NEWS BY THE MAIL.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1577, 10 March 1879, Page 4

NEWS BY THE MAIL.

[«' Pall Mall Budget."] PULL op meat as an egg. One of the San Francisco papers gives an account of a new industry that has arisen in that city, namely, the manufacture of hens' eggs from inexpensive materials. The albumen is imitated by a mixture of sulphur, carbon, and fatty matter, obtained from the slaughter-houses and rendered sticky with mucdage. The yolk is made of blood, phosphate of lime, magnesia, muriate of ammonia, oleic and magaric acids, and colored with chrome-yellow. The shells are shaped by a blow-pipe from a mass of gypsum (plaster of Paris), carbonate of lime, and oxide of iron. After the shells are blown, the albumen is forced in through a hole in the small end, and sticks to the sides ; then the yolk is added, and after being covered with more of the albumen mixture the hole is sealed with cement; the complete egg is then " rubbed pretty smooth and laid asido for packing." It is asserted that many barrels of these eggs have been already shipped eastward for consumption ; and as a pleasing adjunct to meat from the "slink butcher" they will no doubt be gratefully welcomed by British housekeepers in search of "cheap and nutritious" food. THE BAILWAY THBOUGH CENTRAL * SIA. The Moscow correspondent of the "Cologne Gazette" writes that the commencement of the execution of railway connection with Central Asia may be, owing to the political troubles in the Eaßt and the Afghanistan war, shortly expected. The line is to pass from Orenburg to Kara-Turgai, through the Kara-Kum steppe, and to have a length of 900 verßts. The ground offers no difficulties, as, with the exception of the Ural, over which abridge 1500 feet in length is to lead, viaducts will be sufficient for the other rive»B. This corres{>ondent dwells also on the necessity of the ine in consequence of the rapid progress of Russian civilisation in Turkestan. THB DISTRESS AT nOME. The distress at Sheffield is reported to be still on the increase. Hundreds of applicants for relief have to be turned away. In Preston the distress is also becoming more serious. At Oldham, three women were sent to prison for defrauding the local relief committee by making false representations of poverty. At Ruucorn, the desirableness of discontinuing relief in presence of the change in the weather is under consideration. In that town, too, there are complaints of a good deal of imposition having been practiced. THB WEST OF ENGLAND BANK. A provisional committee has been formed in Exeter for the purpose of starting the West of England Bank Shareholders' Association, whose object is to raise a million sterling, of which one-half will bo ballotted for in prizes and the remaining half devoted to the meeting of the liabilities of the bank shareholders. The authorities at the Home Office, having had their attention directed to the proposal, have replied that there is no reason why the existing law against lotteries should not apply to this project, either for money prizes or in the form of an art union drawing.

["London Times."] BULOABIA. A stay of twenty-four hours in this town is amply sufficient to satisfy the traveller that there is a decided anti Russian feeling existing and increasing every day among the Bulgarian population. A prominent native official remarked to a friend of mine the other day:—"The Russians have done a great deal for us; they have opened the way for our freedom, but they cannot teach us constitutional government; and if Europe would only come forward now in a commonsense, practical manner, and help us to establise our nationality upon a firm and intelligent basis, we should never look to the Czar agpin for assistance or direction." The Bulgarians complain bitterly of the expense of the present Russo-Bulgar administration, and assert that the taxes are much heavier now than in old times under the Turkish Government. EEOBOANIBATION OF EGYPT. The correspondent of the London " Times" writes :—The political reorganisation of Egypt continues. Last week I described the distribution of the work of the State among the various departments. Each Minister is now organising his own work. I have before me a letter of M. de Blignieres, the Minister of Publio Works, to the Khedive, followed by a decree confirming its proposals, which places that department on a new and most satisfactory footing. The country is divided into Bix circonscriptions or districts, the east district, the west district, the centre district, the south district, the Cairo district, and the Delta district. Chief engineers are appointed to each district, but all are under the central office at Cairo and without the sanction of that office no public work can bo undertaken. Their ordinary work will consist in the maintenance of dikes and canals, the control of sluices and basins, and at high Nile they will all combine in the control and direction of the flood. This system of centralization, by which each work will be part of a general plan, succeeds a somewhat haphazard administration, which only escaped disaster by the incessant activity of the Khedive, and broke down completely when he relaxed his attention last summer.

