NEWS BY THE MAIL.

Evening Star, Issue 3641, 23 October 1874, Page 2

NEWS BY THE MAIL.

1 FAMINE IN ASIA MINOR - . While we are congratulating ourselves on the manner in* which the-famine crisis has been surmounted in India, terrible accounts reach Constantinople from the famine districts in Asia Minor. "1$ ia.sjaid shat the deaths from actuaLstarva&oa and diseases resulting from insufficient, food cannot fall far short of TSO 000. ' In one small district alone there; were 5,000. The head quarters of the faihnielies in a regioii delitied byliufes running from Angara to Konia on the w.st. from to Nigdeh m the south, and irom Nigdeh to Tokat on the east, a district containing about 40,003 square n* lee. This whole locality, nearly equ d in area to four, fifths of England, is in t* sat measure depopulated, the inabitants i u r fled, leaving their farms and vineyar. houses have been burned for hie ueir flocks and herds have perished. vest will not be sufficient to met' mand, as much less ground was ;.ted, the wretched peasan ry bavin.., L > consume their sed aud oxen for fo >' •>. J thus, without immediate steps arc < ■- n by the Government, there is the d. of a greater famine in 1875.” WIFE BKATI. a ‘The Fchd ’ has had aoi, amusing letters pn the subject of wife-beat;; ; -“Ought men to beat their wives?”—B>.me advocating, others denouncing the' rather too prevalent custom in England, where man gets five years’ penal servitude, and ten years’ police supervision for stealing a piece bf bacon, and a wife-beater, who nearly kills hia wife with kicks, and another who sets ;> vicious dog to worry his, only get a few months’ imprisonment ; but I do not so much wonder at this, after reading some of the letters published on the subject, in which the writers state their wives are much improved by occasional beatings. No doubt our judges and magistrates are of the same opinion, and bear in mind the old adage— A woman, a spaniel, a walnut tree, The more you thrash ’em the better they be. A FEAT OF MEMORY. On the occasion of Professor Fawcett’s speech at Brighton the other day, the repot ot which occupied more than two columns of the ‘ Scotsman,’ a curious instance was afforded of memory such as is not often equalled. A gentleman who went down to Brighton in order to report the speech for fourteen newspapers called upon the Professor some tune before its delivery, and explaining the nature of his business requested the favor of a slatem'nt of the principal points of the speech Professor Fawcett very courteously propose! not only to give him the sub mcc of t ~■■■. speech, but to rehearse the whole of in for him. This he did. and the reporter took it down. Later on, while the speech proper was delivered, the original copy made at the rehearsal was checked over word for word, and from beginning to end; so perfectly had the speech been .committed to memory, there was not one single mistake, except that at one place a word was substituted for its equivalent in the notes.

LADIES’ DAY AT THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION,

One interesting day was occupied chiefly by the ladies, frho had a crowded section to hear them speak, and they spoke with a grace and vigor which left nothing to be desired. Mrs Grey, a member of our London School advocated a science of education. Miss Beedy spoke in favor of medical reforms. The suggest!, ns of the latter lady, though they aroused the ire of the doctors, may have practical interest on your side of the world as well as ours, Mio wished “to abolish the whole system of fees by visits, and to introduce the practice of paying a physician an annual stipend to keep a general look-out over your health and that y°ur family. He would call every now and then in a friendly way, warn you if your habits were injurious, if your treatment of jfour children was mistaken, if your house was in any way unsanitary. He would detect the germ of incipient disease, and apply i the proper treatment in time to arrest it, and

W ? U H short, -be ready . with' valuable advice or all kinds. ;At present the debtor's income depended idleness.and net the health of his clients.” Of course, under such a system the lady practitioner would •“ ,r g®f® G °pe in dealing with mothtrs tod their children. Dr-Farre, our RegistparOcueral, endorsed the suggestion, and haid that several medical friends of hj sin London would be quite ready to enter upon such a practice if there Were who desired to make the experiment, “It was in fact, only one step lurther la the direction of the change which had been ma le when a physician began to charge for his advice instead of making his living off the price of his d ugs.” ladies’ swimming match. We are beginning to follow the Yankee example, and every day s.es us nearer the manners and customs which prevail across the Atlantic. A public ladies’ swimming match took place the other day at Blackrook, near Dublin, when five ladies swam a match of one hundred yards. There Was an immense crowd of spectators, and the competitors beguiied'the time before the commencement of the race by.taking “headers” and'diving, S:c., for the diversion of the company. The race was won by a Mies Bounds, of Dundrum, by a length, Miss Adelaide Dixon coming in second, swimming is udw taught at the best girls’ schools as a portion of the programmenftcalistbenios. . -~ OUTRAGE AND LAWLESSNESS IN ALABAMA. A Washington special says authentic information was received by the Post Office Department to the effect that lately a train on the Albemarle and Chattanooga Railroad was stopped by means of a false signal near York Station. Alabama; that immediately on its halting it was boarded and taken possession of by a baud of armed men, who shot dodm the negro mail-agent without provocation, and in cold blood. Official dispatches were received stating that soon after a body of armed white mepi surrounded a negro church in Lee county, Aii, while the services were in progress, and without the slightest provocation fired''into the congregation, killing four persons outright. In addition to this, the Alabamians have stories to tell of the intimidation of white- and negro Radical speakers, the whites being visited at their homes by armed men, and warned not to speak, and negro orators being driven from the platform, in full view of their audiences, by'thb same means.

