NEWS BY THE MAIL.

Globe, Volume III, Issue 218, 19 February 1875, Page 3

NEWS BY THE MAIL.

OUR LONDON LETTER. {From a correspondent of the Press.) London, Christmas Day, 1874. Father Christmas makes his appearance this year in his conventional garb of ice and snow. The current winter is one of the coldest we have had for many seasons, and that traditional " oldest inhabitant," who always comes to the front on all occasions on matters out of the common, is well to the fore on the subject of this year's frost and snow, as reported from the provinces. Stories reach us from the north of railway traffic impeded, snow storms, the like of which has not been seen since January, 1854, and snow drifts as high as two-storey houses. The parks are crowded with skaters and lookers on. Notwithstanding the severity and duration of the frost, the ice is not very good ; it was spoiled by the heavy fall of snow at the , commencement of the frost. The immersions during the last few days are counted by hundreds ; but people don't seem to get wise by experience, and it is to be hoped that no such fearful catastrophe will mark this skating season as occurred seven oreightyears ago in Regent's Park. Some of these immersions, however, are voluntary. It is a well known fact that many impecunious wretches choose a rotten piece of ice, and go through of their own free will for the sake of the restorative in the shape of a glass of hot brandy and water, provided by the Humane Society at their receiving houses. It is certainly going through a great deal for very little, as the little boy, according to Sam Weller, said, when he was learning his alphabet. One life has already been lost on the Serpentine, that of a young German. One of the pleasantest sights of the present season are the bright faces of the boys and girls home for the holidays. The youthful mind is bursting with glee, and full of that unalloyed happiness imparted by the anticipation of unlimited plum puddings and pantomimes, combined with the delightful consciousness of "no lessons " for the next few weeks. The happiness of these youngsters will possibly reach its crowning point to-morrow evening, Boxing night, when their enraptured gaze is rivetted on the dazzling glories of the pantc mime, in the preparation of which scenepainters, costumiers, musicians, actors, and armies of little children have been engaged for the last two or three months. About these poor children, who administer so largely to the enjoyment of their more fortunate little brothers and sisters, a sharp warfare has been going on between the theatrical managers and ballet-masters on one side, and the members of the local school boards on the other. These poor little creatures had not the power, like Sir Boyle Roche's bird, of being in two places at once, and unfortunately the hours of attendance at school and at rehearsals clashed. The war, though bitter between the disputants and carried into the precinctß of police courts, has been amusing to outsiders. Red hot moralists rushed into the fight, and declared that the poor children were ruined body and soul at the theatre; that they were tortured, and beaten, and bullied by the manager, and that their young morals were blasted for ever by the vitiated atmosphere behind the scenes. Now, I have often been present at pantomime rehearsals, and, as far as their bodily welfare went, the children were all the better for the drilling, which they enjoyed thoroughly, as if they were playing at soldiers. As regards the unwholesome moral atmosphere of a theatre, it is too lengthy a subject to go into here, but I'm inclined to think it's no worse than in most other places, for vice stalks abroad so openly now that there is no occasion for it to hide its head in the green room of a theatre. The School Boards seemed to get the best of the struggle, and at one time it looked as if pantomime was about to be improved from off the face of the earth ; for a pantomine without elfs, and gnomes, and sprites, would be like a plum pudding without plums. However, the pantomimes are advertised for to-morrow night, with all the usual glowing puffs, so I suppose the managers contrived to get hold of the children somehow. En passant, let me remark that these School Boards are, as a rule, deplorably deficient in tact, feeling, and common sense. The local School Board is the terror of every poor neighbourhood, and the bete noir of many a struggling household. The Education Act is good in principle, but the way it is interpreted and carried out by the local authorities is harrassing in the extreme, and is producing a discontent amongst our poorer classes which must command the attention of Parliament next session.

