NEWS BY THE MAIL.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 1080, 13 December 1877, Page 3

NEWS BY THE MAIL.

NOTES OF THE MONTH. [FBOM THE LONDON COBBESPONDENT OF THE PRESS.] London, October 26 My Cassandra-like mutterings in my la&fc letter concerning Cleopatra's Needle were very nearly being fulfilled. The huge monolith all but went to the bottom of the Bay of Biscay in a heavy gale. The cylinder ship containing it, appropriately called the Cleopatra, waß thro-vyn on her beam ends by an enormous sea, and the ballast shifting proTented her from righting. Believing her to be ginking, the captain and crew, consisting oi five Maltese sailors, were with great difficulty and tafce» ©n board the towing steamer,

the Olga. Unfortunately in the first attempt to rescue the crew of the Cleopatra, six gallant fellows, the second mate and live men of the Olga, perished. Believing all chance of saving the Needle to be hopeless, and his own ship being in danger from the heavy sea running, the captain of the Olga abandoned the Cleopatra, expecting her to go down beyond possibility of doubt, and steamed for Falmouth. The derelict, however, did not go down. She drifted seaward, and was soon after picked up by an English merchant steamer, which towed her into Ferrol on the north-west coast, of Spain, close to Ortegal. And there the Needle now lies, probably to await a calmer season. The attempt to bring the Needle across the Bay of Biscay at this stormy time of the year, seems to be, to say the least of it, strangely injudicious. The obelisk has been about 3500 years, I believe, in the land of the Pharaohs. Surely nine months more there would not have made much difference, and we could have existed very well without it for that time. The battle of the sites is still raging. There is something contemptibly absurd in all this indecision, for after all it is a very small matter indeed. Of much greater importance are the six gallant lives that have been thrown away in bringing the relic to our shores, and I hope something will be done by the country for the wives and families of these six poor fellows. Mr Gladstone is in Ireland. In spite of all that the poor man can say and protest, the public will insist that his visit; bears some political significance. He asseverates almost with tears in his eyes that he merely wishes to pay a visit of relaxation to a few Irish friends, and to take a little walking trip with his nephew, and perhaps fell a tree or two just to keep his hand in. But no, the public won't have that at any price. He must mean something. If the poor gentleman gets an attack of influenza, people immediately want to know what he means by it. Mr Gladstone has to thank himself for a great deal of this persecution. Over and over again he has announced his intention of devoting himself to his books and his bucolic pursuits, and hardly has the assurance reached our ears when we hear of his plunging once more into the arena of politics with the fiercest ardour. It is hard for Mr Gladstone to keep his finger out of the political pie. For the purpose of making himself better acquainted with the masses of the Irish people, the Right Honorable gentleman has taken to travelling third class on the Irish railways. The gancheries committed by nouveaux riches in their vain attempts to do " the correct thing" have been, from time immemorial, a fruitful theme of the satirist, both on the stage and in the novel. But seldome, if ever, hasfany real or imaginary parvenne so thoroughly done the wrong thing as has an American gentleman who is good enough to spend large quantities of his somewhat recently-acquired wealth amongst us. This gentleman has of course yachts at Cowes, studs at Melton, and moors in Scotland. It is in the last scene of action that he has just been distinguishing himself. He of course