DE OMNIBUS REBUS.

Globe, Volume III, Issue 209, 9 February 1875, Page 4

DE OMNIBUS REBUS.

The pntire library of the late Professor l.'oimo Innep, which was rich in antiquarian and historical works, has been purchased for the Free Library about to be instituted in Glasgow. An interesting manuscript poem on Bacon, being a warm defence of him by a contemporary admirer and friend, written apparently just at the time of his condemnation by the House of Lords, will Academy says) be added to Mr Morfall's forthcoming volume of " Elizabethan Political Ballads " for the Ballad Society. An important extension of the application of electricity as an illuminating agent is, the Athenceum understands, about to be made by the Trinity Board. The two lighthouses on the Lizard Point are to be fitted with the requisite apparatus for the production of the electric light. The penetrating power of this light will be of the utmost value at this, the first point of land made by homeward-bound ships. It is stated in a St Petersburgh telegram to the Times that General Lomakine is sending two columns of troops into the country inhabited by the Tekke Turcomans. One of these columns starts from Shikishlar, and the other from the Gulf of Mikkhallowsky. The reconnaissances are to extend to within seventy or eighty miles of the chief strongholds of the Tekkes, and it is hoped that the expedition will thus put a stop to the agitation which now prevails amongst them. A Rerlin telegram in the same paper says:— Advices from Petro-Alexandrovski, dated October 27th, speak of the garrison preparing for a two month's campaign against the Turcomans. I learn from a good source that to prevent English suspicions being aroused the campaign will be confined to narrow limits. Yakood Khan of Kashgar has been very gracious to Russian caravans this summer. News have been received from too Gold Coast to the 7th of November. On the 3rd of that month Governor Strahan held a meeting of kings and chiefs at Cape Coast Castle, and delivered a message from the Queen, the purport of which was that her Majesty, having saved them and their country from defeat and ruin in the war with Ashantee, she now requested them to give up slavery. She was determined to put a stop to the buying and selling of men, women, and children, and she would allow no person to be held as security for debt. If they wished for her protection, they must do as she ordered. The chiefb deliberated for a short time, and then announced to Governor Strahan that they were willing to discontinue the buying and selling of slaves, but objected to the existing slaves being set free without cause. Ultimately it was agreed that no slave should be set free without proof of cruelty, and that, in the case of those given as security for debt, the debtor should still be liable for the amount. The news that King Koffee has been deposed is confirmed. He is said to have gone to the villages beyond Coomassie.

The Prussian papers still seem uneasy about the attitude of Austria. The other day we" noticed, says the Pall Mall Gazette, a violent article in the Nord-Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung about the tone of the Vienna papers with regard to the Arnim affair, and now the Cologne Gazette makes some strange imputations on the conduct of the Austro-Hungarian Ambassador in London. Count Beust, it says, "plays every now and then, not without skill, on a chord whose softest tone has a grating sound to the British ear—Central Asia; . . . Hints have been occasionally thrown out that in a certain contingency some one—meaning himself—would be on the side of Russia, . . . though his fascinations during the stay of the Emperor Alexander in London did not seem to produce quite the desired effect. And when the French press began to take up an attitude of moderation towards Germany, and the eparks of revenge seemed to be dying away into peaceful ashes, he takes up the bellows and blows them again into a flame. The English Premier's Guildhall speech furnished the opportunity. Mr Disraeli's dis claimer was used to get up an outcry in France against Germany as dictating to all Europe; and Count Beust will best know whether this was done with his approval or by his instructions." What is the precise meaning of these dark hints we cannot pretend to say, but they seem to be intended to convey the impression that Count Beust has inspired the articles on Mr Disraeli's explanation which have appeared iu Paris newspapers of all shades of opinion, and that he has sown dissensions between the Government of St Petersburg and those of London and Berlin. The Natal Colonist, of the irth November, 1874, notifies that " Mr Fronde, the historian, left Pietermaritzburg for the Transvaal Republic, on the 21st October." This (says the Argus) will complete Mr Froud's round of visits to the South African settlements, first to the Cape Colony, thence to the Orange River Free State, thence to Natal, and now to the Transvaal Republic, and back to Cape Town overland. On leading the Cape, it is stated in the Natal Colonist, a journal likely to be well informed, that Mr Froude will probably make for Australia, where he will be likely to sojourn for a month or two, and will then take steamer for San Francisco, and proceed homeward by rail across the United States to New York, thence by mail packet to Liverpool. Speaking of Mr Froude's presence in South Africa, the Natal papers state that that gentleman is the accredited envoy of the Imperial Government on some mission, the nature of which has not been allowed to transpire; and this view is borne out by the contiuual atteadance on his movements by Governor Sir Henry Barkly and the principal military authorities of the Cape Colony, who ;have. escorted him far beyond the limits of their own boundaries into the Free State and Natal. In the latter province Mr Fronde has diligently enquired into the causes and examined the phases of the late outbreak by one of the Kaffir chiefs, Langalibalele. ,In connection wiih this visit the Colonist also' remarks:—" With or without foundation, a cry has been raised by the agitators of responsible government that our whole colony is about to be annexed to the Cape, and that to carry out this forcible union was one of the objects of the secret mtesion with which Mr Froude has been credited. Our own belief in the matter is that, although Mr Fxoude may have been commissioned to enquire whether amalgamation would be palatible to those concerned, it is improbable in the extreme that Lord Carnarvon would attempt ro carry such a policy into effeot without its being fully canvassed by the Legislatures of the respectiiejsoloniesi"