At some of the London theatres of late the costumes of the actresses have become so scant, and the dances, such as the Can can and the liijparelle, so grossly indecent, as at last to draw down the just indignation of the Lord Chamberlain, who is our official censor of stage morals. He has addressed a circular to all the metropolitan theatrical managers, intimating that a state of things will not be tolerated any longer, and that any theatre transgressing the bounds of propriety will be summarily closed by him. The press has for some time been raising its voice against these abuses of our stage, and the intervention of the Lord Chamberlain is bailed with satisfaction by the general public and the theatrical profession itself. It is due to the London managers to add that though the circular waß general, the practices complained of obtained at only two or three houses. Though this is a season, more than any other, of eating and drinking, there is no lack of food for the mind. The publishers' columns in the newspapers are full to overflowing, and we are inundated with the usual tide of Christmas books, As a rule, Christmas literature is of the most evanescent description; but not to be classed in this lot is Martin's "Life of the Prince Consort," which has appeared this month. It is the book of the season, and creates much sensation. It affords interest to all classes of readers. The small-minded snob, whose soul thrills with ecstacy when his eye is applied to the key-hole of Court life—and j you can meet such an one at every tnrn in I this country—will find much, to gloat over ,

the reader of taste and refinement will be equally edified from another standpoint ; while for the political student of the present, and the historian of the future, it possesses a fund of valuable information. Prince Albert so mixed himself up with English politics, that the history of his life in thi country is the history of our contempora neous English politics. One point which adds to the attractiveness and value of the book is that Mr Martin has.not fallen into the fault of most biographers ; he is not fulsome. He is tolerably impartial -for a biographer, wonderfully so : and this with more than a biographer's usual temptation to be partial ; he wrote at the instigation and under the eye of the still passionately mourning widow of the man whose history he was narrating, and this widow his sovereign. The Queen seems to have placed everything at his disposal which could render the history complete. Parliament has been further prorogued from the 16th instant to the sth February, when it will meet for the dispatch of business. The two political chiefs, Mr Disraeli and Mr Gladstone, are causing their followers some anxiety. The former is suffering from gout and bronchitis, which to a man of his age is serious, and naturally raises speculation on the subject of his physical ability to bear the labours and responsibilities of his position much longer. By the latest account she is stated to be progressing favorably. The disquiet Mr Gladstone causes the Liberal party is his apparent intention of not leading the Opposition, and he is admittedly the only man who can do so. The birthdays of both right honorable gentlemen occur this month. Mr Disraeli will be seventy on the 29th instant, and Mr Gladstone sixty-five on the 31st. A momentous question of the day is the expediency of introducing the lash for the repression of brutality. The necessity for some more powerful deterrent than is at present in the hands of the law stares us hideously in the face. Could any savages evince greater brutality than is to be found in some of our countrymen? I take for instance the following cases :—At Liverpool a gang of men set upon a porter, who was walking, accompanied by his wife and brother, and because he would not accede to their request to stand a, pot of beer, there and then, in the street, kicked him to death in the presence of a crowd of bystanders, who hounded on the murderers, and held back the agonised wife and brother. The other case descends even lower in the scale of brutality. A dozen young Lancashire colliers, of from thirteen to twenty years of age, form a ring round a wretched drunken female tramp in a field, and there several of them in turn outrage her to death. But this is hardly the worst of the case, if anything can be worse. Two of these brutes are brought to trial, and the witnesses—the young savages who formed the ring—one and all say they did not know there was any harm, and " only thought the matter a bit o'fun." This was too much for the Judge, who burst forth with indignation, " I want to know how it is possible in a Christian country like this that there should be such a state of feeling, even among boys of thirteen, sixteen, and eighteen years of age. It is outrageous. If there are missionaries wanted to the heathen there are heathens in England who require teaching a great deal more than those abroad." His lordship was quite right. The only question is which to put into the hand of the missionary, a hymn-book or a cat-o'-nine-tails. One despairs of being able to get at the moral sense of such savages as these, and therefore let us appeal to their physical sense. Flogging practically stopped garotting, and there is a strong inclination throughout the country to extend the punishment to the perpetrators of all brutal outrages. In Edinburgh it has beejn decided by a majority of the Town Council, to memorialise the Government to grant power to sheriffs and higher judges to order the infliction of the lash in the case of all criminals convicted of personal violence. Beating and kicking a wife to death is of almost daily occurrence. To this particular species of ruffianism one of our Judges has just read a wholesome lesson. A man came home from his work, and commenced his usual little game. He kicked his wife about the room ; then he kicked her into the street; and then, as she lay insensible on the pavement, he kicked her in the face. Then he dragged her back again by the hair of her head into the house. This brought her to consciousness, and seizing a " steel " for sharpening knives, which lay on the table, she threw it at her tormentor and splintered his frontal bone. He was taken to hospital and died, and the woman has just been found guilty of manslaughter by a jury. The Judge then addressed her after the finding:—" All the real right in this case was on your side, all the real wrong on your husband's, and God forbid that I should punish you. I will not allow it to be said by anybody that you are a convicted, felon; for a conviction is not complete until a sentence is passed, and I mean to pass no sentence at all." And the woman was told to go in peace. This speaks volumes. This same Judge, Mr Justice Brett, says:—" If the law as it now stands is overcome by cruelty, the law must and should be altered." Another Judge, Mr Justice Mellor, one of the celebrated Tichborne triumvirate, says that though at one time he looked " with horror" to a return to the system of flogging, his experience on the bench has led him reluctantly to the conviction that by no other means can crimes of violence be prevented. The press generally endorse these sentiments. The total amount distributed amongst the hospitals and dispensaries of London, as the result of the Metropolitan Hospital Sunday Fund, was £28,348, the gross receipts having been about £2OOO over the proceeds of last year's collection. Sunday, the 13th of June, is fixed for the date of next year's appeal. Hospital Saturday, which was held in October last, and waß an appeal to the working classes, has been, comparatively, a failure; not from any want of generosity in the working man, but from the gross mismanagement on the part of the committee. Out of every hundred pounds collected nearly twenty-five pounds has been absorbed in " preliminary expenses." The working man will probably fight shy of Hospital Saturday next year. The preparations for the Arctic expedition are being actively pushed forward, and the dockyard laborers are at work night and day on the ships selected, in order that they may be ready by May. Old Arctic voyagers say that the expedition should not leave later than the beginning of May, otherwise the eastern coast of Davis's Straits will be closed by the ice, and the western passage, which is dangerous and difficult, will be the only route : left open. Captain Naree, who has been in I command of H.M.S. Challenger in her scien,.

