EUROPEAN ITEMS.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3057, 13 April 1881, Page 3

EUROPEAN ITEMS.

Tbe details of a frightful railway accident on the Erie Railway, by which five men were burned to death, recall the ghastly memories of the Abergele disaster. The night mail train from Buffalo to Jersey went off the line, from some unexplained cause, near Oswego, when travelling at the rate of thirty-five miles an hour. The first six cars rolled over and over down an embankment. In the postal car were four men sorting letters by the light of twelve kerosene lamps. The lamps broke In a moment the car was in a blaze. Rescue was impossible, and the awestruck passengers stood helplessly around the fire in which four fellow-creatures were being burned to death. An express car caught fire, and efforts were made to extricate its solitary occupant. A hole was cut in the door, and the man's head appeared through the opening, but he could not force himself out. " Tbe whole created a draught, upon which the fire seized, and it suddenly shot up the legs and body of the man, surrounded his head in one great Bheet of flame, and he sank back and was literally roasted to death before the eyes of the horror-stricken spectators. When his body was finally rescued from the wreck it had lost all semblance of human form."

The following interesting communication reaches us from Algiers: —Great excitement bas just been caused here among archaeologists and the learned generally by the discovery of an Oriental Pompeii, an ancient Moorish city, with its mosques and monuments, buried for ages in the sand of the desert. The discovery is due to M. Tarry, Inspector of Finance, who immediately communicated the fact to the Algerian Government, begging for the necessary help in excavation and also tor a concession of the desired space in which to carry on the work. The request, it ib needless to say, has been accorded. " The city disinterred " lies in the environs of Ouergla, in the Sabaran desert. M. Tarry identifies it with the ancient city of Cedrata, spoken of byLargeau in his work on Biskra. Historians describe these wastes of sand as peopled centuries ago with flourishing cities, having gardens and artificial water systems, all long since destroyed in tribal wars, or buried in the sand, and of which up to this time no visible trace has remained. M. Tarry describes the site as f)recisely resembling that of Pompeii; it s buried in the sand to the extent of from six to ten metres. A mosque and nine houses have already been excavated, and tbe discoverer speaks enthusiastically of the richly sculptured marble arches, columns, inscriptions, &c., abounding on every side. He intends, however, to reserve a full account of his excavations for the Science Congress to be held in Algiers this spring, and meantime the works are being strenuously pushed on.

' A Nihilist prisoner, who was recently being conveyed from Kieff to Odessa to undergo trial by courtmartial, contrived to communicate with two lady friends and to arrange a plan of escape. He was in the custody of two gendarmes who sat one on either side of him, and, as usual in such cases, had attached themselves with chains to the prisoner's manacles. Soon after leaving KiefT, two hdies entered the next compartment, and having ia course of time received permission to enter the part of the carriage occupied by the gendarmes, proceeded to regale the latter with some dainties from a travelling bag. The ladies were not only generous, but convivial also. They Bang as well as ate, and smoked cigarettes as well as quaffed tiny goblets of vodky. Towards evening a tumbler of tea was proposed at one of the minor stations, and the entire party, with the exception of the prisoner, partook of the cheering beverage. The gendarmes immediately afterward fell sound asleep. In this state they remained several hours, when the train, having reached tbe station ot Venitsa, the guard went to the door to examine the sleepers' tickets. Touching the prisoner on tbe coat-sleeve, the official was surprised to find him only a garment, slightly sustained by an inside wrap to represent a person sunk in slumber. Alarmed, he shook the drugged gendarmes until begot them both awake. The prisoner had slipped his chains and .his travelling coat and hat, and had disappeared from the siene with his two confederates.

A Roman correspondent of the Chicago Times, a lady and a Protestant to boot, lately attended at the Vatican to receive the Holy Father's benediction, and stems to have been much impressed with the feebleness of the Pope's health, and tbe kindness of his manner. " I kissed the large amethyst of his ring," she says, and looked up into his kindly eyes. His robe was of white cashmere, a gold chain hung round his neck, and on his head was a white skull cap fringed by bis silvery hair." An aristocratic dame of the Imperial city acted as chaperone to the fair American in her visit to His Holiness, and as the Pope laid his hand on the head of the visitor, he turned to her introducer and said, " An American ; and how, then, did you come to know her ?" " Holy Father, she lives in my house," was the reply. " She is good," added his Holiness, with a merry smile in his eyes ; " and I," remarks the lady correspondent of the Chicago Journal, " not wishing to rest under false pretences, paid ' Most blessed Father, I am a Protestant,' where-upon be made a little wry face, laughed, shook his head at me, and laid his hand in blessing on my bead a second time." The Protestant proclivities of the fair interviewer do not seem to be very pronounced, and certainly the successor of St. Peter appears to have behaved like a courteous Italian gentleman, as he is. It is less satisfactory to hear that Pope Leo's voice trembles from weakness, tbat his hands are unsteady, and that altogether his extreme feebleness is apparent to every one. Hungary is a great grain-producing country, and there is a. keen competition going on between the Hungarian and the Yankee farmers and millers in the market of Vienna. An American gentleman bas recently gone to Hungary to study the flour-mills there, which are said to be greatly superior to those of the United States, producing 80 per cent, of flour from the wheat, while the American mills only produce G9 per cent. The Hungarians use a large number of rollers—between 30 and 40 — mude of chilled iron and porcelain, in place of the " burr " stones used in other countries ; but their machinery is more expensive than that of the American mills. They have sent a commission to America to study the construction of the mills there.

