GENERAL ITEMS.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume VI, Issue 5, 16 September 1881, Page 3

GENERAL ITEMS.

Lyttelton Harbor is to be lighted by electricity. The co-operative movement is spreading in Ashburton. The Governor sailed for Fiji in H.M.S. Emerald on Tuesday. At a great landslip at Elm, in Switzerland, the town was buried and 200 persons killed. A number of slates were blown from the roof of the Cathedral in Christchu;ch during the late gale. There has been a great scare about tho small-pox in Wellington, but it turns out the patient was suffering from chicken-pox. Messrs Kemtthorne Prosser & Co., of Dunedin, have man'ifaclured 50 tons of sulphuric acid, and will claim tbe Govern ment bonus of £500. '• We are one year nearer heaven," is the way a Kansas paper began a farewell to the old year; "those subscribers who have not paid are not included." Baron de Lesseps, the promoter of the scheme for the cutting of a canal across tbe Isthmus of Panama, is experiencing great difficulty in the prosecution of his work, owing to the opposition displayed by tbe Government of tbe United Slates and trouble with bis labourers. The work of cutting tbe canal is consequently delayed.

.Leo Har-oiann, the celebrated Russian Nibilisr, who was concerned in the attempt on the life of tho late Czar, by the blowing up of the railway line at Moscow, and who eventually escaped to tbe United States, where a demand for his extradition was made by the Russian Ambassador, bas offered to turn in former against bis former associates, and reveal the secrets of the Nihilist conspiracy, if a free pardon is granted to him.

ANOTHER political trial of Nihilists began recently at Kieff. The prisoners, in two groups of six and four persons respectively including four women, and, strange to say, a Saxon and French Subject, were accused of various political crimes and complicity with the assassins of the late Czar. In a few days the Czar and his family will proceed for a lengthened stay at the seaside resort of Peterhop. The Nihilists are stated to have wreaked lerrililc vengeance on the landlady of the furnished apartments on the Sabalkrenske Prospect for what they called her treason to them. The police found lately in tho river the decomposing remains of a female whose head was enveloped in a bag. Investigations have resulted in showing that the body was that of the unfortunate landlady in question.

A potman, named Henry Trewren, aged 19 was charged before Mr Flowers, at Bow-street, on June 10, with attempting to commit suicide. Police Sergeant TilderBley, 40 Pj, was called to the George Hotel, 213, Strand, yesterday afternoon, and found tbe defendant in his bedroom. He seemed in very low spirits, and asked the officer not to speak to him. Subsequently he stated that he was tired of his life, and that if he had a knife be would cut his head off. He afterwards said that when he was at St Petersburg some time ago the cook of the ship in which he sailed had murdered the captain, and that he (defendant) and another man had thrown the body overboard. The affair had preyed upon his mbd ever since, and he had been induced to make the confession. A letter was produced by the officer in which the defendant stated tbat the ship's name was the St Peter, that three constables were murdered at the same time, and that since he had been home he had seen his name advertised in the papers. Tho letter was signed "James Boyles," the name it was understood he was known by at sea. Dr Mills saw the defendant, and though be was in a low depressed state, he considered him to be perfectly coherent and could not detect anything to suggest unsoundness of mind. The case was remanded lor inquiries.