tific vcyage, has been appointed to the command of the expedition. The directors of the National Bank of New Zealand have resolved to pay on the 4th of January next an interim dividend at the rate of 6 per cent per annum for the six months ending 30th September last. The Wennington has arrived from Lyttelton with £30,000 in gold, and the Dunedin, from Otago, with about £13,000. "We take the following telegrams from the Argus : — INDIA AND THE EAST. Ceylon, January 15. The agent of the Oriental Bank Corporation at Galle, Sydney Higgs Craven, was tried for embezzlement. He pleaded guilty, and was sentenced to seven years' penal servitude. The total amount embezzled is estimated at £3500. A native peon, accused as accomplice, has denied his guilt. His trial has yet to come off. It is likely to lead to sad revelations of Craven's conduct. A , . -, Henceforth no licences are to be issued for shooting elephants in Ceylon, in consequence of the rapid diminution of these animals. Leopards are more abundant than ever, while elephants have decreased. The King of Burmah is sending gifts to the value of £6OOO to Buddhist temples in Ceylon, which is one of the most sacred Buddhist countries. By railway extension, a journey to the top of Adam's Peak, the Sacred Mountain, can now be performed within twenty-four hours after leaving Colombo. Governor Gregory, now on a trip in the planting districts, is to visit the summit. The Ceylon Company (Limited) is withdrawing from its sugar planting investments in Mauritius, and is henceforward to confine its attention to extending cultivation of coffee and tea and business generally in Ceylon. A party of Cook's tourists, under the guidance of Signor Caprani, who hare just visited Ceylon, have been highly gratified with their trip to Kandy and through the coffee districts. They declare the sceuery to be the finest seen in their journeys round the world.

