General Items.

Waikato Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2133, 11 March 1886, Page 4

General Items.

It is stated th.it arrangements are almost completed for the transfer of the Central Executive of the National Leapjuo from Ireland to England, in view of what the party believe to be the stiong likelihood that the organisation will be proclaimed. Sir Charles Warren hits left London for Snakhn, where he will a««m»e the command of the troop* on the Red Soa littoral, with the temporary rank of major-srener.il and position of Governor of the Eastern Soudan. Mr W. T. Stead, editor of the Pall Mall Gazette, who has undergone three monthsimprisonment for his share in the abduction of Eliza Armstrong, wa<? released from Uullyway CJavJ ou Jau. lOtli. tjo states

that he enjoyod hi« period of confinement. Madame Mourey, one nf bin assistant*, died a few day* after in Millbank Penitentiary. Owing to the illness of an important witness in the suit of Crawford v. Crawford and Kir Ch.irles Dilke, a commission has been ordered to take evidence. Consequently it has Iwen arranged among the p uties that the case shall not be in the list of trials before the 2Kth inst. The three men, Riidge, Martin and Baker, at rested for the Netheiby buiglary and murders have bden found guilty and sentenced to death. Ktidge h.i-> made a, statement that ho committed all tht> murders himself, and that Martin and Baker had no hand in them. Mr Richard Belt, the well-known sculptor, and his brother, Mr William Belt, have been committed at Bow-street Police Couit, on it ehaige of conspiring to defraud .Sir William Neville Abdy, Bart., of £5,000, in jewellery tiansactions. Meetings have been held in London and Newcastle in furtherance of the objects of the proposed Steamship Managing Owner*.' Association. The objects of the federation are the simplification in tho intercut of steamship owners of coal, ore and other charter parties ; also of bills of lading, and of policies of insurance ; the remedying of abuses incidental to the shipping trade, and the taking of such steps as may be agreed upon for improving an uuremunerativo state of the freight market. Farming on the co-opeiative system will be commenced in Northamptonshire as soon as the weather permits outdoor operations on a farm adjoining Althorp Park, the seat of Lord Spencer. His lordship lends the capital at 4 per cent interest. There will be eight men on the farm, which i<s of 300 acres of good arable and fair pasture land. They will be superintended by the manager. Lord Spencer and the incumbent of the parish, tho Rev. W. Bury, are assisting the project. The details of the scheme will be settled by the men themselves. Their wages without profits, will probably bo 14s per week. There is considerable distress in Vienna, and 800 men lately marched to tho Town Hall and peremptorily demanded employment. On being refused they repeated their request at tho police-station, where they had to bo dispersed by foice. Several of the leaders were arrested. It i-> proposed to lv.ike vaccination compulsory in Austiia. Tho Government is collecting information and statistics to lay before the Rcichsrath. The increase of small-pox among the soldier* in Vienna and the comparative immunity of tho Prussian army is said to have decided the question. An almost unprecedented robbery has been committed in the Tyrolese district of Vorarlberg at the Capuchin convent of 80/ en. Late at night or in tho early morning the convent w.is entered by robbers, who succeeded in carrying away tho money received for the celebration of masses for the dead. The authorities have arrested two Capuchin friars named Henry and Kofler, whose boots correspond exactly with the footmarks left in the snow by the robbers. M. Berg, tho Speaker of the Danish Folkething has been conducted to gaol to umloigo the sentence of six months' imprisonment recently passed upon him for inciting to sedition. M. Berg protested against this course, which he maintained was a violation of the Constitution. The young printer who recently attempted to assassinate the Danish Prime Minister has been sentenced to fourteen years' imprisonment. The advocacy by La France of a tax upon foreigners has been resjM>ndod to by the Retting up of petitions, which that journal undertakes to see presented to the Chamber of Deputies The tax proposed is twofold. AH foreigners living in France are to pay an impost, and also all foreign commercial travellers offering good* there. It is uiged in support of the demand th.it similar taxes are levied upon Frenchmen in Belgium, Holland, .Switzerland, and Germany. Tho annual ceremony of blessing the water of the Neva took place at St. Petersburg on Sunday, January 17th, in front of the Winter Palace, in presence of a large concourse kopt in order by a strong body of Cossacks. The military standards were afterwards sprinkled by the high clergy, in presence of the Emperor and other male members of the Imperial family, all standing bareheaded within a pavilion erected over the edge of tho frozen river. A project has been started in Berlin to establish there an Anthropological Exhibition, which will do with regard to the races of men what zoological gardens do with regard to animals. In the exhibition, or garden, it is intended that representatives of various races shall