GENERAL CABLES.

Gisborne Times, Volume IX, Issue 719, 15 January 1903, Page 1

GENERAL CABLES.

By telegraph—Press AssociationCopyright, LONDON, .January 13. The Morgan trust is forming British, German, French, and Italian lines from. Europe to South America. Antwerp will be the head quarters of the combined lines. Apart from war ‘charges, Great Britain's expenditure on the navy lias increased seventeen millions, and on the army twelve millions during the decade. Snow is lying several inches deep at Sheerness and elsewhere iii'Englaud.' Racing in Birmingham was stopped owing to the weather. Bushamara is preparing to surround and starve Fez into submission. Most of the Europeans have left. The Sultan’s undo has gone to Riff, on the Coast, to organise an army Lo attack the pretender and leave Fez. Dr. Webber, Bishop or Brisbane, at present on a visit to England, is suffering from ill health, and his condition is most grave, owing to insomnia and weakness of the heart. Prince Lonway has left Princess Stephanie, disgusted with her extravagance, and his ambiguous position, and tired with the slights put upon him.

A tri-weekly express across Siberia has commented. The journey from London to Port Arthur occupies eighteen days. A land slide at Nankin killed two hundred Chinese.

Russia, Austria and Hungary intend to insist on the establishment of financial control over the collection of taxes in Vilayets on the European frontier of Macedonia, also the payment, oi' troops, Belgian, Dutch or Swiss officials to control the Gendarme and some high personage independent of theiYildiz Kiosk to exercise a general control of Macedonian administration. Russian newspapers advise the Porte to accept the proffered assistance, which will be very advantageous, though galling lo Turkey’s pride. The firms of Viekers-Maxhn, and Swan and Hunter, of Newcastle, are to build the new Cunard steamers, to cost a quarter of a million p’ounds eacli.

ST. PETERSBURG, Jan. 13

The Russian Government’s pressure stopped negotiations for the transfer of four 20-knot, cruisers to a foreign company, and henceforth they will be held with others in reserve at Odessa. CONSTANTINOPLE, Jan. 13.

Sir Nicholas O’Connor, British Minister at Constantinople, ordered the Khedival Company’s steamer To pass through the Dardanelles without stopping, owing to the Porte withholding the privilege accorded other companies. An mule was thereupon issued by the Sultan, granting the privilege. NEW YORK, Jan. 13. Count I-lolleben informed his American friends that every step taken by Berlin with regard to Venezuela was contrary to his advice. President Roosevelt has appointed a colored lawyer as assistant Stale attorney at Boston. PARIS, January 13. Forty thousand fishermen in Brittany have lost their occupation owing to the disappearance of sardines. Great distress has been occasioned. BERLIN, January 13.

The newspapers publish accounts of M. Giron’s former escapades with wo- j ST. PETERSBURG, January 13. J [Vi. pichivc, Russian Minister the interior, announces .*£ to harmonisc of Imperial departments and provincial bodies, with a view to improving the condition of the peasantry. The Novoc Vrcmya hails the Commission as a political event of the first magnitude. CAPETOWN, January 13. Hermanns and Hernstein, implicated in the Bank of England forged notes case, have been arrested here. They were in possession of many forged notes. They have been extradited.

ADELAIDE, January 11. Mr Joe Thompson, the well-known bookmaker, has returned from England. Speaking of racing in England, be thinks Seahorse will do well and is bound to win a big race when acclimatised. SYDNEY, January 14. The first of the San Francisco wheat Heel, has arrived, bringing 38,000 sacks. Sir Edmund Barton, alluding, to an objection which ) has been taken about ships on the Australian station being available elsewhere at the direction of the British Government, regards the reciprocal nature oj. the agreement as a good bargain. MELBOURNE, January 14. The Premier states he had heard nothing further with reference to the offer of seed wheat from the people of New Zealand, which Mr Seddon stated the Government would pay freight upon. He expresses a view that the news of recent copious rains in Australia may have retarded the movement ( in New Zealand, and that the people now thought there was no necessity for assistance.

A cycling Blondin had a narrow escape of being killed at Adelaide. An Eketahuna settler has already made over £IOO this season by the sale of pigs. , ■ , , fn most of the poms oi the comny the use of steamers’ whistles is now forbidden. Two girls named Baker were drowned while bathing in the river near Berrima. New South Wales. Electric light is now being installed into the cottages at Worser and Karaka Bays, Wellington Referring to the fact that i\li x. • Freeth has taken up his lot in Manawatu, the Wellington Free Lance thus enumerates some oi the smart men that rose from the lower ranks of Wairarapa iournalism. There was Tom Eoydhouse (now of tho Sydney Sunday Times), the leuohty Taperell, who became a reporter on °the New Zealand Times, then a dramatic, and, later, an editorial writer on tho Sydney Daily Telegraph, later, for a brief space, occupied tho editorial chair of the New Zealand Times, and is now back on the editorial staff of the Daily Telegraph ; W. H. Smith, who owns the Baugitikei Advocate and the Palmerston Times ; Jim Brown, now proprietor of the Carterton Observer ; L. C. Woolcott, dramatic critic of the Evening Post, was a fellow-apprentice with Freeth and Taperell ; and the “ Daddy of them all ” (Mr Payton), still stays at the helm of the Times, and smiles into a reminiscent paragraph every time one of “ his boys " moves up a rung ou the ladder uf life,"