Dr Goldsmith, a young but eminent German Orientalist, has been appointed by Earl Carnarvon to take copies of and devise means to preserve all ancient records and other archaeological remains, sculpture, &c, in Ceylon. Mr Harton has been appointed assistant botanist to Dr Thwaites, in Ceylon. The Museum buildings at Colombo are nearly completed. They form a handsome pile, which will be finished this year. The present coffee crop is very good, so are the prospects of the next. INDIA. The Baroda poisoning case ii still under investigation. The Guicowar and courtiers are said to be implicated. Mrs Phayre's ayah confesses to having been Iribed. Sir Salar Jung, Nizam of Hyderabad, when on a visit to Calcutta, waited on the Viceroy. On the 4th January the Burman ambassador was received, On the 2nd January a hailstorm occurred at Calcutta. On the day following the hailstones fell like pigeons' eggs. The Duffla expedition is coming to an end. Fifteen captives were recovered. The rest are said to have died. Affghanistan affairs are still unsettled. The Ameer justifies the arrest of his son Yakhoob Khan in a letter to the British Government, on the ground of rebellious conduct. Yakhoob is kept in the same house as the Ameer. A rising of his supporters is anticipated. The Khan of Khotat threatens to give trouble to the British. Reinforcements have been sent to Baroda as a precautionary measure. The race meeting at Calcutta on January 6th was a complete failure. Calcutta is proved to be the wealthiest city in Asia by statistics. The census showed that India has not less than 300,000,000 people, which is probably more than the population of China. The Fine Art Exhibition was a great success ; 700 pictures were received by the Ist January. Colonel James was killed by a fall from his horse while pigsticking. There were eight collisions and twentytwo groundings in the Hooghly last year. The Ocean Marine Insurance Company, Bombay, is to be wound up. India is likely to be a great mineral-pro-ducing country. Coal, iron, and limestone have been found in Wanda Valley. A discovery of copper in Nerhoodda is attracting attention. There is a great crop of rice in Burmah, The prospects of the crops all over India are exceptionally good. Grant Duff is still in Bengal. Considerable religious excitement exists among the Hindoos. LATEST TELEGRAMS. London, December 28. Dr Colenso has returned to the Cape. It is reported from St Petersburg, that the Loma Kine detachment returned on the 14th inst, the Turkomans having tendered their submission and surrendered the prisoners. London, December 29. England counsels the Porte to grant to Boumania the right to conclude commercial treaties direct. Six thousand Manchow Tartars have invaded the Amoor province. Hard frosts and snow-storms have prevailed throughout England during the last fortnight. London, December 30. A Berlin telegram states that Yakoob Khan has been re-appointed Governor of Herat, on condition of his ruling in conjunction with three dignitaries devoted to the Ameer's interests. It is also reported that the relations between Affghanistan and Persia are very hostile. The Russian press fears that Yahkoob Khan intends attacking Persia. The inquest on the Shipton railway accident has opened. The cause of accident is pro'ved to be the breaking of the tire, not the axle. Two more passengers have died. London, January 4. Heavy snowstorms are reported from Scotland. Paris, Januaiy 5. The Due Decazes, referring to a petition of three French merchants of Alexandria, which complained of acts against them by the Egyptian Government, said that the matter should b« one ol constant attention on the part of the Government. Advices from Rome state that the Italian Chamber has decided upon making a national donation to Garibaldi.

