ARRIVAL OR THE CALIFORNIAN MAIL.

Evening Star, Issue 3844, 19 June 1875, Page 2

ARRIVAL OR THE CALIFORNIAN MAIL.

Auckland, June 20. The Cyphrenea arrived at about eleven last night, two days under contract time. She left Frisco on May 25, and Honolulu on 3; d June. Her New Zealand passengers are Mr and Mrs M‘Master, Mr and Mrs De Glorian, Mr and Mrs Berry, Messrs Kipper, Edward De Glorian, Wheeler, Burnett, and four in the steerage. She has fifty passengers for Sydney. ENGLISH AND FOREIGN NEWS, Thirty miners were killed by the explosion of a colliery at Talk-o’the-Hill, Staffordshire. Garternes, President of the revolutionary Junta at Carthageha, died at Geneva. The ‘ Times ’ endorses Mr Gladstone's letter on the Centennial. Ihe Earl of Pembroke resigns the UnderSecretaryship of War, and is succeeded by Lord Codgen. Ly a mutiny aboard an American schooner en route to London, two mates were killed, and several of the orew wounded. The > 'atholic organs condemn the election of the Prince of Wales as Grand Master of the Masons. A lunatic has threatened Bismarck's life. The revolution at Port Au Prince causes great -excitement. British gunboats have been dispatched there. Cardinal Manning protests against Bismarck’s plans. . s , The Duke of Buckingham has been appointed Governor of Madras, in succession to the late Lord Hobart. The Czar insists on peace between Germany and France There was a great demonstration at Dublin at the funeral of the American Fenian Mullens. The result of the meeting of the Emperors of Russia and Germany, in Berlin, is that peace is to be maintained. . The English authors urge international copyrights, and Mr DLraeli promises to support them. In the obituary for the month appear the name of the sporting parson, the Rev. John King, of Ashley. De Launde, a Polish priest, has been arrested for aiming at Bismarck’s life, The steamer Wyoming anived at New York with 100 Welsh converts to Mormouism. China cedes the Saghariien Islands to Russia. The Czar has expressed a wish to hold a conference with M. Thiers. Russia sends a satisfactory note to England relative to Central Asia. The Carlisle are shelling Quetara, The ex-Empress Eugenie will accept no compromise of her claims against the French Government. The Schiller has broken up. Her officers are accused of drunkenness. Eighty-nine bodies were recovered from the wreck. The Italian Senate voted a donation to Garibaldi. The Count de Chambord still has hopes that tne^ monarchy will be established in France. The Canadian-Pacific railway is to be pushed ahead. Von Arnim will have another trial. The ‘ Times ’ compliments America on her efforts to reduce her national debt. Small-pox has appeared in the Oarlist camp. . 4; fre e Press and free speech are established m Spain. Russia makes a treaty with the Pope. The ‘ Figaro ’ created a sensation in Paris by advocating the postponement of French revenge for one hundred years. The Alfonsists have been defeated at Usurihill and Urio. The deaths of the ex-Queen Amelia, widow of the late King Otho, of Greece, and of Mr Dudley Baxter are announced. The Italian Government have ordered the removal of all bishops who have not received the royal approval. Judge Keogh has decided that Mitchell’s election was illegal, he being a felon and an alien.

AMERICAN NEWS. . The prohibitive liquor laws in Michigan have been repealed. A bafooa, withT. P. Barnum, made a successful trip. There has been a large fire in New York, Mrs Abraham 1 .incoln is declared to be insane.

The Chicago gaugers are implicated in the whisky frauds. „ The Deutsche Brazil Bank has failed' for 5,000,000 dollars.

Extensive forest fires in Pennyslvania, New Jersey, and New Yerk caused great destruction of property, and hundreds of families to homeless. The loss in Osciola alone is 2,000,000 dollars. An incendiary attempt was made to burn the town of Shenandoah, Va. ihe Pennsylvania wood fires are still raging whole towns being destroyed Four trains with one thousand people rushed through the burning woods. . The English swimming champion (J. B. Johnson) has accepted 0. Clnrke’s (the American champion) challenge, to swim from one to twenty miles for LSOO. Eight steamships with 679 saloon, and 1,180 steerage passengers left New York to-dav for liUrope. J Tweed issued for 6,000,000d015. French and English gun boats have been to pre ™ ,t touble There has been a large fire in Vermont, the loss being estimated at 50,000d015. The suspension of the Philadelphia Iron » l G ’ Morris J w L th liabilities of 200 OOOdols 18 announced. Six hundred men are thrown out of work. The Darien canal is being surveyed. All the leading distilleries at Chicago have been seized by Government for fraud. The S Uere a - ve be ? a Sarrested and charged with conspiring to defraud , 8