A SAD STORY FROM CANADA. A heartrending tragedy occurred near Ottpwa the week before last. , It appears that three little children-named Forrio went into their father’s barn, which; was full of grain, audset fire to it. .. After doing this they climbed., to the top of the mow and jumped around in a merry mood until the flames began to get too hot. They then tried tb get down, but found escape impossible, and commenced to shout for, Jbelp. Their mother, who was a short distance away, heard their cries of distress, and ran to their assistance. When she entered the barn she could see a dense cloud* of smoke and flame, and from at proceeded, the most piteous screams and cries of her little chil- " dren With a mother's devotim, the brave woman climbed into the burning mow. No sooner .had she done so than she was overcome by the beat and smoke and fell on her face on- the-hay, a short distance-from her children. , Some of- the neighbors were by this ame attracted by the smoke .rising from the burning building, and arrived; just ini time to see her roll out of the mow to the floor in an unconscious condition. They picked her up. but she was dead. After the barn was burned down, the bodies of the bodies of the three little children were also recovered, and new await the action of the coroner. Mr Fornn was absent from-home when the unfortunate, affair occurred, and knew nothing ofitnntil hereturned. Much sympathy Is ,|elt .with him. among the neighbors. .■ ' ■ -1. *; p* .- OFjA,. NOTORIOUS SWINDLER, \ The. ‘I Vfib has’jun closed his career by shicide Whk ati ifiii&Btor . of the Oagliostro stamp. He was a native of Grange, New, Jersey, hhd his ■family’belonged to the same clan as the Earl of Aberdeen. .When the heir to the earldom, who had shipped himse f as mate, under -the name of G. H. Osbourne, in January, 'B7O, on board the Hera, a small vessel bound from Boston to Melbourne, tell overboard and was drowned, and the news reached America, young .Gordon took it into his head to represent himself as the missing man. He found plenty of tuft-hunters who hot only be* hayed his story, but advanced him money. He took up his quarter# at the Metropolitan Hotel, in New York, where his “lordly bearing and aristocratic habits ” excited the admiration of all plebeians, who listened to his conversation about his titled relatives with that eager interest which democrats always exhibit in regard to high life In the summer of 1871 be visited the Western State in company with a “ Colonel Loomis,” another venturer of his own kidney. Here he announced his intention of taking up a large tract of country, and of expending some of his. immense wtaalth in bringing out the poorer tenantry of his vast estates in Scotland. On his return to Mew York, ha kindly allowed some of his intimate friends to purchase from him—as a particular favor —corner allotments in the Scotch city he was about to build; Strange to* say, Jay" Gould gave Gordon 600 shares of Erie for 80 acres of real estate in Westchester County, Mew York, to which the vendor had about as much title as ho had to the White House at Washington, Gordon had broached a great project for consolidating the trie and Mew York Central Kailrbads, for building a bridge across the Hudson, and for erecting a great depdt in Westchester County. Even Vande bilt was drawn into the scheme, for Gordon had succeeded in convincing the capitalists that he controlled the Press of New York, and more particularly the • Herald, because the late James Gordon Bennett “ used to be one of our tenants, and took our family name.” Latterly, the audacious adventurer—who, previous to his assumption of the title, had led a wild roving hfe in California, Mexico, and South A menca—had been playing hide and seek with cr ®^V*i ol,B » n 4 the officers of justice, and, finding their toils closing round him, he was probably impelled to take a leap in the dark to escape the like exposure and punishment which have befallen Arthur Orton.

SUPERNATURAL RELIGION. A London correspondent, writing literary notes from London, says .-—The chief literary event of the day is an anonymous work en. titled “ Supernatural Religion : an Inquiry into the Reality of Divine Revelation,” publish* d by Messrs Longman, and generally acknowledged to be the ablest work which has y e t appeared on the side of the freethinkers. It evinces great learning, and a consummate knowledge of the modern forms of thought, and the entire range of BihlioAl criticism. It's style is refined and temporate, its argument is elaborate, and its conelusions are of the melancholy kind whioh seem to have so powerful a fascination for mens minds m the present day, conclusions which remove them from the control «nd providence of a powerful God, and substitute an inexplicable abstraction, in the purely mteUectual region of thought, for the Creator the Redeemer, and the Sanctifier of all manW. That the bonk is Md profound no one can deny, and those who moan deeply regret that power Wd Iwraing should be displayed on ;thh. elite »f the renunciation of Christianity kZ knowledge its ability most freely : but . when we remember the exoitwenlj whSh

