'Frisco Mail Items.

Feilding Star, Volume XVI, Issue 160, 5 January 1895, Page 2

'Frisco Mail Items.

FAILURE OF THE MANCHESTER SHIP CANAL. THE ARMENIAN MASSACRE. DEVOURED BY WOLVES. The Manchester Ship Canal is thought by the London Times of December 2 to be both a financial and commercial failure. It has been open 12 months. Its business shows no sign of increase since the beginning, but of late has diminished rapidly. If there were a paying business to do there is not sufficient dock equipment. The gross receipts of the canal for the year will be less than LBO.OOO, less than is needed to pay the interest in the first debentures. The debt is L 5,000,000. The corporation of Manchester has found this great sum, and must find more if the undertaking is not to come to a standstill. A report was received on November 18th by the London Times from Syria, reporting that Zeki Pasha, a Turkish marshal, with a dctachmeutt of Janissaries, aud a field battery, massacred two thousand Armenians at Sassoon. The bodies of the dead were left uuburied, and this caused an outbreak of cholera. Many Christians fled across the Russian frontier. Numerous appeals have been made by the Armenians to the British Foreign Office, and the energetic action of Sir Philip Currie, the British Ambassador to Turkey, has caused consternation among the members of the Turkish Government. The London Morning News, December 9th, commenting upon the statement that detectives are watching Mr Asquith, the Home Secretary, Sir William Vernon Harcourt, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and John Morley, Chief Secretary for Ireland, and the alleged revival of Fenianism, records the visit to England of a well-known Irish-American extremist, under tne alias of "Dr F.," who, while in London, visited "Dr R., !1 "N.T.," and " Mr X.," all of whom were active in the Fenian movement. Ho was shadowed by detectives throughout his sojourn in London, and until ho sailed from Havre a few days ago. News was received at Buda Pesth on December Ist, of the almost total annihilation by wolves of a party of wedding guests, who were returning to their homes from the village of Hidas, ■where the ceremony which they had attended was performed. The route of the party lay through a dense forest. Soon after entering the forest cries of wolves were heard, but despitj all efforts to escape the party was overtaken by the animals, aud thirteen unfortunates w ere dragged from the sledges and devoured. Few of those who succeeded in escaping were without injuries more or less serious. The survivors made their way to the nearest village, and a relief party proceeded immediately to scene of slaughter, where were found scattered about fragments of flesh, crunched bones, and scraps of clothing.