English News.

Clutha Leader, Volume IV, Issue 197, 19 April 1878, Page 6

English News.

The Dardanelles at Gallipoli are about a German mile (four English) broad. Experiments with, the telephone are now being made by the officials of the Japanese Government. There is a large amount of destitution in Greenock, and the authorities make an appeal for help. Owing to a serious falling off in the receipts, the Liverpool Royal Infirmary is in debt to the amount of L 5131. A woman convicted, of murdering her husband has been executed at Foochow by the ling chi, or slicing process. Famine prevails in palestine. Several reports speak of intense misery in Jerusalem, Tiberias, and other places. The cab and coach proprietors of Madrid fixed the price of every cab or coach during the Royal wedding festivities at LlO a-day. At Neuburg, in Styria, a chalet containing fourteen persons was swept away by an avalanche, and two bodies only have been recovered. The British envoy at the wedding of King Alfonso had to pay L 24 a day for his qunrters in the Hotel de la Paix. The French envoy paid the same in the Hotel de Paris. A fine of L 5 and co<=ts has been imposed upon Peter Fiynn, a beerseller at Birkenhfiad, on a charge of keeping a a room in his house for the purpose of baiting a badger. The Edinburgh Town Conncil have agreed 'to grant LBOO for the purpose of forming a bowling-green in the West Meadows for the use of the public. Under the will of the late Mr Angus M'Lean of Fascadale House, Ardrishaig, L6OOO has been bequeathed to the Established Synod of Argyll for bursaries. Michael Ross, farm servant, residing near Newton-Mearns, on awakening found the cat lying aoross the face of his infant daughtei, aged three months. On removing the animal he was horrified to find that the child was dead. The Rev. John Keith, 8.D., formerly assistant for five years to the Professor of Greek, and now assistant in St. Mary's, Edinburgh, has been appointed to conduct the Greek classes and the graduation examinations during the absence of Professor Blackie in the East. At a meeting of the Lochcarron Free Presbytery Mr M'Coll gave notice that all members of Court absent without sufficient apology be fined LI each for every meeting which they do. not attend — one moiety of the fines to be given to defray expenses of the members present. The Government have given permission to Mr John O'Leary, the editor of the Fenian organ, the Irish People, seized in Dublin in 1865, and who was tried, convicted, and sentenced to penal 1 servitude for life, but subsequently re- [ leased on condition that he should reside outside the British dominions, to revisit Ireland temporarily on private affairs. A public school of music is about to be opened in Cork, the Corporation 1 having made a grant for its support 1 under the authorisation of an amend- . ment to the Libraries and Museum Act ( which was passed last session. Cork i was the first city in the kingdom to * endow an art school out of the rates, 1 and is now the first to do the same for ■ music. During one week six steamers arrived , at Liverpool from the United States ' and Canada, bringing collectively 4902 , quarters of fresh beef, 1090 carcases o| > mutton, 494 dead pigs, and 200 1 packages of fresh butter, the latter ■ being the first consignment of fresh ' butter that has arrived for many weeks past. There also came to hand 355 live sheep from Canada, i Lord Barr;ngton, Vice- Chamberlain : of the Queen's household, has under--1 taken to supply her Majesty with summary reports of debates or conversations on the Eastern Question which may [ take place in the House of Commons. The noble Lcrd entered upon his duty on the first night of the session, when he despatched a telegram to Osborne 1 with the heads of the Marquis of ! Hartington's speech and of the few remarks made by Mr Gladstone. The Russian papers call attention to the fact that Germany is quietly massing troops along the Polish frontier. They assign no particular reason for this, but at Warsaw it is believed that Germany has taken this step in case , that complications between Russia and , England should cause a rising among the Poles. Should disturbances break ' out in Poland the Vistula provinces , would be temporarily occupied by German troops. The following curious advertisement „ appears in the Times: — "Honeymoon 1 Retreat — Cottage Vicarage Residence in , to be Let, Furnished, for three months, April, May, June, very reasonable, lovely country, hill and dale, lanes ; of ferns carpeted with flowers, extensive views at every , gate. Drawing, dining, study, painted walls, four bed- ; rooms. Respectable servant. Verandah, lawn, garden, ample supply of -kail, leeks, onions, carrots, turnips, • beet, parsnip, spring 'flowers. A pet 1 donkey, as gentle and wise as a big dog. ; dpnkey ; carriage., and cart ; fowls and : ducksjn full lay jlast^not least/a /pet ', cat. Five-and-a-half miles from sta- ] tion, {!.,■■•«»> ■- - Add.ressl^-~rv'': '<. ' ~ ' / '