To be obliged to eat one's peck of dirt, is a sentence which few people probably escape in these days of adulteration. The ingenuity of enterprising manufacturers and wholesale tradesmen in the United States seems likely to increase the number of consumers and the quality oi the unwholesome diet consumed. A number of curious industries are carried on in New York with tbe sole object of

supplying popular articles of food at moderate prices. One of the most prosperous of these is the manufacture of tomato sauce. A man who pays nothing for raw material makes about four thousand a year from the sale of his catsup. He hit a bright idea and contracted to supply the wholesale houses which do a large business in " canning '' fresh tomatoes with clean tubs to take the skins and parings of the fruit. These scraps, judiciously manipulated, form the foundation of the renowned sauce. An operation somewhat similar is no doubt carried on this country with orangepeel, which is carefully collected from the pits and galleries of theatres, even from the streets, and which, after passing through various processes, reappears as the best Scotch marmalade. In the States quantities of sweetstuff and candies are sold and eaten which have a large proportion of white earth and but a small percentage of sugar in their composition. Perhaps the most pernicious of all these deleterious compounds is the Jamaica rum flavoured entirely by old boots boiled. The worthless bits of the boots and chocs picked up in the streets are boiled down in pure rpirits, and allowed to stand for several The result is a delicious liquid, very greatly appreciated at the low-class American bars. j

Britishers, remarks a contemporary, are not famous for great jokes, but one has recently been perpetrated in Loudon which is really admirable, and tbe result of a vast amount of work. It consists of of a copy of the London Times for 1980, of the lull size of the Thunderer, and closely resembling it in every feature, even down to the obscurist advertisements. The editorials, language, and style are closely copied, and in dealing with matters 100 years to come present some fine satirical hits at things of the present day. The House of Lords becomes the " House of Ladies," and generally the other sex seems to have got the upper hands of the world. The centre of fashion in transfered to Fiji, and the fashion notes from the island are decidedly funny. The progress of invention is shown by the news of a battle in the Arctic regions, and the capture of the north pole, transmitted "in thoughtonomic diosylablesby our special phonographic artist." Travelling is done mostly through the air, and penny excursions are offered to all parts of the world. The advertisements are among the best features of the joke, and include such announcement as " Greek taught at One Session," " Headache Cured in One Minute," "The Patent Masticators," " Elephants Milk," " Burning Glasses for Making Hay," " Traps for Fleas," " Postal Balls" (for sending messages by cannon), notices of "Excursions from London to Jericho," " Seven Hours with the Esquimaux," " Lunar Expeditions," " Balloons for the Epsom Races," and a multitude of other novelties. It is a question whether Johnny Bull will comprehend the fun, or relish this trifling with such a serious thing as the Times, but it would take immensely in America.

From Henri Lorm's interesting personal reminiscences of Rossini the London Daily Telegrrph extracts the following hitherto unpublished anecdote, curiously illustrative of the superstition that was one of the great maestro's leading characteristics. In the year 1833 King Louis Phillippe presented Rossini with a magnificent repeater, which the latter was extremely proud of, and carried in his right waistcoat-pocket every day for some six years. One afternoou, as he was showing it to some acquaintances in the Cafe Helder, a strangs gentleman walked up to the table at which he was sitting, and addressed him with the words, " M. Rossini, you do not know the secrets of your watch, although you have worn it for such a long time. Will you permit me to reveal them to ycu ? " Rossini, with an ironical smile, handed him the watch ; when, greatly to his surprise, the stranger touched a hidden spring, and a false lining to the back of the watch flew open, disclosing the maestro's portrait, painted in miniature, and surrounded by a wreath of enamelled Arabic characters. Interrogated as to how he came by his knowledge of the watch's secret, the existence of which Rossini had never before suspected, the stranger avowed himself the maker of the costly toy, but, oddly enough, positively declined to explain the signification of the Arabic words encircling the likeness, although repeatedly and urgently solicited by Rossini to do so. From that moment Rossini, convinced that some evil spell must be contained in the mystic characters which their author stead fastly refused to interpret to him, conceived so unconquerable a fear of the watch that he never again wore it. After his death it was found by his heirs securely sealed up and hidden away in an old commode which apparently had not been opened for several years, as its contents were covered with thick dust.