ENGLISH MAIL NEWS.

Grey River Argus, Volume XII, Issue 1042, 28 November 1871, Page 2

ENGLISH MAIL NEWS.

The Eev. W. Morley Punshon has been unanimously elected president of the next "Wesleyan conference in Canada. Mr Nicholls, the widower of Charlotte Bronte, has married his cousin Miss Bell, and is living in Ireland. Professor Wilbur fell from a balloon, in Indiana, a distance of 1000 ft. His remains were unrecognisable. It is now settled to place the Scottish National Memorial to the Prince Consort in the centre of Charlotte square, Edinburgh. Herr Ferdinand Ludwig has left England for a three months' tour, visiting Leipsic, Vienna, and Berlin, and assisting at the Bonn Festival. The National Labor League is reported to have ordered a general strike of all trades throughout the United States and Canada next spring. The Liverpool Mercury says that an exhibitor of optical instruments in that town has an announcement in his window that "the invisible world" maybe seen within for Id. Dr Dollinger, who is just 70 years old, is a very abstemious man. He eschews tobacco and alcohol, rises at four, and goes to bed at vine. His library of 30,000 volumes occupies the whole house. Doddington Rectory, near March, in Cambridgeshire, was destroyed by fire. Only a little furniture was saved. The damage is said to amount to LIO,OOO. The ciuse of the disaster was an accident to the plumber on the thatched roof. Mr Joaquin Miller, the new American poet, who has been in London during the . season, has had an eventful career. : He j fought a duel in California, ran a pony express across the mountains for 200 miles, edited a newspaper, and was war correspondent in France. The International Opera House scheme, which has been some time under consideration, is now definitely settled. The site for the new theatre is situated in one of the. best parts of Oxford street, and the building itself will be large, elegant, and commodious. The architect is Mr Walter n~i.«. 1* J« intAtxJAfl . to .tiake the international Opera House the lodaUoi M. Offenbach, who will be associated with M. Raphael ]i?elix in thg direction of the theatre. ■ We learn from Egypt that the Viceroy is becoming more and more displeased with his American friends, and it is rumored that they are all to be sent away with a gratuity of some months' pay. The Turkish officers are jealous of them, aad Kasitn Pasha manages to pooh-pooh every improvement they suggest. Mercha Warke, the Abyssinian envoy, is supposed to be still at Jiddah, awaiting instructions from Prince Kasa. Why cannot sea-water be brought to London in pipes laid along the Brighton Railway 1 asks the Bui ld&r, which ; adds :— "It would certainly pay. The water could be supplied to houses. It could be sold in quantities at the works. Saltbaths could be established in connection with the works, and a sa]t- w ater lake similar to the lakes in our public parks would be a great attraction." A sad case of poisoning has occurred at Dnnster, Somerset. A farmer, named Norman, obtained from a chemist a large quantity of q,rsenio ? brimstone, and black soap to mg,ke a wash for sheep. The family were in the habit of taking brim T stone medicinally, and his daughter Maria, aged twenty-one, took from one of the paokets which her father, it seems, had mixed and put on tho shelf a powder which she thought to be brimstone, but which was in reality brimstone and arsenic, and took some of it as a medicine. She died shortly afterwards. Fifty-one Prussian workmen have struck work at Sir William Armstrong's factories at Newcastle, and have left by steamer for London. They were escorted through the streets by crowds of the workmen on strike, and there was great enthusiasm displayed at their departure. About twenty more leave by steamer for Hamburg on September 2. The defection of the Germans was counterbalanced by the arrival on August 30 of: 120 skilled workmen from Berlin. They weref taken to Messrs Hawthorn's factory, and after hearing the Prussian Consul, who explained the position of affairs, they agreed to carry tat the engagements made by them at Berlin, and signed fresh contracts. On the afternoon of August 21, a Frenchman was killed on the sands 'at B'oulogne-sur-Mer, in the presence of many hundred spectators. He was a man of extraordinary strength, named Vigneron, a.sred 45, and was known in most part* of Europe for his featg of strength, and particularly for lifting a cannon Weighing 6001 b upon his shoulders and firing a full charge of gunpowder. He went through this performance on the sands with his usual success, but while in the ] act of lifting the cannon to lower it he 1 slipped and fell. The, whole weight of the i cannon fell on the face of the unfortunate < man, splitting his skull completely in two. l Qeath, of course, was instantaneous. i The remain* of two adult human beings i have been dug up oh the foreshore at '1 North Woolwich, below high-water mark, i rhe remains have the appearance of hay- 1 ing been hastily interred, but' therja is 1 nothing to show how long or under what 1 jircum stances they have occupied s\ich < remarkable graves. In tho immediate < neighbourhood, and just below the open- 1 ing made for the Dagenham Docks, 'the 1 bed of the river discloses at low spring t ides stfnje ia&eresting remains of an au- c