An immense swindling line wm discovered at Chicago te borrow 3,000/)00dola at six per cent. President Grant has been threatened with assassination. At Pennsylvania coal miners have been stoned and shot by the strikers. Twenty-five bags of the New Zealand mails were recovered from the wreck of the Schiller, i e £ r(3 full particulars of the loss; carried a full cargo add an unusually heavy mail. She was manned by a crew of 125 officers and men, and had i4O cabin and 120 steerage passengers, making a total of 385 souls on boards The course of the steamer r-as up the English Channel and through the Straits of Dover into the German Ocean. It is evident that the captain, owing probably to the heavy fog, was considi rably out of his course. Part of the course whore the Schiller struck is notoriously dangerous and difficult of navigation, notwithstanding that it is abundantly supplied w\tb lights. Of the 385 souls aboard, only forty-seven are known to be saved. The Schiller took out a general cargo of - merchandise, valued at 150,000 dollars, which was insured in the New York and London offices. In addition to this she carried 300,000 dollars of specie. The vessel was valued at 000,000 dollars, and was fully insured in the Hamburg and London companies’ offices. The ‘ New York Herald’s ’ special gives the full incidents relative to the disaster as follows;—.“. The survivors and the dead arrived at Penzance yesterday as follows : at eight o’clock there came a boat with seven persons; then came two boats containing women and children, and ship’s boats subsequently picked up the bodies of a little boy and four men. One man was found floating on a piece of wreqjc at a late hour of the day, and three bodies v ere recovered at sea, when the boats finally reached the neighboi hood of Relarrieue Ledge. When the last mast of the Schiller went overboard scores of people who were clinging to' it were drowned after having endured the most agonising suspense during the night. The passengers had gone to Sleep at the time cf the accident. Relatriene L'edge, on which the vessel struck, is one of many dangerous shoals insideßishop’sHock Lighthouse Island,Roswear south. Bishop’s R-ck fog bell ought to have been heard by the steamer. No such disaster as the present has happened on the Cornish coast since that of the John May in 1855, when tW) hundred lives were lost. The ‘Herald’ says the wreck and the n sponsibility of this awful shipwreck seem to rest on the officers of the ship. There was no storm, but simply a fog and the darkness of the night, and considering that none of the fights could have been seen, Bishop’s Rock fog bell could have been heard, and there was still a chance for the unlucky Schiller’s passengers, who are the victims of a teirible blunder. It cannot be that an event so terrible, and apparently so unnecessary, shall be overlooked. The Schiller was lost on a coast well known to experienced sailors, not on a new rock, but on a reef immemorial for danger. The following additional accounts of the disaster have been received i A heavy fog prevailed, and no observations were made aboard since Tuesday, In consequence the engines were kept at half-speed, and sail reduced at 0 p.m, on Friday night. At ten oclock the siine night she struck Relarriene Ledge, a id a great panic prevailed. Captain Thomas is highly praised for his conduct during the terrible scene which fellowfccL Two boats were filled with men, who refused to deliver them to the captain. He fired his revolver over their heads to drive them out, and then fired at them, but without effect. Afterwards all who were on board those small boats perished. The tackle at the stern was reh ased too soon, leaving the boats suspended by the bows. ■Three boats then got away. One thin-lined boat was so badly injured that she sank. Eleven of those on board were rescued by other boats. The fog lights were plainly visible. Two boats were crashed by the falling funnel. Goes were fired from the steamer until the powder became wet. The deck-house, which was crowded 1 with passengers, was swept away at 2 o’clock in the morning ; and the captain gathered some survivors on the bridge, hut all were gradually swept away by the flow of the tide. The rigging, which remained above the water, was crowdeu with the passengers and crew. The mainmast fell at 730 a.m., with all who had taken refuge on it. Several persons who drifted from the ship were saved. One man was rescued after being in the water for ten hours. The saved passengers say Captain Thomas left the bridge at 8 a.m., when tha wreck w,.s swept away by a heavy sea. He was not in bed for five nights previous to the disaster. The soa began to break over the vessel half-an hour after she struck, and the tide rose twenty live feet before daybreak. Only one woman was saved. The survivors who were landed at Treascoat escaped in the nchiller s own boat. All accounts agree that the panic which followed tl;e striking of the ship was terrible beyond description. A fisherman reports that tire Schillerisfion ly settled on the rockr, and will not fall off into deep water. It will be many days before any salvage can be effected. Ihere was a life-belt in every berth, and when the disaster occurred Captain Thomas issued orders tnat one should be fastened around every woman, but the women were drowned by the heavy seas. The boats cruising in the vicinity of the wreck continue to pick- up the bodies of the drowned. Seven mail-bags were recovered two days after the disaster, which contained mostly San Francisco and Auckland newspapers. At the inq teat on twenty bodies recovered from the Schiller, H Hall, the first offi.-er, testified that at the time the vessel struck Captain Thomas and another officer were on the bridge, men were looking forward, and two others were with the captain. Some London journals attribute the disaster to recklessness. The captain, second, and third officers were drowned. The divers who examined the hull found her broken up, and a confused mass of iron. The timber of her lower deck rested on the rocks, her bottom having been torn off by them. None of the specie has been recovered and no cargo is visible. One ef the crew of the Schiller has informed the correspondent of the ‘ Standard ’ that the officers were drunk when she struck, and several passengers lay helpless until they were swept away by the waves. (Tie hundred aud thirty bodies have been recovered from the wreckmany much mutilated. In the passenger list, as published, there does not appear the name of any New Zealand passenger.