General News.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume V, Issue 244, 4 January 1878, Page 13

General News .

A child was lately attacked on Grosse Tete by a large eagle. Upon hearing the screams of the child, its mother ran into the yard, and when she discovered the eagle endeavouring to carry off her child she made a desperate attack upon the intruder. During the fight between the eagle and the mother the child crawled under the house, and finally the mother was forced to retire, as the eagle fought with unusual desperatien. Several persons were attracted to the spot by the screams pf both mother aud child, and after firing several shots at the eagle, he was finally killed. — Montreal True Witness. Some of the memorials in the hallowed and time-honoured cemetry of St. Pancras must, it is stated, be displaced, in order that the Midland Bailway Company may carry on their projected work. Amongst those whose memorials are to be so treated are two famous Irishmen — Arthur Richard Dillon, Archbishop of Narbonne, and the Rev. Arthur O'Leary, whose reputation will survive as long as wit is appreciated or genius excites admiration. A duel, which ended in the death of both combatants has taken place at Wilmington, Delaware. It arose out of a paragraph in a paper burlesquing a younger brother of a youth named Young, himself only fifteen years of age. Having demanded satisfaction of the editor, Mr. Brown, the latter instead of giving it knocked him down, and a challenge to mortal combat with pistols was immediately given by Young and accepted by Brown. The combatants were placed on each side of a railway track. When they approached the rails the order was given to fire. At the first discharge the ball from Young's revolver entered Brown's breast, and that from the latter's revolver the lower part of Young's abdomen. Brown continued firing at his antagonist, but Young, finding his revolver did not revolve, closed with Brown, when both fell, and began pummelling each other with their pistols. The seconds then interfered and separated the men. They were laid oat on the railway platform, both in a dying condition. Young while in that state, cursed his adversary, who died in a few minutes later, The former lingered until next day in great agony. In the district of the Jura twenty of the cures who had been installed by the cantonal Government in the parishes rendered vacant by the forcible removal of the lawful Catholic pastors have been prosecuted for various crimes. One of these individuals has just absconded and is sought after by the police for a career of swindling, by carrying on a fradulent trade in watches, and the Evangelise-he J&rchenZeitung, the organ of the Protestant synod of Berlin, which reports the fact, adds that the person in question has been taking advantage of the clerical position conferred upon him to practice his rogueries with the more success. Two men have just been tried before the Court of Assizes of the Basses-Pyrenees for a number of robberies, which, by an accidental circumstance, led to an interesting archaeological discovery. The accused, Rivas, a shoemaker, aged thirty-two, and Bellier, a weaver, aged twenty-six, were arrested in May last, after frequent burglaries and armed attacks on the highways had spread terror around the neighbourhood of Sisteron. The evidence against them was clear, but no traces could be obtained of the plunder until one of the men gave a clue to the mystery. Rivas in his youth had been a shepherd boy, near that place, and knew the legend of the Trou d' Argent, a cavern at the summit of one of the Alps, with sides so precipitous as to be almost inaccessible, and which no one was ever known to have reached. The Commissary of Police of Sisterton, after extraordinary labor, succeeded in scaling the mountain and penetrated to the mysterious grotto, where he discovered an enormous quantity of stolen articles of all kinds, comprising watches, clothes, domestic animals, food, spirits, firearms, etc. The way having been once found, the vast cavern was afterward explored by savans, and their researches brought to light a ' number of Roman medals of the third century, flint hatchets, ornamental pottery, and the remains of ruminants of enormous size. The advocate of Rivas asked for the indulgence of the jury for these pioneers of science, but both persons were sentenced to twenty years' hard labour. — London Globe The following is a portion of a letter of the Times Correspondent from the Relief Camp, Carlova. "As we rode up the main street, which, from its pebbly appearance, is evidently in winter the bed of a roaring mountain torrent, we noted that every house was closed and carefully barred. It seemed like another city Of the dead.| A few Turks were at the door of a coffee-house, and our sixty-five arab a drivers were lounging about waiting for us ; but beyond these and a few dogs and cats, this town, which lately boasted some 10,000 mr habitants, was apparently teuantless. I say apparently, because as we went up the street it became necessary to halt while Mr. Fawcett got out his credentials for the mudir ; and during that temporary stoppage a sight was encountered which brought tears to the eyes of more than one of our rough-looking party. A well-built house, close to which we reined up, was discovered to have inhabitants, and how we discovered this was that the tips of several little ffhite noses poked through the strong wooden bars, which were carefully nailed up from within, for all the world like rabbits pushing their noses out of a hutch. At our inquiry if anybody was within, given in Turkish, the spaces between the bars became instantly blank. Calling up our dragoman, who spoke Bulgarian, we told him to speak gently, and the little noses re-appeared. *' How many of you are there V we inquired. 'Ten,' was the faint reply, in a childish treble. 'How long have you been shut up here V ' Nearly forty days.' ' But why do you stay in there V ' Oh, do not ask us ; they are killing everybody. Where is our father?' — from a dozen little throats at once. ' Have you anything to eat ?' ' Nothing now ; we have lived all the time on the grapes in our garden, but they are gone.' The rest was lost in a chorus of sudden sobs." Father Morris, whose unwearied researches had already led him to collect materials for another volume of his series, "The Troubles of our Catholic Forefathers," has been entrusted with the task of establishing a Jesuit College at Malta.