NEWS BY THE MAIL.

Evening Star, Issue 3642, 24 October 1874, Page 2

NEWS BY THE MAIL.

Four hundred Mormoj a eft Liverpool for America on September second. In the ten days cudbig July 20, thirtv-one ships passed through the "Sue* Canal. " I’Hg transit revenues of the Caual Company for the same period amounted to L 24.080. During ten years, two hundred and thirtyfive actions for damages against railway companies have been tried at Manchester. The sale of waste paper from the diff rent pub.ic departments in Great Britain realises annually sixteen thousand pounds sterling. The shareholders in the Manchester Aquarium have decided to have it open to the public on Sundars, from 4 to 6 p.m A curious exhibition has taken place at the lunatic asylum at Brunnfidd, near Vicuna, of arti.lea made by (he patients : of articles destroyed by them in their moments of frenzy ; and of models showing how they are lodged and clothed. At London, recently, seventy-three cases of Caps ostrich feathers sold for twentyseven thousand pound ssterliog. . Wreaths of artificial fob age and fiiweps made of metal, and carefully colored after nature, are used for wall decorations, and on festive occasions at Paris.

A singular accident happened recently at Blackpool, to a visitor named Walter Greenwood, a clerk employed by the Kochdale Canal Company, at Rochdale. His wife used a needle m fixing soaiething to his shirt front Tb\c needle, it appears, ha . got out of its position, and it penetrated the heart. Alarmed by the sensations he exporienced, Green wo d r n to a surgeon, And the head of the needle was reached by incision, and the needle drawn out. The man, however, died before he could leaye the surgery.

NEW ZEALAND ANp THE HOME JOURNALS. The Wellington correspondent of the Times ’ has sent to that journal 6ne of tts ablest letters he has ever was published this mouth, and contained a most complete and cal«i.y judged statement of jibe condition and prospects of the Colony and the prospects it holds out to working men. It was followed ly a leader in thp rimes, which might have come from the pen of Lady Barker or her husband, for it exhibits a considerable knowledge of the Colony, and particularly of the outh Island. Referring to Mr Holloway and his criticisms on the Colony, at least of Otago, the ‘limes’ says, "whatever report Mr Holloway may bring Home of unfavorable lan 4 I«WP or pth- r matters, there is not the slightest doubt that New gaaland does offer the prize of independence to every emigrant who can and will work for it, ” The ‘ Times * speaks strongly in favor of our Colony above other Colonies. The * Standard ’ and other papers have also opened their columns to correspondents on the vital questions of emigration, and it is noticeable that a large preponderance is strongly in favor of New Zealand above Canada, ; ' HISORACEFOL SCENE IN PARLIAMENT. Parliament was prorogued by Royal Commission on tbe 7'-h inst. For some days before there had been a general skedaddle on the part of members, with the exception of the Home Halers, Perhaps these comical creatures thought they m.ght, by holding on hard, get rid of the ir> Coercion Act, but if so they were horribly mistaken. However, they made a gr. a: row over it, and those of us who atomic i the House on the night of their discussien obtained a slight inkling of what a Home ule Parliament on St. Stephen’s Green would be like. The noise was awful. Mr Puts was perhaps the best behaved man in the lot ; but after mid□ight, when the to«tdy was beginning to work, he lost control ever his mob and the floor cf tbe House was a disgraceful scene. Language cf a very tierce' kind wa- used, and groans aud hisses were heard above everything excest the voice of .Major O’Gormaa, whp is an enormous creature, only ranking second to the late " claimant ” in bulk, ana who has a voice like the roar of many waters, biual.y, when Mr Butt implored his party not to disgrace themselves, he was down. Tbe storm of noise had scut the weaned Speaker to sleep, or else he must have called some of the wild Irishman to order for their disorderly language. On the whole, the Conservative party have materially strengthened their po-ifcion by their very moderate conduct, and Mr Disraeli has received the thanks and compliments of some very prominent members on the Liberal side for h'B able and patriotic leadership. The Liberals are more disorganised than ever and there is ho sigh of a revival of their combination

