MAIL NEWS.

Evening Star, Issue 3599, 4 September 1874, Page 3

MAIL NEWS.

The total sum received by the Lord Mayor at the Mansion House from the collections in churches and chapels within the metropolitan area on Hospital Sunday amounted to over L 24,000, Many of the churches and chapels, however, have still to maae returns. On June 15 two deputations—one of Provincial bankers, and the other of London bankers—had an interview ' with the Chancellor of the Exchequer in reference to the recent establishment of branch offices of Scotch banks in England. They complained that by the Act of 1845 Scotch bankers had several privileges granted to them which are denied to the English hankers, and hence it would be placing English bankers at a disadvantage if their brethren in Scotland were allowed to trade in England with those privileges. The Scotch bankers practically had an unlimited issue, partly with and partly without security, and they could issue pound notes. The Scotch banks also had the privilege of issuing on credit to the amount of three millions, from which alone they derived a profit of about L 200,000, a subsidy which enabled them to establish branch banks in small villages. They urged that, when Sir Robert Peel gave the Scotch banks those privileges, it was never intended that they should extend their business into England. The Provincial bankers pointed out that they were excluded from opening banks in London, and the London bankers showed that, by the English Act of 1844, they were prevented from issuing bills of exchange payable to bearer on demand within sixty-five miles of London. They submitted that a short Bill should be introduced to confine Scotch bankers to Scotland ; or, if they were to be allowed to do their business in England, they must have then- privileges taken from thbm to platfe them on an

equal footing with English bankers. The Chancellor of the Exchequer said it was a difficult and a complicated matter to deal with, but he must consider what effect imposing restrictions upon Scotland would have upon foreign hankers if they chose to do business here. A triple suicide has just taken place at Vienna under sad circumstances. Three ladies, the eldest appealing to be the mother of the other two, took a bed-room at the Kummer Hotel The next morning they went out for a short time, and on their return, after having taken a slight repast, retired to their chamber. Shortly afterwards several detonations were heard in that apartment, and on the door being broken open the. three women were found on the floor, each with a pistol in her hand, and their skulls fractured hy the bullets. Subsequently they were recognised as Madame Gyorey, the wife of a tradesman in Hungary, completely ruined by the late financial crisis, and her two daughters. No rings or jewellery were found on them, and the only property they possessed besides their clothes was a sum of 47 kreutzers in the mother’s purse. The banquet intended to have been given to M. Rochefort on June 22 has been indefinitely postponed. He does not think that the time is favor able for such a demonstration, and counsels his admirers to spend what money they have to spare in relieving the wants of his fellow-communists, who, as fexiles, are suffering the privations of poverty. It is possible that he will take up his residence for a time in Switzerland.

Ihe President of Guatemala has ordered Colonel Gonzales, the cotnmandent of San Jos6 de Guatemala, to be shot for the outrage committed by him upon the British vice-consul, Mr John Magee.

A boy eight years old, named Alfred Scott, has been accidentally killed by getting in front of the muzzle, at the moment of explosion, of the gun which is fired at Portsmouth at sunset.

The ‘ Geographical Magazine ’ for June contains an interesting series of statistics by iVIr William Robinson, of the Colonial Office, on Colonial wool. The writer states that “ nearly 800,000 bales of British Colonial wool, of the value of L 15,000,000, are annually sold in London ; but so accustomed are Englishmen to large mercantile transactions, that but very few on reading these figures would probably stop to inquire how this trade has come to assume such immense proportions, and from whence all the wool comes,” and Mr Robinson’s desire is therefore, as he says, “ to supply the information.”

