NEWS BY THE SAN FRANCISCO MAIL.

Globe, Volume XXI, Issue 1702, 4 August 1879, Page 3

NEWS BY THE SAN FRANCISCO MAIL.

[pbom thb"peesb" coebespondentV] LONDON, June 19. The game seems to be pretty nearly up with Ismail Pasha in his role as Khedive of Egypt. Rumors prevailed in the clubs last night that France had resolved on taking a serious step with him, and it is announced this morning in the telegrams from Cairo that yesterday M. Tricon, the new French ConsulGeneral, who only returned to Alexandra about ten days ago, yesterday arrayed himself in all the panoply of uniform, donned his decoration of the Legion of Honor, sought the presonco of the Khedive as the representative of the politest nation on earth, and blandly informed Hia Highness that France had resolved to insist on hia deposition from the throne of Egypt. Here is the beginning of what, I think, will prove to be the last act of this drama. The Khedive haa gone a great deal too far. Ways of amendment were not only open to him, but were kindly pointed out to him by friends who would have rejoiced at seeing the slightest token of amendment; but, with that infatuated blindness in which only a bankrupt Mahomodan potentate can persevere, he has held on his own course until, one by one, each European Power haa declared its patience to be exhausted. Russia wbb the last to declare itself, probably from a slight feeling of sympathy with a country which was out of funds. But the firmest foot of all was set down by Germany, which is probably the least concerned of all the European creditors of the Khedivo, and now a still more decisive step has been taken by France, which has evidently not got over nor forgiven the rebuff of its representative on the Financial Commission. This step is serious enough, but will it be backed up by the other Powers ? We do not yet know whether there ia any foundation for tho general belief that such a step could not have been taken without English sanction, while the moral effect of the decision may be somewhat blunted by the fact that there is no stability in the French Government, which is in a sort of political consumption. It is not a little strange that just at a time when Etna has been subject to the most violent eruption of the present century, and Vesuvius has shown signs of a kindred nature, and there has been a destructive earthquake in Sicily, both the English and French Parliaments shor'd have been the scenes of outbursts of wrath the like of which has not been previously recorded. The Home Rule representatives from Ireland have taxe 1 the patience of the most Job-like members of the Government, and one of them, Mr O'Donnell, the most irritating of the little group, has caused tho Colonial Secretary to boil over. Mr O'Donnell has taken the Zulus under his protection j indeed, the Home Rulers, or Obstructionists aa they are gonerally called from the resistance they offer to the progress of business in tho House of Commons, seem to delight in publicly patronising anything that is offenaivo and repulsive to Englishmen ; so he wont on heaping slurs on the conduct of our troops in South Africa, until Sir Michael Hicks-Beach replied with a heat which was fully justified, but not quite within the calm docorum of Parliament. Tho worry of the French Parliament ia M. Paul do Caßsagnac, editor of tho " Pays," a redhot Bonapartist, who has a tongue and a pen that rival each other in asperity and abuse. This week has witnessed at Versailles a scene which, but for the names, would almost seem to be a meeting of an Irish town council, after plenty of whiskey had been set flowing. Caasagnao has incurred tho penalty of exclusion from the Chamber of Deputies for three days, but by one of thoso curious anomalies that seem to creop into every piece of legislation whether at homo or abroad, he cannot be excluded from the Congress of both Houses, which is sitting to-day to discuss the important question of whether the Chambers shall return to Paris, and hold their meetings thero. Our House of Commons ia firmly settled at Westminster, but how long thia present Parliament will last is a matter that daily becomes more and moro uncertain. Indeed, I am assured by some trustworthy peoplo that it haa not two months to live, and that a vory few days after these linos have appeared in print, the telegraph may convey to you in New Zealand the news of tho dissolution of the English Parliament. One of the most convincing signs of the timea is the fact that the Chancellor of the Exchequer could, in the midst of all the worry to which he is subject at this time of the year, find time list night to penetrate to the remote East-end of London and deliver to the Conservatives of the Tower Hamlets an elaborate addreaa on tho Ministerial situation. This is regarded as a straw which shows the way the wind is blowing. If we do not know when Parliament will be dissolved there is another election, the date of which is certain and not far off, which is already beginning to attract a fierce opposition, and haa been the subject of a whole evoning's debate in the House of Commons— I moan the election of the members of the London School Board, whose term of office expires before the end of this year. Thenwhole policy has been the subject of a long and somewhat acrimonious struggle, but their