GIGANTIC RECLAMATION OF LAND. The Duke of Sutherland is sotting a grand example to other large landowners in Scotland and elsewhere in the reclamation, in a wholesome manner, of waste lands. Out of nearly 2 000,000 acres in the county r.f Sutier and belonging to him, only 20,000 are arable, and the consequence has been that the stock farmers have had to import all %*?*** f l ood J io the way of turnips, hay, #4.1 • ® Du^e determined to end tfa<s state « h Q d after various consultations with his agents and with practical farmers, has entered upon a gigantic plan of improves menta. He is doing everything by steam. **© has got two tremendous engines for

ploughing, which have very broad finnjM to their wheals so as to traverse swanks These plough about au acre a d.u in the following way. They drag backwards and forwards between them a plough which turn?, up the ground to a depth of m>a iy 2t. The plough is a massive conc-m wh’cii goes rmht through everythin.', and is no; stopped even by large boulders. ■ ln;i'-v t it comes against an unusually tarot' bouioer it ia lifted over it, blit it is fell ;wed by a large hook attached to its tail, winch scocns out si ones of almost any size. If on the other hand the plough revea s the outcrop of solid rock a party of men rush up and fix to the obtruding excrescence a charge of dynamite, which shatters the rocks to atoms, and the next time the plough comes up everything goes smoothly. The ploughing is followed by a draining machine, , which is in the form of a hugh anchor or hook, which is dragged by main force through the ground to the depth of 3ft or 4ft, according to circumstances, and so loosens the earth th it a party of men with shovels can throw out the soil with the greatest ease and rapidity; The drain pipes are dropped in, the earth is filled in, the steam harrows follow, the sowing machine comes next, and almost before the idea ean be realised the face of the country is changed as if by magic. In a few .weeks, what was a short time previously a , banen moor, supporting a few head of sheep, | is an expanse of smiling cornfields. The ex- | -pense is about 1.8 per acre, and the appear- j ance of the crops is stated to be most satis- j factory, A FORTUNE OF TWENTY MILLIONS ST RLING, Fancy a fortune of L 20.000,000 ! That is tbp sum of which the late Baron Anselm Rothschild has died, seized, and possessed of. 'early all this wealth is left to Barou Nathaniel, the eldest son, and the daughters are to have nothing beyond what they got in their fuhei’s lifetime. As the Austrian law mak s it compulsory for all the children to share, it is not unlikely that a lawsuit may ensue. GAS FROM SEWAGE. A very important discovery is spoken of having been invented by a Mr A. Btay. This is nothing l-?ss than the art of manufacturing a very fine description of illuminating g-s from the sewage water. The problem of what to do with our sewage is jet very far from being solved, but if there be anything in ivir Beay’s discovery, t will tend very much to a sp'ution of this very difficult problem. It ia said that a quart of sewage water will produce 47ft of this new illuminator. which possesses three tinu the illumipower of coal gas. ’ TOM THUMB OUTDONE, General 0. R. Decker, of San Francisco, claims t > be the smallest man living. Ha was born in Missiesi; pi in 1850, and heno * is twqntv-four years old. He measures two feet sev. n inches in hj ight, and weighs fortyfive pounds. He i> well formed, aud has a handsome and intelligent face The General is the sole support of bin mother, who lives in Memphis, and he earns their living by selling photographs of himself, Barnum has made repeated offers to get little Mr Decker to become part of his show, but he , has a repugance to exhibiting himself and has therefore declined all overtures of that kind. REAL BYKES. All plav-goers will remember the character of Byke in “Under the aslight.” The American papers report a case of murder, whiclj- recalls forcibly the leading incident of that play, though we wi-h the denouement had been the same. A horrible outrage, iesuiting in the keath of the victim, was committed near Henrj vide. Augustus Gamier, while walking the tailroad track, was as saulted by thiee men, who robbed him of five dollars, and then bound him across the track and left him. He succeeded in freeing , his body from the ropes, but before he could get his legs loose a train came along, and though he managed to throw his body off thr irack bis leg was cub off. He lay beside thtrack alluig t, and! was picked up by attain. He died sdon after. MORBID IMPULLE. Two cases in children have recently attracted attention in the United States. In one, which transpired in New York, a nurse giri, very quiet, good-natured, and attractive in appearance, confessed that although phe watched any child she liked very placidly, she frit obliged to bujrn any child She djd kot likb’ alive. She had done this in f»Wo instances, and attempted jt in more, her plan being to lay the baby on its bed, neap clothes or papers under it, and fire them. In the second case, in Boston, a boy named Pomeroy, only fourteen years old, was found guilty of maiming seven children, and condemned to the Penitentiary, He was, of course, “pardoned out,” and immediately cut the throat of a little girl named Katie Cnrran, who had come to his mother’s store for papers. This was on the 18th March, and on the 22nd April he ebeoyed a little boy named Millon, to the marshes, under pretence of showing him a steamer. Once in the marshes, ho told the boy to lie down and stabbed him to death with a jack knife. In both instances the murderers say they could not help themselves, though the girl only killed children she did not liki; in both, insanity ia assumed ; and in neither is the faintest evidence of insanity beyond the crimes themselves It : n more than likely that the nurse girl is merely a supreme examp e of callous eeltish'ners,like Consignee Koi.t ; and that the lad killff children a b<* would kill rats, for the pleasure of destrbyiog life. Hoth confessed quite readily, fIACRIFCEOF HUMAN LIFE -HORRIBLE CRIME.