went in for deer-stalking, for of all varieties of sport this is the most expensive. But deer-stalking, conducted in proper sportsmanlike form, that is to say, with hard walking up hill and down dale for a shot, was not to be thought of. That was too tarnation slow. He would surprise the Britisher ; he would gain for himself and party the glory of having made the biggest bag on record; and he would get his money's worth out of the extensive tract of forest land he rented for the season—all three important desiderata. And this is how he did it. He employed an army of beaters to drive the deer for miles into a narrow gorge, where he and his friends—city stock-brokers et hoc genus omne, I should think, who had never before seen a stag in his natural glen—were ready with their breechloaders to pour volleys into the frightened creatures huddled up in a corner. One report avers that a mitrailleuse was actually employed. I cannot but think that this must be an exaggeration. Anyhow, in a very short time, as many stags as would have fallen to the guns of a party of sportsmen in the season were butchered. The American Creosus has surprised the Britisher. He has done even more ; he has aroused his indignation to a very high pitch, especially in the case of the British sportsman, who, while he glories in the manly sport of deer-stalking proper, vigorously objects to " the antlered monarch of the glen" being "butchered to make a Yankee holiday." I should think this gentleman will experience some little difficulty in coming to terms with a Scottish landlord next season. An attempt of two young apprentices in the baking line, both nineteen years of age, to emulate the proud deeds of Dick Turpin, Claude Duval, and Jack Sheppard, has just met with signal failure. In May last these two youths, after having saturated their weak brains with literature of the penny-dreadful stamp, resolved to throw up the contemptibly peaceful trade of making bread and to become dashing highwaymen. They purchased masks and revolvers, and being thus completely set up in the stock-in-trade of their new calling, they selected Blackheath as the scene of their operations. Here they succeeded at different times in committing several robberies on people in cabs and carriages in the old approved " money-or-your-life" principle." For some time they escaped detection, though every now and again re-appearing on [the scene and perpetrating some fresh robbery on the Queen's highway, and they created no small amount of alarm amongst her Majesty's liege subjects in that suburb of the metropolis. At last they were ignominiously "run in " and committed for trial. The trial has just resulted in a sentence of seven years' penal servitude for each. The trial of the four chief inspectors of the detective force, John Meiklejohn, Nathaniel Druscovitch, William Palmer, George Clarke, and Edward Froggatt, a solicitor, is being held at th? Central Criminal Court, and " draws crowded houses," as the theatrical advertisements say. Our Courts of Justice are now quite as much public spectacles and places of amusement as any of those other establishments ostensibly devoted to such objects. The case is a very serious one to society at large, inasmuch as its course, step by step, exposes more and more the rottenness of our detective system. Here are men, holding high positions of trust in that particular branch of our police force to which the public have looked for guardianship, and in which the public have always'placed especial confidence, charged, on very sufficient grounds too, with aiding and abetting, for the sake of extensive bribes, a gang of swindlers in fleecing society. For years these swindlers, who carried on a betting agency business, evaded the grasp of the law through the alleged aid and assistance of these detectives. The extent and success