r» )idly augmenting expenditure in defiance of everybody and everything, in spite even of the Education Department—that branch of the Government which is supposed to control them—has been the point on which most interest was felt by the ratepayers, on whom continually increasing demands have been made until now the sum annually demanded has for some time past been nearly doable the maximum which the author of the Education Act anticipated in 1870. Mr Forster was, therefore, bound to speak at an early period of this debate. He always boldly states the truth, and, therefore, I was not surprised at his confessing that the expenditure had become much greater than he contemplated nine years ago. He made a vigorous defence of the School Board, both for the excellence and thoroughness of its work and for the individual merits of its members, but his defence, when reduced to fact, is an admission that there is more than some ground for the loud complaints that have been made against it. This is a matter well worth the serious attention of all colonial legislators and voters. Hero in London it has come to this, that a system which was intended to be one of elementary education for those who had been previously nncared for, has come to be in a few years a costly plan of education for'the middle classes at the public expense, while the " gutter children," for whom it was originally designed, are still in the gutters, unwashed and unlearned. On the average, the education of these children in Board schools costs nearly three pounds each per annum, towards which the parents only pay a fraction, in the shape of fees. To crown all, the Board, besides spending all its income, has incurred debt to the extent of several millions sterling. Perhaps the most interesting feature in the news from the Continent is the festivities consequent on the celebration of the golden wedding of the German Emperor and Empress. The Hohenzollern family is a long living one, and the present Emperor William is the fifth member of it who has lived to celebrate his golden wedding—a fact which speaks much for the care with which their consorts have been selected, although we have to go back through nearly five centuries to select the other four instances. Several oases have occurred in which the parties came very nearly towards half a century of married life, and I believe many silver weddings have been celebrated. For a week before the event, Berlin was in a fever of preparation, and no little excitement was caused in' the previous week by the aged Emperor sustaining another accident by falling down in one of the chambers of his palace, owing to the infirmity in his knees. However, this hale old man soon got over that shaking, though on the day of the celebration he had to remain seated while the crowds of courtiers came to offer their congratulations. He was just able to come out once on the balcony of his palace and show himself in response to the acclamations of the jthoueands of his subjects who had congregated in front of his palace. It was originally the intention of his nephew, the Emperor of Russia, to be one of the many royal personages present at this family gathering, but in spite of the fact that Solovieff, who bo recently fired at the Emperor Alexander in the streets of St. Petersburg, had been tried and hanged for that offence, the Berlin police had good reason to believe that the Nihilists are not yet repressed nor deterred from regicide. In Germany the severe measures taken not long ago against the'Socialists seem to hare restored domestic quiet, and now the people there are more concerned about the success of Prinoe Bismarck's Protectionist schemes than any other political matter. This alteration of the German tariff, and the consequent great increase of duties,|has throughout been closely watched by England, but now it has excited France since it has leaked out that this increase of revenue is mainly wanted in order that Germany may be able to afford a larger military expenditure. Twelve or eighteen months ago there was a great deal of agitation in England amongst the agricultural labourers, a large number of whom were shipped off to you in Mew Zealand. As regards the great majority of them I doubt whether they will prove any boon to the land of their adoption,tund whether they will do much good for themselves. True, I read in the newspapers here at Home grandiloquent accounts, written by interested parties, of the wonderful fortunes that have been made by some of these emigrants, some of whom I learn have, after a brief residence in your glorious island, become agricultural Rothschilds, and returned to the land of their birth to buy the extensive farms on which they formerly worked for a few shillings a week. Although lam fully persuaded of the immense and undeveloped resources of New Zealand, I do not believe it to be such an El Dorado for a man who can do nothing but the merest manual labour. Butjnow I am not astonished at Lord Derby recommending the farmers to follow the example of their laborers and seek for themselves and their sons openings in the extensive fields of the Australasian colories. Things agricultural in England are in a very bad way. For months past there have been almost daily announcements of remissions of rent having been made by landlords ; the bankruptcy of farmers, owing to several successive bad seasons and the keeping dowu of prices of both corn and meat owing to serious foreign competition, is becoming of constant occurrence, and worse than all, the finest freehold farms in England cannot be let at anything like the rent they produced three or four years ago, nor be sold for anything like what they then would have realised. It is one of the strangest signs of the times in England that while the merest little cottage in the suburbs of London will sell readily for a sum that will only produce in rent a very small percentage, so great is the amount of money always ready for investment at a low profit, the actual sales of land have rapidly become less and less, for a great deal of what was offered by auction has been bought in. Now Lord Derby is a deep thinker on economic questions, and a long speech which he recently made to the farmers in Lancashire, where he owns immense estates, will not be without great influence on the whole agricultural community. There has come to be a superfluity of farmers in England, and if they can be induced to try New Zealand, they will do Tour country good, and revive those they leave behind. Moreover, they would be jußt the men to make the most profitable use of the laborers who have preceded them to your shores.