The death is announced offMr Arthur Burnett, ex- Sheritf of Peeblesshire, a~ grandson of the famous Lord Monboddo. Dt Gillan, responding to the toast of " The Church of Scotland " at a meeting in Glasgow, said the English clergymen who took up the platform of disestablishment knew as little about the history, actings, spirit, and priaciple of the Church of Scotland as " a sow does of a new shilling." Philip M'Ardel) 75 years of age,.a~ vagrant, who died in a . lodging-house in Linlithgow, left nbout L4O in one of his vyallets, and L3O. sewed between ■ the lining and cloth of his coat. Besides these sums be also possessed two bottles full of sovereigns, both of which were hidden underground. A few hours before his death he made a will leaving his property equally between the lodging-house-keeper and the Rev; Mr M'Artney, Roman Catholic priest, Linlithgow. . The Pera correspondent of the Manchester Guardian writes : — The horrors of the Mahomedan flight are almost beyond belief. Mothers have killed their children in order to spare them from further, misery. The distress in Constantinople baffles relief. Eight thousand more refugees arrived to-day. I myself saw two women die of starvation in the streets. It is impossible to find shelter for all. I saw 200 women and children huddled together in an open shed knee-deep in mud. Trustworthy statistics regarding the recent fainino in India show that out of 1,668,000 inhabitants in the district of Bellary, 14,006 died of starvation in March alone, 1877. In that of Cydarah, out of 1,300,000, there died in February, 11>422 ; in Kurnaul, out of 950,640, those that starved in January numbered 6253. Out of 26,000,000 in Madras, there died in February 105,175, and by the end of June over 500,000. Bombay lost over 165,000 in the first three months of the year, and it was anticipated that before relief came a total of 2,000,000 would die. The claim put forward by Russia for Roumanian Bessarabia has caused much displeasure to Germany, all the more since Russia has hitherto professed no other motive and object than to benefit the Christian Principalities. And to begin by robbing the Christian State which of all others has most effectually assisted her in the war of some ; of the most valued territory is regarded as a strange sequel to those noble professions. A Prussian officer, in a letter, points out the serious dangers which may arise to Germany from the aggrandisement of Russia at the cost of Roumania, not only by the assignment of an important strategic position to a strong foreign military Power, but scarcely less by the impetus which the proposed cession of territory is likely to give to Panslavism, a power decidedly hostile to Germany. A petition has been presented to Parliament signed by Miss Lydia Becker, Rosanna Battey, Sarah Maria Backhouse, and other ladies. It set 9 forrh that marriage is the natural and 1 honourable profession in which the 1 majority of women maintain themselves by the discharge of the conjugal, social, 1 and domestic duties which appertain to the position of a wife ; that the entrance on this profession comes to . a woman .through an offer or promise of ' marriage ; that the acceptance cf such offer or promise debars the woman from 1 forming other ties, and the breaking or non-performance of such promise hinders her from obtaining an establishment in life, inasmuch as a woman who has given her promise and affections to one ! msm cannot transfer them to another '. without previous loss ; that men do not - usually marry for a maintenance ; while ' marriage is regarded as the proper and usual means through which women 1 obtain a maintenance; therefore a ! breach of promise of marriage by a man 1 to. a woman, causes a pecuniary loss which is not usually suffered through a breach of promise by a woman to a man J and upon these and other grounds the 1 petitioners pray thai; leave may not be ! granted to biing in a Bill to abolish actionsfor breach of promise of marriage. Stanley's discoveries and explorations may bear greaier fruit in the immediate future than even he, sanguine and en- :. thusiastic as he naturally is, could ever : have supposed. Sir David Salomons, a thoughtful politician, who was once Lord Mayor and sat for Greenwich, 1 looks to African colonisation to redress the balance if it turns against us in the present difficulties m the , East. , ,He 1 anticipates as extremly probable such a ratification of the boundaries of Euro--1 pean States, that the whole continent would contain, broadly speaking, only ' three great Powers — Germany,. Russia, and France. Two of these, Germany and America, support ** protection j' France, even, is tending Cowards it Our commerce, therefore, based upon i the principle, of free-trade, is directly threatened. Wecould never recur to i protection, yet we have ,riot land enough to raise food sufficient for our consumption. What, then, are we to do? asks Sir David. Acquire Africa; Make it a second India. France, the only, real obstacle, raigh t be talked overjudiciously, particularly if we made a defensive alliance with her, and bought 'up the ' rest of the Suez Canal. "We ; could then buy! Egypt, and 1 annex Abyssina^ Zanzibar, 5 etc., without bloodshed, and gradually colonise the whole, or nearly, the whole,; of Africa -in>* friendly. wayi" Not a bad programme, certainly, but likely, if adopted; to lead : u», into %-littUf expeifsei ;. ■••-.■"■•.■'■- ;•"'."