MAIL NEWS.

Evening Star, Issue 4081, 25 March 1876, Page 1 (Supplement)

MAIL NEWS.

The London correspondent of the ‘Scots--1 8 , 1? a position to state that one of the earliest bills which will be introduced into the British Parliament is one by Mr Cross, for the appointment of a public prosecutor in England. upwards of a dozen Edinburgh and Leith tobacco sellers were the other day fined LSO each for having had among their tobacco “ certain material, liquid, substance, matter, and' thing; other than water only—to wit, sugar arid liquorice, contrary to the statute.” Ike Havas agenpy has published an account of, a tragedy oh board the Rhin, boutid with convicts for New Caledonia.' It occurred on the 9th November. An attemptat escape was made by some convicts from the lower gun deck. The ringleader Leroy was arrested, and exasperated by the failure of the attempt, turned his rage against one comjpanion who he thought had betrayed him, but instead of attacking the right man, he murdered his friend and accomplice by cutting his throat with a razor which he had managed to conceal. It is impossible to read the accounts of the conduct of the boys on board the Goliath in the hour of flay trial and danger without a thrill of emotion and pride. Well might Captain Bourchier say of them ‘They behaved like men and heroes,’ and richly have they-deserved the complimentary letter addressed by Mr Sclater Booth on behalf of the Queen to Captain Bourchier, to say nothing of Dean Stanley’s sermon at Westminster Abbey on Innocents Day. ‘ Better ’ said the Dean, ‘that the boys buried in Gray’s Churchyard were lying there than that for the mere sake of living they had shown the white feather, or had failed in one atom of their duty.’ Two remarkable incidents of the Prince of Wales’s progress through India are recorded. One was the laying of the foundation stone of the memorial which Lord Northbrook is erecting in Lucknow, at his own expense, to the native soldiers who fell in the defence of Lucknow. These men, as we have observed elsewhere,' ought to have been honored sixteen years ago; and it is greatly to the credit of Lord Northbrook that he has. the indecency of the failure to do it. From a hint to Sir George Couper’s speech on the occasion, we gather that the Government had been asked to make the memorial national, and had declined. The other incident was the reception of the descendants of Mirza Jehahder Shah, heir apparent to Shah Alum, the last of the race of Timour. They passed before the Prince of Wales, saluting him ■ reverently, but in silence. That ceremony might, we think, have well been spared. If these Princes, of whom no one ever heard before, are not of the line of Timour, they should have been disregarded; and if they are, it is hardly dignified to make them acknowledge the English Sovereign. Napoleon Would not have directed the Compte de Chambord to attend his levee.

On December 28 a disgraceful riot took slace5 lace in the townland of Derrytraana, in the istrict known as “The Montiagha,” about three miles from Lurgan. It seems that a great deal of ill-feeling had arisen in the district in consequence of a man named M'Corry, a Catholic, having married a young woman named Turkington, who is a Protestant. Whe- this feeling was at its height the young woman for the first time attencled chapel with her husband, and in the evening two opposing parties met at’M‘Cony’s residence, and a riot ensued. M ‘Corry’s windows were broken, and several persons were more or less injured. When the fighting had continued for some time pistols were called into requisition, and two men received bullet wounds. Information having been conveyed to the Derry add barrack, the police proceeded to the place and made some arrests. Dr M'Corry, of Lurgan, was sent for to attend the two men who were shot One of them, named M‘Donald, has received a wound under the arm, and he lies in a very precarious condition, the bullet having penetrated so far that it is feared it cannot be extracted. The other man is also in a dangerous condition. Both of the men are Catholics. THE BREMEKHAVEN DISASTER INVESTIGATION. fhe report presenting the results of the investigation into the Bremerhaven explosion has been published by the Bremen authorities. According to his own deposition, the name of the perpetrator was William King Thompson. He was born in Brooklyn m 1830, and his parents, who emigrated from Hamburg to America, are living in Virginia. He was taken prisoner when running the blockade in the late war in the United States. He escaped and fled South, where he passed under the name of Thomas. He mentioned a man name Shidamore, of New York, as an accomplice, but made no reference to other accomplices. His wife supposed his name to be Alexander. There is no evidence that he entered into relations with underwriters or plotted against the safety of vessels previous to 1875; nor is there any evidence except an insurance of 30,000 marks on the barrels which exploded that he insured any goods to be shipped by the Moselle or Deutschland. The observations by him point to the conclusion that he Intended to hand the small box to the officers of the Moselle, declared that it contained greenbacks, and that he intended to have the box insured. In June, 1875, he insured goods on the steamer Rhein for 90,000 marks through the Barings, London. His wife’s evidence shows that previous to his departure in November, 1875, he anxiously awaited a letter from England, which he concealed when it arrived.

