EUROPEAN ITEMS.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 2984, 18 January 1881, Page 4

EUROPEAN ITEMS.

An enterprise having for its object the importation of fresh meat is about to be tried on a grand scale. The Great Eastern steamship so long idly moored in port, has recently been chartered for ten years to carry dead meat to the United Kingdom from the American seaboard or the Eiver Plate. It is calculated that from Texas or the Argentine provinces beef of prime quality can be laid down in England at 3d per pound. The promoters of this ■ bold scheme intend to slaughter the cabtlo on board the great ship as received from day to day, and for this purpose they have secured the services of trained butchers from the abattoirs of Chicago. The dressed meat will be stored in refrigerators, and it is estimated that 10,000 to 15,000 carcases of beef, all hung —equal to 3000 or 4000 tons of meat—will be shipped each voyage. The result of this truly great enterprise will be -watched with much interest by tbe public. The story about the Times having offered £1000 for early proofs of " Endymion " is believed to be correct ; but whether that other about the Standard having increased the offer to £1500 ia also correct is not so certain. At all events, Mr Longman refused thorn both, and yet the Standard was enabled to be not only a day in advance of itg contemporaries, but also a day in advance of the publishers themselves. There must have been great consternation in Paternoster Row when it was discovered that, after the refusal of £1500, the people in Shoe-lane had got an early copy, and had given to the world a very good idea of what the book contained, before it was on sale. It was naturally a very hastily prepared account,

for the book could riot have been in tho Standard office before eight or nino o'clock, and even the most experienced reviewer, who adopts the principle of cutting the pages and smelling the papor-lcnifc,- could scarcely got through three volumes in less i than as many hours. The plate and other valuables of (lie Marquis of Sligo has just been conveyed, under police escort, from Wesport House, county Mayo, to the railway station, en route for England, where his lordship intends to reside until the disappearance of the agrarian movement. It 13 reported that a saddle of mutton sent as a " present," by someone unknown, to Mr Abhdowri, agent in Shropshire for the Duke of Cleveland, was, after it had been cooked and brought to table, found to be poisonous, and that an analysis showed ifc to contain strychnine enough to poison fifty persons. Next week a walking match against time will take place. The bet is that the clisItancefrom the White Horse Cellai*, London, |o the Pavilion, Brighton, will be done in ■welve hours. The athlete who proposes to perform the task is a, young officer, who is [defied by another ofßeer, afc the figure of £200 against the pedestrian's £10. A German „ newspaper lately gave its readers the following interesting piece of information : " The Eev. Polham Dale has been committed for contempt of court to the prison of Holloway. Holloway is a town near London, famous for its pills !" The following anecdote is told of Lord Cardigan : —" The late Earl of Cardigan, the same gallant nobleman who led the mad and ever-memorable charge at Balaclava, was once riding in all the splendour of his uniform as colonel of the 10th Hussars, in the streets of Brighton, where his regiment was then quartered. As his lordship was turning the corner of a street leading to the Steine, the stalwart driver of a great wngon was ordered to move a little on one side, as the street was narrow. The big-boned driver responded with a grin, and scooping up a handful of dirt, threw it at the horseman, bespattering his brilliant gold bullion, laces, tags, frogs, and filagree, and all the pride, pomp, and eircixnistance of glorious war. Whereupon Earl Cardigan instantly dismounted, gave his bridle, with his sword and sabretache, into the hands of a bystander, and there and then, with the Englishman's national weapons, gave the big wagoner the very best thrashing he ever had in his life, leaving him with eyes, mouth, and crimson-streaming nose, in the worst possible condition for his photograph, amidst the shouts of laughter and applause of the assembled crowd. Quickly making his way to his horse, his lordship mounted, and rode off to his military duties. " The Duchesse do Chevreuse, one of the best-known members of the aristocracy of the Faubourg St. Germain, is to be prosecuted for insulting the police when engaged in tho expulsion of tho Benedictines at La Flechc. In compliance with orders sent from Paris the Boulogne police have expelled from France Miss Florence Smith, who it will be remembered, was fined 100 fr. for insulting the police when dispersing the Redemptorist Fathers, and was afterwards presented with a testimonial by a private committee of ladies. An Eastern journal attributes nine children to the Princess Dolgorouki all recognised, betitled, and enriched by the Czar, and representing both a handsome and healthy collection of princes and princesses. The publication of Kinglake's " History of the Crimean War " has had the effect of reviving Dr Russell's memory of the sufferings endured by our army at the time. The recollection of tho misery haunts him like a hideous dream. The sights to be seen on a battle field, ho says, fill the mind with images of horror, and touch the heart witli pity and grief beyond words ; but somehow or other the impression is effaced by contact with the continuing necessities of war. It is the burning anger and fierce resentment which were aroused by the aspect of the charnel-houses called hospitals, by the sight of the soldiers of an army whom no foe could vanquish, perishing in rags of cold and hunger, when clothing and food were close at hand, that can never die out. In December 1854, the French had in the field 65,050 men and 6432 admissions into hospital. In the same month out of a strength of less, much less, than half that of the French, we had 9259 men in hospital In February, 1855, when the French mustered 89,000 men, they had 8298 in hospital. That same month, with a strength of 31,000, we had no less than 13,608, men in our ambulances. " But," says Mr Kinglake, " death —only death—kept down to its actual limit the number of 13,608, and prevented it from reaching 22,506, for that last would have been the number in our hospitals at the close of February, if the patients there treated during the period of the same four months had been all alive and well." In other words, out of our small army, 8898 men perished in hospital in less than four months.

As the Czar is about to leave Livadia for Sfc PetcTdbng hundreds of menacing letters are daily received by members of the imperial family and other distinguished personages, threatening murder on the road. As on former occasions the entire line of rail will be watched by soldiers and peasants, and lighted up by torches at night. There will be servant trains on parallel lines, tho one carrying tho Emperor being unknown ; and Count Melikoff will himself go from the capital to the Crimea, to return with his Sovereign.

It is averred by " those who ought to know" in Berlin that there is real foundation for the report of the Czar's indisposition. His Majesty, for one thing, is said to be exceedingly anxious about the early official publication of his marriage with the Princess Dolgorouki; but not all the persuasive eloquence of Count Loria MeKkoff has yet been able to procure the assent of tho Czarewitch and the others members of the imperial family.

There has been a renewal o£ the bigoted agitation against Jews led by the Court Preacher Stocker and Professor Treitsche. The Berlin papers however, publish a declaration signed by a number of influential inhabitants, demanding respect for every religious persuasion, equal rights and equal advantages for all in the battle of life, as well as the recognition of honest effort for Christians and Jews alike. The names at the foot of the declaration include those of Professors Droysen, Virchow, Hoffman, and LTomrnscn. In a duel which has arisen out of the mtifctoi 1 :i young Jew named GoldSfhmidt has shot Lieutenantvon Kapphengst, a Prussian nobleman of ancient family, through the body, inflicting a wound from which he is not expected to recover. A petition has been presented to Prince Bismarck to restrict the civil rights of the Jews and repeal the absolute equality enjoyed by them with German citizens. The Jews, it is stated in this document, without taking part in the manual labor of the lower classes, are rapidly getting rich. All the finest palaces of all the larger towns already belong to them, and in another generation they will lord ifc over the Teutons if the present laws are permitted to continue in force. But aa Jewish notions of honour and religion are cosmopolitan rather than German, it is considered that the Germans proper should not acquiesce in this, but should enforce some \ of the old disabilities.