GENERAL NEWS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume II, Issue 66, 1 August 1874, Page 11

GENERAL NEWS.

Tas JVelhn^ton 'Tribune' describes the mode of lighting the lamps in tjiat city thus .— " The lamp ligitor nounts his horse and gallops to a lam]., stops and stands upon his saddle, like a V3ntable Duerow, lights ta« lamp, slides down his seat und gallops to another post, where the same process is repeated, and so on from Te Aro to Thorndon. No walking and no ladder. The town is lit up in an incredibly short space of time. Much depend, upon the expeveness of the man and more upon the training of the ho.je, but both manage to do their work excellently well." • " Phil," writing under the heading of " On the Flags," in ' Town and Country, says :— " Tichborne Gossip will never end. The latest discovery is that Arthur Orton was hung in Melbourne Gaol, under the name of Alfred H. Jackson, shoemaker, for highway robbery at Bacchus Marsh, in 1855, in conjunction with one James Condon, the victim being a person named Rutherford, whom they eased of £1500. The individual wno has made this statement is a prisoner named Clark, who is now rusticating in the Ballarat Gaol. It appears the A. H. Jackson mentioned was hanged as stated, and that the letters A. H. were tattooed on his arm. I don't think there is anything in the canard." ' J °

• rh e population of Great Britain and Ireland at this time is stated in the Register General's returns to be 32,412,000, or 600,000 move than double the population enumerated at the first census in 1801 The population of Ireland in 1874, is only 84 000 more than in 1801 . The population of Scotland in 1874 is 212,000 more than double the population of 1801. The population of England and Wales in 1874, is above 5,500,000 more than double the population in 1801.

In England the National Church lias 3,452,600 children in its schools ; the Nonconformists, 435,426 in theirs ; the Catholics, 125 697 and the Board-schools, 111,286. The 'London Tablet' is glad to find that the percentage of the average attendance is larger in the Catholic than in any of the other schools ; and further, that in re^nrd *? "V? i eßultß of the ex »mination the highest percentage of passes in the different standards has been made by the Catholic schools. This speaks very highly for the zeal of the clergy in working up the average attendance, and for the efficiency of the teachers. The new Bishop of Ballarat, Australia, the Right Rev. Michael O Connor, was consecrated on Sunday, May 17, by Cardinal Franchi, The ceremony took place in the Chapel of the Propaganda. Rome. At the same time and place were consecrated Mgr Caraillo Sorgeute lately a Prior of the SS. Annuziata of Salerno, and now Archbishop of Oosenza j and Father Antonio Maria Grasselli, now Bishop of Trapezopolis in portions infid§liwn, and Vicar Apostolic of Moldavia The will and codicil, dated January 30, 1871, and February 15 1873, of Anne, Duchess Dowager of Argyll, who died at No. 40 Rut-land-gate, on February 255 last, were proved on the 29th ult b y the Very Rev. James Spencer Northcote, D.D., and David Lewis, the executors, tho personal estate beiag sworn under £25 000 Tlie testatrix gives pecuniary legacies to he executors, sister,' niece and servants j to the Rev. Jonn Dobree Dalgairns, of the Oratory, Bromnton, the income of £7,000 for life ; at his death £3,000 is eiven to certain members of the Convent of St. Dominie, Stone, Staffordshire Lord Walter Campbell is appointed residuary legatee. There are numerous specific legacies to the Duke of Argyll, the Marquis of Lome, and others ; and she leaves all the contents of her chapel at Rutland-gate, with the vestments, ornaments, candles-sticks, pictures chalice, relics, including her relic of the true Cross, set in a tortoiseshell case inlaid with gold, and all the furniture thereof, to the said Rev. J. D. Dalgairns. The "old folks" appear to .be falling fast of late. On Monday last, Mr Jameo Godso, an old veteran in his 92nd year, expired fsavs the • Argus') at his son's residence, Clifton hill- In the exciting war times of George 111. he was kidnapped by the " press-gaao-s" of those days to serve in his Majesty's navy. He served principally in the Lion, 64 guns; visited China, the Cape, Bombay, the Persian Gulf Java, St. Helena, &c, and recaived the silver medal and clasp for services at Java. He finally left the navy in 1815, and arrived in the colony in 1858. A narrative of his eventfnl life was published in several of the colonial journals about twelve months a<ro. He resided 1^ ith 5 li iB.i 8 . BOn> Mv Isaac &odso » of Shirley House, aud^vas interred in the Melbourne Cemetery on Wednesday last, the Rev Caleb Booth incumbent of All Saints, officiating. The old man was blind for the left six years, but had good health, and all his other faculties were unimpaired. The leading Catholic and anti-Bismarckian paper of Germany the Germania,, in one of its last issues, reviews the results of the elections to the British Parliament at some length, and expresses its unqualified satisfaction at the accession of the Conservative party to power. After alluding to the observations made by Mr Disraeli in his Aylesbury speech, on the anomaly of tho maintenance of coercion in the sister island and on the return of Ho.ne Rulers en masse the « Germania ' goes on to say -.-" In all that Mr Disraeli has to say with respect to martial law in Ireland we fully concur j bub when he proceeds to designate the Home Rulers as revolutionists and rebels he lays himself open to flat contradiction. The Irish are very little given to revolutionism j less so, in f»ct, than any other nation— decidedly less than the Enghsh. Let us but cite one lacfc in support of this proposition. Although unhappy Ireland has been oppressed by the En«r" lish conquerors these seven hundred years, her very life blood been sucked out and her soil made into an abode of misery j although owine to the tyrannical laws and administrative measures of an alien govern ment wnich has no understanding for the faith and nationality of the people, as well as the merciless egotism of the ruling race, unscrupulously seeking its own advantage in the impoverishment of the conquered, millions and millions have been driven away from their beloved* green island, whilst those who remained behini dragged on an existence scarcely worthy of human beings, under the supervision of gaolers and tax-gatherers j although, by reasou of the wantonness and injustice of the rulers, of the hard-heartedness and contempt of the