cient forest, the roots and trunks of enormous trees gradually decaying into peat. The trees are apparently yew, nmilar to a large number found at various times buried deep in the Government marshes at Plumstead, which: at one time are known to have been under water and to have formed part of the Eiver Thames. Never have so 'many fiernngs' been caught as this year, although the quality is not equal to the quantity, the fish being too soft, fat, and oily for curing uses. A fleet of from 400 to 500 Yarmouth and Lowestof t luggers have been fishing lately from 20 to 30 miles off the mouth of the River Humber, and these vessels put into Grimsby to discharge, almost as deeply laden as they could swim, bringing in from eight to ten lasts each. Three days there was quite a glut in the herring market, the fish aellitig 1 6t U2 fee last, and at id to 3d per 100, tJmfttr&x of ninety waggon load* were wM «l the dflefe aide for manure to the Um&® 0a Monday, September 4, the smvsil was equally great, and 30s per ton was pxm for the fish for the purposes of mmmc, the seller to salt them. Great consternation was caused at the Theatre Royal, Cambridge, on September 19, by the catching fire of some of the scenery. Mr B. Clifton's company were engaged in a representation of "Macbeth,' and when the tragedy had reached a good way into the fifth act, and just before Macbeth meets Macduff, a cry of * ' fire" was raised by a few persons in the pit, who also pointed to the roof of the stage. It was found that a gas-burner, which was left swinging at the right wing, had set on fire some of the smaller scenery in the roof. The burning canvas was- promptly brought down, but the flames extended, and were not extinguished before one or two drop-scenes were pulled down and partially destroyed. The alarm naturally caused a rush to be made by the audience, but a word of assurance from Mr Clifton caused most of them to remain in their places standing. The audience refused to allow the curtain to be down whilst the fire was burning, and when the play was resumed they cheered loudly and long. Thomas Carlyle in his recent v^sit to the far north put the mirliegoes on his aristocratic travelling companions. The railway carriage was comfortably seated with many ladies anxious -to I record* their having been the road and; rail companions of the great man. The subject started was Dr Darwin and his : theory: The ladies argued the pros and cons in a wo* manly manner, looking foivMrO: ? s approval. He gave every fair ladye the same kindly nod and smile, no doubt remembering Josh Billing's saying. *' Wooman's inflooence is powerful-^-eapeshiia when she wants anything." One of the party, after she had given out, said— " What.do you think, Mr Carlyle ?" His cool reply was — "Ladies, you. have left nothing to be said." " Oh, yes ! but what' is your opinion ? you have not given us that yet." Tanimas was to far north to be sold. He made the folio *ring~pithy reply :— " For myself, 1 am disposed to take the words Of the Psalmist— f Man was made a little lower than the angels.' " The Times remarks that the returns of British trade for thejmonth of July show an extraordinary increase, particularly in our exports, which reached L 19,817,000, the largest total ever attained. We are told tlmt theve is also a distinct increase of profits in almost: all branches of busU ness, an assertion strongly confirmed by the steady but determined rise in the value of almost: all the favorite investments. This rise is visible not only in railway shares, in which it is due, in pi«rt, ■ at least, to the increase in dividends arising from better management, but in almost all foreign stocks, and particularly in all Indian securities, which have reached a preposterous price. Indian Fours are at 104, so that India has now the second best credit in the world. This is pleasant for Anglo-Indians, but there is nothing in the circumstances of the Empire or the condition of her finances to raise her credit beyond that of every European State, except Great Britain. A rebellion would khoc^ 'down ajl th§3§ stocks 10 per cent, at a blow. Hundreds of persons of note havere--cently received letters from a man ' claiming to have in his possession a box con? taining diamonds to the amount of fonr millions of francs, and important papers belonging to the Empress, this box, it is said, having been abstracted from the Tnileries during the confusion subsequent on the events o,f the 4th of September. The letters then go on to state that their author, being now in prison, and therefore, unable to take advantage of hist rich booty, offers, on payment of 2006* francs at a certain given address, to put the donor In possession of the box. The contents would then be either realised by sale or given up to their rightful owner on payment of a certain sum, the proceeds in both cases to be equally divided between ' this novel kind of swindler and his dupe. It is scarcely necessary to say that the precious box has never existed, except in the fertile brain of the letter-writer, and this we have the best authority for stating. Several credulous persons have nevertheless been mulcted of their 2000 francs by this means. Brigham Young, the head of the Mormons at Salt Lake, Utah, has been indicted by the Grand Jury for concubinage. Some of his satellites have been arrested and indicted for a similar offence. Additional United States troops have been sent there to preserve a,nd enforce, the la>r.' The action of the United" States ~author> ties has created a commotion in Mormon circles. The Saints denounce the proceedings as a plot instigated by other Churches. The end is not yet. Referring to this, the News of the World says: — v Brigham Young has continued footing w|th the institution of polygamy until at last it has gqt him in£o trouble, The, leader of the Latter Bay Saints finds himself a prisoner, charged with conciihfnagej and in charge of a United States Marshal! Utah has laws forbidding this kind of business, but Brigham and his polygamists have set the laws atdefiance, on the ground that they should be made subservient to religious beliefs. "Why the system of concubinage has been allowed to exist in Utah, those in authority, whose duty it is. to execute the laws, alone can tell. One of the reasons -assigned is that the" \fcs orr mons> have/ until" recently, been isolated from civilisation, and that, under the cir--511 instances, the easiest way to get along with the evil was to let it alone. W-e now find polygamy, and the corses it entails, deeply rooted in the very heart of our country, with justice crying aloud for the removal of the foul stain upon our nation. If Brigham Young should be convicted on the charge of 'lewdly and lasciviously cohabiting with hixtoen different women,'

he will probably receive the penalty prescribed by statute : 'imprisonment not over ten years nor less than six months, and a fine not over lOOOdol nor less than lOOdol.' A conviction of the head Saint will cause a general scatteiing among the balance of the Mormons. With all this, there is activity with the soWiers—preparing for an emergency.