The anniversary of Her Majesty’s accession to the throne, which took place on June 20, 1873, passed off with much eclat. Of the group of ministers who, thirty-seven years ago, took the oath of allegiance to the Queen at a council held at Kensington Palace, Lord Melbourne, Mr Spring Rice, Lord Cotteuhain, the Marquis of Landsdowu, Lord Duncannon, Viscount Palmerston, Lord Glenelg, the Earl of Minto, Sir John Cam Hob house, Lord Holland, Mr Poulett Thomson, Lord Morpeth, Mr Labouchere, Sir John Campbell, and Sir Robert Monsey Rolfe are dead. Only two members of the Cabinet of that day survive—Lord Russell, now within a few weeks of completing his eightysecond year, who was then Secretary of State from the Home Department, and Earl Grey, then Viscount Howick, and Secretary at War, who is ten years younger. Mr Disraeli entered the House of Commons for Maidstone at the general election which succeeded the dissolution of Parliament immediately following the Queen’s accession ; Mr Gladstone had then sat in the first Reformed House of Commons for nearly five years as one of the members for Newark.

According to Professor Piazzi Smyth, the finest specimen of the “ casing stones’ of the Great Pyramid known at present to exist, either in Europe or even Egypt, was received in Edinburgh a few weeks ago from Mr Waynman Dixon, a yonng engineer, who has recently completed an iron bridge across the Nile between Cairo and Chizeh. The specimen possesses, Professor Smyth says, in a more or less injured condition, five of the anciently-worked sides of the block, including the upper and lower horizontal surfaces, together with the levelled slope which led the late Mr John Taylor to what Professor Smyth calls “the immortal archaeological truth that the shape of the entire monument was carefully so adjusted and exactly fashioned in its own day to precisely such a figure that it does, vulgarly, demonstrate in the right way the true and practical squaring of the circle.” Whether this be the case or no, Professor Smyth declares that the length of the front foot, or that line or edge from which the angular slope of the whole stone commences to rise, measures “ within the limit of mensuration error now unavoidable the number of just twenty-five pyramid inches, neither less nor more. And twenty-five pyramid inches have been shown to be the ten-millionth part of the length of the earth’s semi-axis of rotation.” Professor Smyth is very severe on the Egyptologists of the British Museum for the manner in which they conduct their department. A gentleman has just died at Aurice, in the Landes, who might have had some chance of ascending the throne of France, if he had only brought forward his claims in a proper and popular man--1 ahf. This grsat Unknown wss a M. de

Reynal, “the legitimate and direct descendant of Charlemagne.” It is said that his genealogy was based on authentic documents, signed and sealed by no end of kings. What is still more remarkable is, that the modesty of M. de Reynal was such that he never made any show of his groat origin, and never attempted to trouble the State by putting up as a Pretender. He voluntarily let slip an occasion to resuscitate the Carlovingian party and to outdo the Comte de Chamherd in his archeological pretensions. This was, perhaps, a pity. The Carlovingian is the only line not represented in the dynastic world, and, as M. de Reynal leaves no children, there is no chance of its being revived to make the confusion of French political affairs complete.

There is a harrowing description of a “ man-eating plant ” going the rounds of the papers. It is said to be a native of Madagascar, and to trap men and women as the Dionaea does flies. We quote one of the least sensational paragraphs of this “strange story.” A correspondent of the ‘ Garden ’ says : “ The retracted leaves of the great tree kept their upright position during ten days; then when I came again one morning they wei*e prone again, the tendrils stretched, and nothing but a white skull at the foot of the tree. The indescribable rapidity and energy of its movements may be inferred from the fact that I saw a smaller one seize, capture, and destroy an active little lemur, which, dropping by accident upon it, while watching and grinning at me, in vain endeavored to escape from the fatal toils.”

A hailstorm of extraordinary fury burst over Lyons the other day. Hailstones were picked up as big as chicken’s eggs, and weighing in some few instances 12 ozs. to 14 ozs. All the skylights and greenhouses were shattered, and houses in exposed positions had their windows and Venetian blinds smashed. Some people were wounded by the stones. All the crops within reach of the hail are ruined, but the storm seemed to have spent its chief fury over the town. The damage done to the hospitals alone is estimated at L 35,000.