men in possession, the distress and starvation of the disinherited, Ireland might lave appeared as a soil specially fitted for the plantation of the poisonous flower of Internationalism ; it is yet certain that, whilst m all the principal towns of the British, empire the International Association iaas its bi anohes — it has not one in Ireland. Surely the Irish can never be called a nation of " rebels " and " revolutionists ! "

A candidate for the English Parliament said: — "Taking the estimates of Mr Dudley Baxter, which is the most favorable to the existing state of things, the poor pay £30,000,000 of taxation, local and imperial on a very small margin of surplus income above that Sr^n foi< su PP l y in S th - 9 bear necessities of life ; whereas the rich pay ±.60,000,000 of taxation, local and imperial on a surplus income of £400,000,000."

Father Lawlor, of St. Patrick's Church, Louisville, Ky, has beea visiting the saloons of that city with, the view of prevailing on the proprietors to remove pictures of an objectionable character, which are not uncommon in such places, and ifc is believed that he has been quite successful.

At the banquet given by the city of London to the chiefs of the Ashantee expedition, Sir Garnet /Wolseley, in replying to the toast of us health is reported to have said s— "The military world of late years has been employed in discussing many plans for campaigns on a large scale, and that without reference to England ; but it is a great blessing to us that these little wars, such as those of Abyssinia and Ashantee, teach us a lesson — that when we have selected a general to take command of an expedition, it is necessary to trust him, to give him what he asks, to rely on him, and, above all things, not to trammel him. There was the mistake of the Now Zealand war, and I trust no general will ever again be sent who is not intrusted with the charge of the whole of the affairs connected with the country into which he is to advance. If I had had a civil .governor at my elbow or an ambassador to control me in such things, I firmly believe I should never have reached Coomassie."

