LATER ENGLISH ITEMS.

Evening Star, Issue 3122, 20 February 1873, Page 2

LATER ENGLISH ITEMS.

The Thomas Stephens, which arrived in Melbourne on the 12th February, .after a spkmlid passage of sixty-eight days, has brought some English papers, from which we give a few incidents that have not as yet appeared : Twenty-one of the bodies buried in the Pelsall Hall pit have been recovered. These are all who were killed except one. The inquest was adjourned for a fortnight. The London correspondent of the Manchester Guardian is responsible for the following (in Thursday. 28th November, St. James’s, Piccadilly, was the scene of a marriage which is creating no small stir in the West-end. The bridegroom is a wealthy merchant, a number of the Reform and Brooks s clubs, and representative in Parliament of the borough of Bridport. The bride is a young lady of great personal attractions, who has for some time filled the useful position of barmaid at a tavern in Jermyn street. She is the daughter of the hall porter at the Duke of Leinster’s mansion in Carlton House terrace. Till yesterday the sexagenarian M,P. had rejoiced in bachelorhood. It is said he was induced to change his condition through events which followed a casual visit to the house where the lady officiated at the bar. The attentions then given and the commiseration shown in a temporary illness that required a stimulant, so won the honorable gentleman’s heart that he sought and obtained the lady’s hand and the consent of her astonished parents. In addition to the position to which the lady has now attained, she will have, so runs the rumor, a settlement of LIO,O 0. The ceremony was performed by special license i hortly after eight o’clock in the morning, the early hour having been chosen in order to avoid the crowd which always attends a mid-day wedding at a. West-end church. As an additional precaution the venue also was changed at the las f t moment, as it had been found one morning last'week, when it was expected the ceremony would be performed at St. George’s, Hanover square, that the church was half-filled With barmaids. The “best man” was the bridgroom’s medical attendant. There were no bridesmaids. The bridegroom is Mr T. A. Mitchell, and the bi ide Miss Eleanor Braisier. An English ‘paper reports that six Communists have recently escaped from the citadel of Port Louis, whose adventures are sensational enough for a Christmas story. r \ hey contrived to escape in the following manner Having discovered that there were large excavations unprotected by masonry under the room in which they were confined, these prisoners raised the planking of tshe floor, ana burrowed in the soft and sandy soil beneath it. The earth, which the excavator cast behind him, after the manner of a rabbit, was pick- d up by hk comrades, who threw it into a cellar under another part of the floor. The planking was always carefully replaced when the warders were expected, and thus a tunnel was at length completed wide enough to admit a man, and about fifteen yards long, passing under the posts of the sentries in the inner court and on the platform, this tunnel came out beyond the oul side Wall, about two yards and a half above low-water mark, f-ucb skilful miners were not stopped by the great thickness of the wall of the fortress, the large stones of which are somewhat loose and ill cemented. They used one of the iron window bars as a lever with which to move the great blocks, and replaced it with a piece of wood well blackened With rust, So that the change was unobserved. ‘ TJiesfc dating pep *(e |&e}y to Atoape fvf,

although they wore the prison uniform, they had ' access to their old clothes, and, of course, put these on before they effected the (scape so skilfully planned and so laboriously carried out. t At Southampton, on Thursday, November 28, eight colored seamen, the crew of the vessel John Peile, of Whitehaven, Were charged with attempting to scuttle their ship on tho high seas in August last. The captain testified that the vessel was quite sound on leaving Cardiff, but four days afterwards a hole was di-'cove cd under the floor of the forecastle, where the prisoners slept. It was piling, d, but next clay another hole was fi.und, and for days in succession others were discovered, all presenting the appearance of being bored with an auger. The captain, believing that the crew intended to desert the ship when in a sinking state, smashed both the boats he possessed The ship then proceeded safely to Bahia, and the men were given in charge of the consul, who sent them home. They were committed for trial. The American Sergeant Bates, after carrying the stars and stripes from the border of England and Scotland through the country, arrived at the Telegraph Hotel, Shepherd's Rash, on Friday afternoon, November 29, hale and fresh as on the day when he started. The secret of Mr Bates’s novel project is en thusiastn. His own explanation of it is very simple. He belonged to a company of friends at Sayhrook, U,S., the majority o' whom held a very poor opinion ®f England’s friendship, and in the course of their discussions, during which he always maintained that Englismen had none of the hatred of Americans which the others swore by, he incidentally, as an illustration of the frequent injustice of public opinion, narrated how, immediately after the defeat of the Southern States, he walked from Vicksburgh to Washington, a distance of 1,500 miles, bearing aloft the Union colors, to prove that the “Rebs” were, after all, not so bad as they were painted. His opponents in argument thereupon stoutly maintained that such a thing, though possible in America, would not lie tolerated for an instant in England The debate urew warm, and ended in a bet of I,ooodolls tolO do. thathewouldnob he permi tied to carry tho Stars and Stripes through England without insult and maltreatment. When it came to the test he felt inclined to withdraw from the agreement, never imagining it was seriously meant; but was at length pressed into undertaking a tonr which seme of his friends warned him might possibly have a serious termination for him. He wa,s assured that the Government of Great Britain would imprison him, and that in certain districts of England bis very life would not be safe. He, nevertheless, sailed from New York on the 19th of October, landed at Glasgow on the Ist November, took train to Gretna-green, and unfurling the Stars and Stripes on the border line, began his march on the 6th November. Previously, be had written to the gentleman— Mr Warren, of Sayhrook—who had been most prominent in holding him to the terms of the challenge, declaring that he waived the 1,000 dollars part of the business, and was content to carry out the task on purely patriotic motives. The drawee he has walked he reckons to be 332 milts. Halting first at Carlisle, his various stages were Penrith, across the Fells to Shap, Kendall, Lancaster, Preston, Bolton. Manchester, Macclesfield, Binslem, Stiffen!, Wolverhampton, Birmingham, Warwick, Banbury, Oxford, > tokenchurch, Uxbridge, and Shepherd’s Bush. There was no stipulation as to time, but, with the exception of Sundays, and an extra day at Manchester, and Birmingham, Mr Bates has pursued his march day by day, performing an average of 18 miles per day. The fltg, which is mounted on a tall pole, weighs about a dozen pounds, and his knapsack is of the same burden. What Mr Bates has done is, therefore, a capital feat of pedestrianism. His reception along the route has been of the warmest and most fraternal character. His recollections of Oxford especial : y, where the University men gave him the most cordial welcome of all, and where he bad been told in America his career would, be summarily particularly pleasant. Mr Bates was colorsergeant of the United States Artillery, and it is the uniform of tint branch of the service" he wears. He is remarkably intelligent, modest, and gentlemanly in his demeanor —a good type, in short, of the well-edu-cated young American. 'lhe sergeant left the Telegraph Hotel, Shepherd’s Bush, on Saturday forenoon, November 30, at 11 o’clock, on his march to Guildhall, where his tour ended. Sir John Bennett, baring that the crowd would be so great that the sergeant would experience a difficulty in getting through the streets, placed a carriage at his disposal, but the enthusiastic crowd insisted upon taking out the horses, and dragged him in triumph to the Guildhall.