I spent a very unpleasant afternoon in the Court of Queen's Bench last week, waiting for a very pleasant though brief ceremony—the leave-taking of Mr Justice Mellor, who has been one of the judges of that Court for nearly eighteen years, and has, throughout that long career, been universally eßteemed. Such an event as the public farewell between a judge and the bar is so rare that one would almost go to see it as a matter of curiosity, but there was more to me in this instance, for I knew the learned judge well when he was one of the members for Nottingham in the House of Commons, and one of the leaders of the bar on the Midland Circuit, the other leader being the urbane Mr Macaulay, then one of the members for Cambridge, and many a legal battle have I seen between them. Mr Macaulay died at a comparatively early age, and not long after his most fortunate competitor had been raised to the Bench. His elevation happened at a timo when Sir John Holker, tho present Attorney-Q-eneral, was still a junior counsel on the Northern Circuit, and was engaged in the very first criminal case that Mr Justice Mellor had to try at the Appleby assizes, a reminiscence which Sir John recalled when he addressed to the retiring judge a few heart spoken words of regret at parting from so greatly respected a member of the judicial staff, and of good wishes for his long enjoyment of tho ropoeo of that private life into which Sir John Mellor has retired at the age of seventy years. There was an immense assemblage of barristers to witness this impressive scene, only a sprinkling of whom could have known the retiring judge when he was a Queen's counsel, though amongst tho crowd I noticed two or three who had hold briefs with him as his juniors in cases wherein ho was their leader. Perhaps the most remarkablo man in the whole Court was the venerable Lord Chief Justico himself, and in spite of his groat age and his long and arduous publio services, Sir Alexander Cockburn is both mentally and physically in first rato condition, and equal to a good deal more work yet. Mr Thorns, who was for so long tho accomplished editor of "Notes and Queries," has disbelieved for more than a quarter of a century that any human being could live for a hundred years, but last week there died a clergjman who was undoubtly 102. MISCELLANEOUS MAIL ITEMS. Sentence of dismissal from her Majesty's service was passed on William Mackay, assis-tant-paymaster of tho Boscawen, tried by court-martial and found guilty of appropriating £3O of public money.

The " Lealtad," a Madrid newspaper, reports that the Alhambra is in imminent danger of destruction. It states that during the last day of May the hill upon which this choicest relio of Moorish art stands showed signs of an approaching landslip, and since then the appearance of collapse on a colossal scale have increased. The Alcazaba also, a splendid and extensive pile, lying at the foot of the hill, is in great danger being involved in the catastrophe. A short time ago the murdered body of a traveller, named Muller, was found in a ravine in the neighbourhood of Schutz. After a while suspicion fell on the brothers Steiner, proprietors of the Three Switzers Hotel. They were consequently arrested, and now admit that they strangled Muller, who was their guest, in his bed, and conveyed his body to the ravine. One of them has further confessed to having some years since killed his wife by driving a nail into her skull. Mr Robert Leake, chairman of the Manchester Liberal Executive, has been unanimously selected by the Liberal Council of Aehton-under Lyne to contest the borough at the next election, in opposition to Mr Mellor, the present member. Mr Leake has not yet given formal assent, but has privately expressed his willingness to stand. Mr J. A. Bright, a son of the right hon. membei for Birmingham, was talked of as a possible candidate, but, in reply to a communication forwarded to him in his son's absence, Mr Bright says that no other member of the family can be spared for Parliamentary work at present. The G-erman Emperor attended Divine service in the chapel of a seminary for the education of Protestant clergymen. When the service was over the congregation repaired to the hall, where his Majesty delivered a long address to the assembled clergymen and students. The one thing necessary, he said, was to believe in God and his only Son, Christ Jesus. There was no mode of ordering one's life in a pious and conscientious way unless upon the eternal foundations laid in the Bible. There might' be different ways of looking upon minor things j yet he felt it his duty to warn the students present against the evil practice of using interpretation as a means of impairing the vital points of Biblical truth. He (the Emperor) would ever adhere to the union of the Lutheran and Reformed Creeds as effected in the Prussian Established Church by his late father. Frederick William the Third.

A special correspondent who is accompanying the Russian Expedition into Central Asia, says that the troops were to have started at a much earlier date, but the difficulty of procuring the very large number of camels required rendered postponement neoessary. Our correspondent has had a long conversation respecting the expedition with the Commander-in-Chief, who at first thought that but little fighting would take place, but changed that opinion, owing to the resolute attitude of the Turcomans in their recent raid. He had formally notified to them that he was about to annex their territory ; but they had made no reply. Our correspondent says they are evidently concentrating their forces, and he believes the Russians will meet with a vigorous resistance. The duration of the expedition is very uncertain, and the troops may have to winter in the heart of Turkestan. Every preparation was being made for a lengthened stay. The entire column is about 30,000 strong of all arms. Should the possession of Merv be thought necessary for the safety[of the army, it would be occupied. Two boys of the Arethusa training ship, lying off Greenhithe, were charged at Dartford with conspiring to set the ship on fire. Several boys tossed to decide who should carry the plan out, but the boy to whom the lot fell reported the matter to the petty officer. The prisoners were committed for trial.

The fund beiag raised by the Mayor of Exeter tor the relief of the ruined shareholders of the West of England Bank has reached between £BOOO and £9OOO, but the number of destitute is bo large that the fund is quite unequal to the demand made upon it, and the Bishop of Exeter, the Earl of Devon, and other noblemen have made a further appeal. Since the Bank stopped payment in November last about fifty persons, who are entirely destitute, have been thrown on the fund.