A fuw days since a quiet man was returning home from bis work with his wife, through the streets of Liverpool wh. n he was accosted by three loafers woo asked him for sixpence. His reply was that he wanted all the sixpences he had, and if they wanted any they ought to work for them as he did. No sooner were the words ou' of his mouth than he was knocked down and kicked ferociouely. The wife threw herself across his body, but was kicked and thrown on one side. The kicking was kept up with the utmost vigor and enthusiasm, the three roughs taking simultaneous runnieg kicks at the man, which were so violent as to hurl his body right across the street. As may hj -. imagined, the stingy wretch who would not paft with his sixpence did not long retail consciousness, biit the kickers were determined not to leave any doubt pn the qm stion of life or death, so they did not leave off their exercise until they had broken every fib in his body, and until the corpse was a bloody, shapeless mass. 1 ots of people saw the fun only one interfered, and got kicked for bis pains. And the police “can’t find” all the kickers. As a little variation to kicking, which, is getting vulgarly common, three colliers in the same blessed and delightful county of Lancashire, who were out on the spree, and who were tired for the tame amusements of wif j-murder and highway robbery, hatched a most happy thought They entered a house inhabited by an aged couple of the 1 '.boring class, and found them at tea. I he first part of the performance cansisted in knocking them both down, which was done with great neatness. The old w«xnan gob up and sorambled out of the house with nothing more than two or three play fui taps with a coal hammer, and set to work to raise an alarm. In the meantime the oid man was held down on the floor by two of his visitors, while the third—playful dog, scooped out one of his eyes with his fingers! As one witticism begets another, so, lo king round, for further means of enjoyment, the a bucket pf,f^m|^i^^)|taud-

mg in a corner. With some of this soothing material the empty socket of the eye was quickly filled, aud as a screaming climax to the whole joke tufj duck,,*; was emptied over the old man’s bean, and with a few' parting kicks jhe was left for dead, and although qoi-e. bind and not expected to live, he was enable:. to mai e a deno ition. The most e -.t i iuirdinaiy pa's t of the thing is that the police have captured those amusing rogues the time eolders.