permanently reside ; while of such races as cannot stand the cold of the climate, representatives will be brought to Germany to ieside there during the summer. An Ethnological Museum is to be established in connection with the exhibition, which is said to have the support of several capitalists. In the action brought against the Egyptian Government by the proprietor of the Bosphore Egyptian, judgment has been given in favour of tho latter, the Government being condemned to pay damages for the forty days the office of the paper was closed. The damages are expected to ainonnt to about £'3000. The Lmds of the Admiralty have made arrangements for conveyance of 3000 tons of wooden huts from Woolwich to Suakim, for the accommodation of the Biiti.sh troops there. *The cmip will be situated some distance out of Suakim, but will be accessible by rail. The necessary railway plant, water-] ipe->, and camp equipment will also be sent from Woolwich. A dispatch received from Tamatave states that Admiral Miot, commander of the French mv.il forces in Malagasy wnteis, accompanied by M. Patrimonio and Colonel Willoughby, and escorted by a Hoyaguaid of honour, has gone to Antananarivo to settle definitely the conditions of peace between France and Madagascar. A telegram from Merchinsk states that the Chinese troops have, under circumstances of great barbarity, driven off the workmen who, contrary to the recent decree, still remained on the Sheltugin goldhelds, burning down their huts and massacring the prisoners. They have also chafed across the frontier tho men working at the gold washings on the Arak rivulet, in Chinese territory. It is reported from Chicago that a dynamite plot, on an alarming scale, directed against the capitalists, has been discovered in that city. It is stated that the Socialists, who, some months .ago, were forbidden to drill in public, have since then been carrying on their work secretly, according to the Arbiter Zeitung, which out-Herods the United liishman in the violence of its counsels. It is stated that !),000 bombs have been distributed for use during the strikos organised for May. Some samples have been seized by the authorities. Tho explosive used is dynamite, and the encasing material consists of a mixture of zinc and glass. Mr John Coleman is buiy over a Life of tho late Samuel Phelps, the actor. To no small extent the book will be autobiographical. The Italian Government has offered a reward of 10,000 lire (£400) to any one giving certain information of where a codex of Cicero's "DeOfficiis," which has been lately stolen from the Municipal Library of Perugia, is to be found. A report is current in Home, that the stolen manuscript has been sold for GOO lire (£24) to an English or German collector. The Italian Embassies in foreign countries are authorised to pay the reward. The death is announced at Haipha, in Syria, of Mrs Laurence Oliphant, wife of the well-known author. A Scotch chemist has just patented an invention for improvements in the preparation and manufacture of whalebone for me as a substitute for ivory, and the invention is now in active operation with considerable success. The whalebone is exposed to the action of hot water and steam, in order to extract the greasy matter — soda, potash, and chloride of lime being added to the hot water, and an apparatus has been contrived to facilitate the carrying out the proceu on board ship. The treatment has been applied to some nf the produce of last season's catch of the Peterhead whalers, and the result is the production of a beautiful and durable material, capable of being applied to most of the purposes for which ivory w now employed. A Russian scientific expedition to proceed to China is being organised under the I direction of Dr. PiasseUky. The expenses will be provided partly by the Imperial Exchequer, and partly by the Moscow Commercial Committee. Mr G. Msmvill* Fenn, the well-known j novelist, haa written a romantic drama | entitled " The Furenun of the Works." ( The total number of new pieces (inclnd- , ing dramas, opera-bouffes, comic wperas, extravaganzas, comedies, comedy-vaude-villes) produced at the twenty-four principal theatres in Paris during the. past year was 88, against 7."> produced at twenty, three theatres during the year 1884. The greatest number produced weio at tho

Odeon, Varilt<s«, Paliu*.Roy«l, Reuainuance, Dejaiet, and ChAteau d'Kuu. Mr N. M. Ludlow, urh'iMe death at tho advanced »K 8 of •>!« "• announced from Kew York, \\.i-* probably tho doyen of actor.-.. He made hi« dt'-but in 1315 at tlic Whitehall Stroot Theatrf, Now Yoik, in "Forty Thievex."' In 1853 he retired from the nt,jpe, but only fi\c years ago, when Wi year^ of ag«\ he appeared at a public performance for a charity. It i-. complained that the Italian oper.v Ijoet 1 * continue to appropriate French drani.f .uul romances without cither verbal or pecuniary acknowledgment. The latent offender i-. Sij<nor (ihii>lnnznni, tho u ellknown author of VerdiV "Aida" libretto, who ha-* converted Siirdnu'a " Theodora" into the libretto for a new lyrical work which the younp in.terttro Catalani has in hand. A f.'immn act >r of the Coniedio Fran-cai-.e h.\< j»>t pa»»ed away in the person of M. Bre-«ant. Ho diod at Nemours, whither ho retired from the wtnge »ome trtn years ago. He made hit) debut at the Varietie-. in 1833.