judging from all I have heard about the people, I should have expected it would have been difficult, if not imposs ble, to get any of rh m to lend themselves, even to aid our beloved Queen, to commit such a trespass ; and I do hope it will be made known that all involved in the proceedings were perfect strangers.” The notion of the Queen giving up her afternoon’s sail because a few era bed sour Presbyterians

w ould look upon it as a serious offence is too delicious.

The “ World” say: I daresay the most extraordinary invention is that of the Nausal, from Paris. The Nausal is simply a ship which, according to its Archimedes, \vi il go from London to New y ork in three days. No coal! No steam ! The shi|i will be propelled by a force of of 82,000 atmosphers! This powerful new moteur will be supplied by the gases of explosives, which will be fired by an enormous revolving gun, placed in the stern of the ship. The speed will be the more considerable as the explosions are greater in violence and frequ-ncy. How pleasant it will b to travel, like Zaz-d, a coups dc cannon across the ocean ! Grennay is the only country that has deliuately refused to take part in the Paris Exhibition of 1878.

A statement is current in the Dubl’n papers wi h refe ence to the la e Viscount Fitzgibbon supposed to have been killed in the Balaclava charge. His body was never found, and it is now asserted that he was only wounded and taken prisoner, and for some insult to a Ru«■ - ian officer he was sent to Siberia, and and that this has only just beconm known. A statue was er. ct d .o him at Limerick.

A correspondent of the New York Tribune gives the following account of the system adopted in some of the Am rican harvest fieldss :—“ I have seen this day (Bth August) 16 self-binding harves ers following each other around a piece of wheat a mile long and half a mile wide, part of a crop of 4000 acres. Tins I suppose is something that has never been witnessed before, and it was not got up for exhibition, but is the regular work of the farm. This was on the Bass farm, operated by O. Dalryraplesituated on the Northern Pacific Railroad, about 18 miles west of Fargo. On the Cheney farm adjoining there wmre 11 of the same kind of machines running, and on other farms from three to six each. In this county I suppose there are working to-day more than 50 of these automatic binders. The 16 machines cut about I Gift, in width each round, each one dropping a bundle, nicely bound with wire, every 10 or 12 beet, and catting from 12 to 15 acres per day, and doing the work better than can be done by ha 'd. There is probably no better land in the country for growing wheat than this Red liver Yalley, and the large crop this year will call in a large immigration. There are, in this county, about 26,000 acres sown to grain this year, and as much more broken up ready to he sown, in the spring. When I first visited this region, a little more than a year ago, it Was a vast unsettled prarie; in .a very few years it will be a vast wheat Ibid.”