One of the new works contemplated is of interest to England and France, as well as Egypt. Everybody knows and sympathises with the patriotic interest whioh Frenchmen take in the greatest engineering work of the century, the Suez Canal. This interest is extended to the Mediterranean exit of the canal, Fort Said. Hitherto that town has been left out of all schemes of Internal development in Egypt, It ie not connected with the Delta by either road, canal, or railway, and is excluded from all intercourse by a vast marsh. Notwithstandingits position on the great highway of all the nations, it remains a mere coaling station and place of call for passing ships, inhabited only by coal agents, ship-chandlers, and consuls. But a cursory glance at the map of Egypt shows *hat Port Said might be put to much better uses. Outside the Delta proper, formed by the Damietta and Eosetta branches of the Nile, is a much wider triangle of cultivation, formed by Cairo at the apex and Port Said and Alexandria at the two extremities of its base. The Nile has so choked its mouths with its own mud that neither Damietta nor Rosetta Port is available for ships of any size. Alexandria is the only present port of Egypt on the Mediterranean, and by rail or canal all the produce of this great triangle must go there for exportation. But Porfc'Said should clearly be utilised. It is the obvious exit for at least three of the richest provinces of Lower Egypt. This is so obvious that produce is beginning to be sent down by rail to Damietta and thence by small boats to Port Said. Already the dues of Damietta harbor are double what they were. What is now proposed is a railway from Damietta across the marsh known as Lake Menzaleh, a distance of about twenty-five miles to Port Said. Once the railway made, there is waste'ground there, belonging, I believe, to the British Government, enough to make a commodious port in addition to the small one already in existence. Of course, a railway from the entrance of the Suez Canal into the heart of Egypt and communicating with both Cairo and Alexandria is not without a certain political importance, and it may not only be with a view to Egyptian development that the French party here favours the project. As the port of Alexandria was placed by exception under the administration of the English Minister, it is natural that the French Minister should try to develope the ports whioh are left under his care. However this may be, the interests of Egypt fully justify this particular scheme; and if it is proved on close examination to be of a remunerative character, Port Said may look forward to a busy and brighter future. [From the " European Mail."J DREADPUL COLLIERY EXPLOSION. —1038 OF SIXTY LIVES. On January 14th a little before midnight, i the valley of the Rhondda, South Wales, was again the scene of a terrible colliery explosion, in which sixty men have lost their lives. Shortly before descending the men sat about the fires at the top of the shaft, chatting merrily, the glow of the fires lighting up the long night shadows on the snow-clad inoun-

tains around them. The nion descended to their respective workings, and at twenty minutes to eleven o'clock a roport was heard like the firing of heavy artillery, followed by a quivering of the earth, which paused tho houses in the neighborhood to tremble violently. People ran from all directions towards the Dinaashaft, for from tho direction from which the report had came it was concluded that there the explosion had taken place, At first it was impossible to approach tho mouth of the shaft, but when the sulphur and smoke emitted from the fatal shaft, cleared away a little, and daring men proceeded to the top of the shaft with a view to deacend, the huge framing above was found to be in a dangerous condition, and it was seen that one of the two iron cap?, each of which weighs about half a ton, and is usually kept on the mouth of the shaft (which is the upcast) for the purposes of ventilation, had been blown up into the framing, where it remained embedded between the beams. The engineers, who had by this arrived, would not permit any one to attempt a descent until the iron cap had been removed. As soon as the carriage reached the surface a number of heroic men stepped forward. One of their number (Mr D. D. Thomas) wears the Albert medal, first class, for valour at the Tynewydd Colliery, a mile away. Ready to descend into the shaft, with him were John Webb ;ind Thomas Griffith (manager), D. 1). Williams, and John Ace (fireman). They descended 400 yards, when David Williams fell into the arms of one of his companions in an insensible condition. The gas and smoke were suffocating, others wero becoming exhausted, tho signal to be wound up was given, and they were drawn up rapidly. Williams, as well as the others, recovered in a short time after reaching the fresh air. They had ascertained that the bottom was completely blocked up by the debris blown into the shaft by the explosion. A body of men then descended into a downcast shaft, situate about 300 yards lower in the valley. The men employed here were blown about by the explosion in a most violent manner, but owing to an extraordinary occurrence the full effect of the explosion did not reach them. To make this intelligible it is necessary to.explain the colliery arrangemerts. The upcast shaft, near the foot of which the explosion took place, is 420 yards deep ; the downcast shaft is 360 yards deep; in the interior of tho colliery is another shaft 60 yards deep, the bottom of which is level with the bottom of the first-named shaft. The rescuing party, after descending into the downcast shaft, proceeded into the interior, intending to make their way through tho 60-yards shaft to rescue the men. When they reached this, they found it completely blocked up with rubbish blown in this direction by the explosion. This closing of the outlet prevented the gas from reaching the men working in this part of the colliery, and they were all brought up alive, but many were injured severely by the force of the blast. Not a sound is heard in the upcast shaft, and there is no hope of any of the sixty men being alive. The engineers and their assistants are endeavouring to drive pipes through the rubbish in the 60-yards shaft in the interior of the colliery, so as to open a passage for the air to traverse between the two pits. The pit in which the explosion took place is the one in which the first great explosion occurred in the South Wales coal-field on January Ist, 1811, when twelve men lost their lives, and very many were injured.