JOHN bright’s SPEECH.

The Right Hon, John Bright and his colleagues in Parliament, Dixon and Muntz, addressed their constituents at Birmingham on Jan. 21. Mr Bright in his speech passed over the question of the slave circular issued fey the Admiralty, and said the matter was not so easy as some supposed. He questioned, however, whether it was necessary for the Government to meddle with it. He hoped they would explain that affair and the Suez Canal purchase satisfactorily. He attacked the law of primogeniture and the monopolisation of land by a few great landholders, and argued that possessors of land should be empowered to bequeath it as they pleased. Referring to the future policy of the Liberals, he advocated an assimilation of the country to the borough franchise. He pointed to Birmingham, with 60,000 electors, returning three members of Parliament, while there were seventy members, whose united constituencies numbered less than 60,000. A redistribution of seats was necessary. Mr Bright concluded as follows: —“What I ask you to undertake is, to strengthen and confirm your own power by extending your franchise and rights to your fellow-countrymen in the counties. Give the freedom you enjoy to those who are now excluded. Give them also freedom of the soil on which they live.” A vote of confidence in the representatives of Birmingham in Parliament was carried by acclamation. Two amendments were moved one condemning the action of members with respeot to direct representation of labor, and the other denouncing their inaction in the Tichborne question; but the movers were Silenced oy an uproar. Mr Bright explained that Bo disapproved {Hitting up candidates for Parliament as specially representing the working pen, because, having throughout bis career aip«4 to get rid of classes and tb hive the people work as one nation, lie It mortportune, now that the object waawtwiw, ft Itfviro clads divisions.

A PROPER MOVE.

Those who remember the city and diocese of Exeter in the days of Bishop Philpotts will be startled by the changes which are now taking place in both. . The ‘Western Times informs us that a zealous missionary, the hev. George Porter, rector of St. Leonard’s and chaplain of the troops stationed there, has actually succeeded in planting the standard of Christianity in Exeter, and prints an excellent speech on the subject, which he was prepared to deliver at a meeting of the clergy, but was prevented by the bishop, who declared that it was irrelevant to .the subject they had met to discuss, these being surplice-fees and pewrents. Instead of building more .churches .and ordaining more parsons, Mr Po 'ter is of the laity should devote their •efforts to getting poor people decently housed. He says:—“My own impression has long been that the clergy have missed their mark—that we should in the first instance endeavor to create a demand for decent •dwellings, and inculcate the advantage of -cleanliness. I believe that it is of little use to urge persons who are herded like swine to come to church and adopt the sacerdotal system ; we should first teach them to wash and be clean,” He goes •on to describe the condition of a squalor and savagery in which hundreds of the keathen inhabitants of Exeter are living, and the diseases, vices, and crimes which are "thus engendered; and asks, “What have numerous priests and fine churches done for Russia and the city of Rome?” while he ■dilates upon “the impudence of so-called Christians in sending out missionaries to convert the poor heathen, as they are pleased to term them, when they are ten times more heathenish themselves.” Instead of raising any more money for church-building purposes, what Mr Porter proposes is this : “I would suggest that a committee be formed for the purchase of an estate in the vicinity of Exeter, or <rm one of our lines of railways. Let the title be rendered indefeasable at Lincoln’s Inn Register Office. This would at once add four or five years’ annual value to the purchase-money. Then re-sell it in small lots for building and garden ground on certain conditions. Communication with the city might be arranged on easy terms with the railway company. The worst of our ‘rookeries’ might after that be pulled down and their sites, planted with flower beds or simply turfed down, would afford lungs to this beautifui city and render the adjoining property more valuable for rateable purposes, and playgrounds might be formed for children who are now smarming In the gutters.” A Christianity of this kind is what the English press has been preaching for the last half century, and its adoption and promulgation by men like the Rev. Canon Pullen and the Rev. George Porter shows that there is some life in the Established Church yet.