of their operations may be imagined from the facts that they spent in advertising one swindle throughout Europe £30,000, and that they were able to distribute, right and left, bribes varying from £IOO to £SOO. A fearful colliery explosion took place a few days ago at Blantyre, seven miles from G-lasgow, on what is known as the Old road from the city to Hamilton. The owners of the mine in which the catastrophe occurred are Messrs Dixon and Co., the largest colliery proprietors in Lanarkshire. It appears that on Monday morning last two hundred and thirty-three men descended a couple of pits to their work. Of this number only twenty men were brought up alive after the accident, and of those rescued many have since succumbed, and many more are injured beyond hope of recovery. Upwards of two hundred miners have perished miserably. Prom seventy to eighty bodies have been recovered, but the rest, lie buried in one of the pits. Exertions are being made to reach them. Had the explosion occurred on any other day in the week but Monday, the pits would have bpen more numerously filled, and the loss of life would have been far greater. It. appears that the colliers have a curious custom of observing "Saint Monday," and shirk resuming work on that day. The real reason of this observance is that they have not yet got over the effects of the Saturday and Sunday spree. Thus it would appear that the poor fellows who have perished were the steadier and more industrious ones. This catastrophe, following so close on the explosion at Wigan, on the 11th instant, in which thirty-seven colliers lost their lives, will doubtless lead to some active legislation in the matter when Parliament sits. The four convicts, Louis Staunton, Patrick Staunton, Mrs Patrick Staunton, and Alice Rhodes, who were found guilty of the murder of Harriet Staunton under circumstances detailed in my last letter, and sentenced to be hanged, have been respited by the Home Secretary "during her Majesty's pleasure." In the face of the public attitude, Mr Cross could hardly have taken any other course. The cry that the charge had not been proven and that the execution should be stayed went up, not from the mob, but from a highly intelligent portion of the community. No doubt the appeal which carried most weight with the Home Secretary was a petition (signed by 600 members of the medical profession, including some of the leading physicians in the land, Sir William Jenner being one) setting forth the insufficiency of the medical evidence brought forward at the trial, and praying for further inquiry. The merciful decision of the Home Secretary has been received with a general feeling of relief by most classes. What will be done with the four creatures now in Maidstone gaol is not yet promulgated. That they shall not suffer death is all that is known to the public. The Newmarket Houghton meeting is held this week under the immediate patronage of the Prince of Wales. The Cambridgeshire, the great event of the meeting, for which no less than thirty-four horses started, proved a somewhat sensational race. It was won for the first time on record by a three-year-old carrying so much weight as Bst 41bs. The winner, a foreigner, Jongleur, owned by Prince D'Arenberg, was a mere outsider, and before the start a thousand to thirty went begging about him. The foreign contingent have made a good thing out of their victory, and one agent from the other side of " the silver streak " is said to have taken £60,000 of English money over Jongleur. Gale, the pedestrian who accomplished the unparalleled feat of walking 1500 miles in a thousand hours, is now engaged in walking 4000 quarters of miles in 4000 consecutive periods of ten minutes' duration. These exhibitions are becoming by their frequency hardly less wearisome to the spectator than to the performer. With the diminution of the gate-money, however, they will gradually die out for a time. An attempt to popularise Italian opera in London, which deserves and will probably will command a fair measure of success, is about to bo made by the eminent Impresario, Mr Mapleson. Italian opera has hitherto, owii g to the high prices of admission and the regulations concerning dress, been beyond the reach of all but what may be termed in somewhat court-journalistic language, the fashionable classes. Mr Mapleson, however, purposes to change all that. He proposes giving at Her Majesty's Theatre during the winter a series of representations of Italian opera, rendered by first-rate Italian singers, at comparatively low prices, combined with a relaxation of the usual stringent rules regarding dress. There is one difficulty which looms hideous, and that is our abominable climate, which will probably fly at the throats of the Italian artistes and strangle all the sweet notes out of them. That most successful play ever put on the stage, " Our Boys," is now within two or three nights of its 000th consecutive representation. It draws as full houses as ever, and the management intend running it one thousand and two nights, so as just to beat the duration of the Arabian Nights. i do not as a rule give you much of the " Court Circular." An "approaching marriage in high life" is, however, worth alluding to. The Duke of Norfolk, premier Duke and and Earl of England, hereditary Earl Marshal, and head of the illustrious house of Howard, is on the eve of marrying the Lady Flora Hastings, a niece of that notorious young Marquis of Hastings who ruined himself on the turf, and died a few years ago. Both the parties are Roman Catholics, and the wedding is to be one of great magnificence. No Duke of Norfolk has been married as a Duke for more than two hundred years. Cardinal Manning was to have performed the marriage ceremony, but his eminence has been called away to Rome, and some other high dignitary of the Romish Church will officiate. The Mansion House Indian Famine Fund amounted last evening to £422,000, and subscriptions are still pouring in daily. Though last, this is, assuredly, not the least of my items of intelligence. MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS. Two hundred and forty-four Egyptian soldiers have been admitted into the hospital at Varna with the end of the right thumb cut off. A miser named Sarrell, aged 65, was found dead in his bed in Dublin. In a drawer in his room was £B2 in gold, and deposits for shares in railway and mining companies to the amount of £17,735. Exeter Cathedral, recently restored at a cost of £40,000, was rc-opencd on the 18th inst., seven bishops being present. On the 23rd the now nave of Bristol Cathedral, erected at an expense of £15,000, was formally opened. The importation of American live stock and ireeh njeat ie again, rapidly increasing.

One steamer from Canada brought last week 105 head of cattle and 722 sheep, being the largest consignment ever brought over in one vessel. The Nevada imported 1200 quarters and 300 sides of beef. The influence upon prices is very perceptible. The rapid outward passage of the Lusi tarda, and her smart run homewards, have attracted considerable attention in the shipping and mercantile world. The steamer reached the entrance of the Sue/ Canal at 1 p.m. on Wednesday, the 17th inst, after a passage from Adelaide of 2(! days 12 hours and 10 minutes. Had she been an ordinary mail steamer of the P. and O. Company, letters could have reached Brindisi within four days, and would have been in London 56 hours later, or a total trajet of 33 days. This shows what kind of service could be established via Suez.