The death is recorded of Dr Charles James Fox, who will long be remembered for his unbounded kindness to the Catholic clergy of London, and, we may even say of England. The late Dr. Fox not only gave his professional services gratuitously to every priest, but, in former years, was in the habit of receiving into his house those clerics who did not reside in the metropolis, and more especially the students of St. Edmund's College. His generous kindness and able services were deeply appreciated, both by Bishop Griffiths and Cardinal Wiseman, the latter of whom expressed his sense of this in a letter which is gratefully treasured by the afflicted family. Dr. Fox wa3 a most exemplary Catholic, and closed a holy and suffering life by his death on Tuesday last. We must not omit to add that Dr. Fox's services to the clergy were acknowledged by His Holiness Pope Pius IX., who sent him, at Cardinal Wiseman's request, a spacial Benediction. — R. I. P.

Considerable interest has been excited in scientific circles in Auckland by the discovery, during the excavation of the Barrack Hill, of the stump of a Ti tree, evidently many hundred years under ground, from the strata under which it was buried. The interest lies in the evidence of the tree having been' cut by some instrument, proved by the surface, and by a spike of wood left standing in the centre where tke trunk had broken as it fell. The stump was upright when found, and has been the subject of a paper and discussion in the Auckland Institute, when the balance of opinion was in favor of its having been cut down, and consequently of its throwing some little light on the existence of the race of people ia the North Island, whom the Maoris by tradition say were found wheu their ancestors first came from Hawaii to New Zealand.

At the Middlesex Sessions, John Edward Irving, whose name appeared in the calendar as Robert Roberts, a private in the Royal Horse Artillery, was charged with a series of singular fraud*. The prisoner went to the house of Dr Sherrin, who keeps a private school in Leighton-crescent, Kentishtown, and told one of the assistants that he was ono of the officers on the staff of Sir Garnet WoUeley, and had been sent by him to make arrangements with iJr Sherrin as to receiving the two sons of Garnet on the following day. He also represented that he was a brother of Henry Irving, the well-known actor, of the Lyceum Threatre. On Dr Sherrin's return he repeated the story, and was not recognised, though he had previously beeu a teacher in the school. The prisoner left suddenly, taking with him a coat, and nothing more was heard of him. The other frauds were of an equally ingenious character. The prisoner pleaded guilty, aad Detective Butcher gave the court a few particulars regarding the prisoner's past career. He had been a a student at Guy's Hospital up to the time of the death of his father, who had been the clergyman of St. Philip's Church, Regent street. Whilst studying there he and his brother committed a robbery on tha Metropolitan Railway, were tried at the sessions of this court, and sentenced to sis months' imprisonment. Ha was afterwards a tutor in Dr Sherrin's school, and then a constable in the Metropolitan Police Force, but ten days after his admission he was recognised at Marlborough Police-station by Detective Butcher, who gave information of his conviction for felony, and he was immediately dismissed. He then enlisted ia the Scots' Qr&ys, was convicbed again of felony, sentenced to 168 days' imprisonment, and ordered to be dismissed from her Majesty's service with, ignominy. Ha afte wards enlisted into the Royal Horse-Artillery, bub deserted shortly after ho had joined, and then commenced the career of fraud of which those givea are merely samples. The assistant judge ordered him to be kept iv penal servitude far five years. The consumption of alcoholic liquors in the luapeka Hospital has lately been the subject of some discussion. A correspondent of the local paper, who signs himself " Growler," says :— " Commenting on the amount of money expended in grog for the patieuts of the Tuapeka Hospital, it appears ab a glanca tuat sixteen sick man drank four hundred pounds worth of fermented liqusrs in the year ; ,mi ba speak plainly there must be some good drinking men n the iuicicu.tion. I noticed a bad Templar last uiijlit atajjg jrin* aba^ tua scrdot, and I at once settled ia my iniad that ha was sick aad had baau iv the Hospital."