Was caused by “Ecce Romo’’—a much inferior work—and tbe unsettling effect it had upon minds attracted by its nove.ty and its apparent I ' eadth. wo cannot but apmehend that the effect of this b'-anted ? and eloquent treatise may be wide-spread and n-.isebiev-vous. The book has been immen ely read and reviewed with convincing p.iwer, and also with great gravity and resp ct, by the ‘Spectator,’ iu its highest tone of ('I risfl n advocacy. Various rumors are • afloat respecting the authorship of this work ; one, which has been received with general pain and incredulity, assigns it to Bishop Sherlock. This has been denied, not by tbe Bishop himself, who probably considers it beneath bis dignity.and self-respect to refute such an accusation—for in the case of any man holding Episcopal charge in a Christian Church the statement would amount to an accusation—hut by bis friends, most emphatically by Dr Rlumptre, of King’s College, who maintains that the hook manifests neither the style nor the thought of’the bishop, and is characteristic of him only in its. broad and deep research. TWENTY HOURS IN THE DARKNESS UNDER BARIS. A correspondent of the ‘ Cleveland Leader’ visited the catacombs of jParis recently, fell behind his companions, was lost and spent twenty hours in the dreadful place. He gives the following description of his experience:—It began to occur to me that 1 was lost, and 1 cried with lusty voice and long, but it came back to me in a thou sand airs and echoes. At every turn I peered with huugry eyes into the pitchy darkness of the passages, vainly striving to discern the presence of some living soul beside myself, but I saw nothing. Again T cried out until it seemed my very lungs must burst with the effort, and again and again, and all the answer that came was the shrieking of a million echoes that were full of horror and sepulchral groauings. The light burned low and added not a little to my anxiety, as it must soon burn out and leave me in-utter darkness. Horror of horrors ! I stood face to face with grinning skulls, whose empty sockets gazed at me from rows of bones that rant ed above my head. Never had I seen such a terrible spectacle. All the terrors T had experienced iu my life combined could not equal the agony of that ®ue mment. Alone with three millions of dead ! The awful reality of my situation came upon me with a rush,- bearing with it the agonising possibilities of deaths and the-suf-fering that would ensue in such a place. My heart stood still, tbe cold sweat oozed from my pores in great drops, the clammy wind fanned me in sullen gusts, as if the black wing of death had brushed my brow. The silence was oppressive, the darkness a weight. But in a moment I recovered myself and hurried forward, while the bones and skulls seemed to clutch and mock at me as I passed, as if they envied me the life 1 had. < ! n, on I went, but there seemed no end, and suddenly the light flared up, trembled, and flashed out, and darkness settled over me like a pall. I stodfla while in amazement, lost in a dull sttapor. 1 was--bewildered','* and could scarcely think. By ’ degrees my mind struggled into its normal condition, and I began to weigh the chances of life and death, and calculated them as coolly as the interest on an investment. For a while I wandered in the darkness until tired nature could no- more, and I shrank away into a passage, leading from the horrible array of bones, and sank down beside a pillar to a troubled rest, till I could hear,the carriages-rattling iu the streets overhead, and knew another day had dawned on earth. As near as I could make out by running my fingers* over the face of my watch, it was about nine o’clock, and I had spent twenty hours in the catacoihbs. I began to feel the pangs of thirst and hunger, and settled down intp k state of dejection. Hark ! I hear Voices ! No, I mast have been mistaken: BtttTisten, there c imes A faint sound floating bn the - heavy air,- as if it had been wafted to my ears from miles "'away. -' The blood ran wildly to my heart. In an instant hope was alive and strong ! I‘Called cut with a shout that made the caverns tremble ! The echoes come and go, growing fainter and fainter, and then die out. What an agony of suspense was crowded into one brief second, as I strained every muscle and movement into silence to catch the response I It came, and my heart leaped for joy. In another moment came the glimmer of lights, and another and I was safe among the living. Then came explanations. as we hurried towards the entrance, for 1 had had my fill of the Paris catacombs. My friends had not missed ine until after they had left the catacomb?,' but felt no apprehension then, as it had often been my custom in moments of caprice to leave them without a word of notice, and they gave themselves no uneasiness. But, as the night wore away, and I did not appear at the hotel, the suspicion began to -grow uj.on them that 1 hid gone astray in the catacombs. At early fdawn they revealed this to the officials, secured passes and guides, and set out iu search of me, withwhat results you know. la a few moments I was once more breathing the pure, sweet, delicious air of life. To the right towered the majestic dome of the Pantheon, and thither I was tempted to hasten and sing: “Praise God, from whom all blessings flow,” until tlie arches and vaults rang with the joy of my gratitude. But I did’nb; £ went and got somethin* to eat. °