It is reported that the Carlists have fired on a Mecklenburg vessel, which had taken shelter at Guetaria. New Yokk, January 6. Mr Bristow, the Secretary of the American Treasury, has suspended the monthly sales of gold, owing to the limited amount in the Treasury. London, January 8. British exports for December amount to £17,875,000. showing a decrease on the month of £2,862,500. The Lord Strathnairn, homeward bound from Calcutta, has been stranded on the Goodwins, and is discharging her cargo. PARIS, January 9. M. Magne, the Minister of Finance, has produced his budget for 1876, according to which the revenue will be 2,528,000,000 francs, and expenditure 2,616,000,000 francs. The deficiency will be covered by a revision of existing taxes. Berlin, January 12. The Reichstadt have voted the Landsturm Bill, the sth clause of which authorises the drafting of men in case of need from the landsturm into the landwehr. London, January 12. The last advices from Constantinople state that the Sublime Porte has declined England's counsel with regard to granting Roumania the right to conclude commercial treaties direct. Washington, January 15. President Grant has sent the message to Congress, approving the bill for the resumption of specie payments, and recommending the resumption of tea and ojffee duties. TERRIBLE RAILWAY ACCIDENT. The following account of a terrible railway accident is abridged from a report appearing in the limes of December 25th : " A dreadful railway accident, in which thirty-one persons were killed and upwards of seventy wounded, occurred yesterday morning on the Great Western Railway line, a few hundred yards from the village of Hampton Gay, and close to Shipton-on-Cherwell, near Oxford. The train, like most of those despatched at this season, contained a large number of passengers, most of whom were visiting friends for the Christmas. They were being conveyed in thirteen carriages, with two engines, from the Great Western station at Oxford at 11.40 to Birmingham and the north. The train, which was half an hour late, proceeded safely for about six miles, when the tire of a wheel of a thirdclass carriage broke, and immediately left the metals, and for at least 300 yards plunged along over the sleepers, many of which were cut in two, and rushed over a wooden bridge across the liver Cherwell. Between this bridge and a similar bridge over the Oxford and Birmingham Canal the carriaga was thrown down the embankment, as was evident from a deep sear cut in the ground, and dragged after it several others. It was here that the accident occurred. The train was travelling at the rate of forty miles an hour, and the impetus given to the carriages as they left the rails carried them with terrible force for along distance until they were finally dashed to pieces in the meadows below. Three carriages and a luggage van were deposited beyond the canal. One carriage carried away one of the stone abutments of the bridge and fell in splinters into the water. The fragments of two carriages, turned wheels upwards, were literally strewn about the embankment, and one carriage was hurled right across the up line on to the bank. The front part of the train continued its course for Borne distance. There can be no doubt whatever that in the case of the majority of the victims death was instantaneous. The overturned carriages, the heartrending shrieks of the injured, the dead bodies seen in all directions, and the scattered luggage, combined to render the spectacle horrible in the extreme. The more slightly injured at once set to work with praiseworthy alacrity to help their distressed fellow-travellers. Large fires were lighted along the embankment from the broken carriages, and thither the wounded went in dismal groups, while others sat disconsolately in the snow, apparently overcome with the magnitude of the disaster and their own providential escape from a fearful death. The sad occurrence was witnessed from the Hampton Gay paper mill by the workmen, who apprised their master, Mr R. Langton Pearson, of it, and the mill was immediately stopped and they proceeded to the spot, about a quarter of a mile from the mill. Mr Pearson and his men at once proceeded to rescue the sufferers, some of whom they conveyed as fast as possible to the manor-house at Hampton Gay. Owing to the distance, however, from this place, great difficulty was experienced by Mr Pearßon in removing them, while hardly any assistance was sent to him from the neighbouring stations, two of . which were within sight of the accident. Mr Pearson gives the time that elapsed before any of the officials arrived as upwards of an hour, but it is charitable to suppose that he is in error. Probably the delay arose through its being the workmen's dinner-hour. At the earliest opportunity telegrams were despatched to Oxford and other places for medical assistance ; but here, again, there was considerable delay, and it was about an hour and a half before a doctor appeared, Mr Mallam, surgeon, of Oxford, being the first on the spot. He was followed by Mr Parry, of Kidlington ; Mr P. Symonds and Mr G. Hitchings, of Oxford, &c, who were most unremitting in their attentions upon the unfortunate sufferers, whom they caused to be conveyed in a special train as quickly as possible to the Radcliffe Infirmary at Oxford, &c. The scene at the Oxford station was most exciting, as it had by this time become known throughout the city that a dreadful accident had happened, and hundreds of persons presented themselves in the fear that relatives and friends had been victims. On the arrival of the train it was discovered that four of the wounded had succumbed, three men and a child, but on applying as late as eight o'clock last evening, we were informed the bodies were locked in a van at the station, and that no information could be afforded as to their identity. Most of the wounded and dying were conveyed without loss of time to that excellent institution, the Radcliffe Infirmary, while others were sent to New College, Jones's Railway Hotel, the Randolph Hotel, the King's Arms Hotel, &c, where they received the best medical assistance. At the Infirmary 50 patients were counted, of whom most are known.

Some wonderful escapes were mentioned in Oxford last evening, and among them is that of a gentleman sitting with his nephew between his knees, who was unhurt, while the young man was killed. In a compart-

ment containing eleven persons, five of whom were relatives, the latter are said to have escaped totally, while of. the remaining six none survived. Two ladies were thrown on to the up line out of a carriage, which was immediately shattered to pieces. The work of extricating the dead and wounded from the rubbish was a most difficult and painful one. Not only were they got out one by one, but by threes and fours, and underneath the fragments of one carriage, no less than thirteen dead bodies were found. A little child was saved and taken to the neighbouring village of Thrupp. No owner has been found for it. Among those who escaped without injury are the Rev James Stack, of New Zealand, missionary resident at Portsmouth, who was accompanied by Miss K. H. Stack. He and Miss Stack were almost miraculously preserve d from hurt, as he made several attempts to enter the part of the train destroyed. Mr and Miss Stack are staying at the Maidenheat Hotel. No more deaths have been announced up to this hour, but several are anticipated; in fact, it is thought thirty will not cover the ultimate loss of life.