SUEZ MAIL NEWS

Grey River Argus, Volume XII, Issue 1074, 6 January 1872, Page 2

SUEZ MAIL NEWS

Prince Bismarck has laid a bill before the German Federal Council providing for the accession of Germany to the treaty concluded between Italy and Switzerland on the 15th of October, 1869, for the construction of a St Gothard railway and securing a subvention of 20 millions of francs, in accordance with Art. 17 of the treaty, towards the expenses of the line. The requisite funds will be raised, first, by special taxation imposed on the parties interested in .Germany, which it is. expected will produce about 3,000,000 francs ; second, by a special contribution 2,717,000 francs for the railways of Alsace and Lorraine'; third by various miscellaneous contributions, amounting to 6,217,000 francs ; and' the rest by a grant from the Federal treasury. . The Chancellor points out that the. proposed contribution on Alsace-Lorraine is justified by the cifcumr stance that these provinces, in connection with the Palatinate railway (Pfalzische^ bahn) and the Hessian Louis railway (Ludwigs-bahn) on the loft bank of the Rhine, would connect Switzerland with England, Holland, Belgium, and the Rhine provinces of Prussia, aud would therefore obtain at least a portion of the traffic between th a former and the latter countries. The rumor that a change is to take place in the diess of the 91st Regiment (Argyleshire Highlanders) gains strength. The "trews" are to be discarded, and kilts and bonnets are in future to form essential parte of the .uniform. There have been times when such a change would have wrought mutiny in a corps, •but now the proposed metamorphosis is more likely to be accepted as a compliment, than as an indignity. S,tfll it will nqt fail to be remembered that th> 91st won their honors while they wore their present garb, and that there maybe some? thing ominous in discarding garments which have done good service. The Romans lost their power when they left off the toga, and sober Evelyn goes so far as to say, "I am of opinion that the Swisse -had. not now been a. nation, but for keeping to their prodigious breaches,'' There is, howevev, a hopeful side to the matter which we cannot but notice. If the Queen's Regulations, can be set aside when- they are at variance with official iwuu,, yw^ i-~»y-Qnoa ; aianaUv.jbe_ ijostncmecL to personal convenience. The~¥ilfc and" the bonnet are, . perhaps, a Highlander's best fighting di*ess, but we greatly doubt whether the ordinary uniform of the line is that which an Englishman would choose for active service in the field. On Saturday, the 7th October, afire was discovered on the premises of Mr Brown, ohemist, 98 Grayls Inn road, .Holborn. In a few minutes a fireman named Ford arrived with the escape; He at once mounted his escape, and, assisted by a police constable named Carter, brought down in safety five persons. Having placed the five upon the ground, frantic cries for help were again heard' at the same window. Ford again rushed to the top of his escape, seized a woman round the Waistband was in the act of bringing her down the machine, when the fire rushed through the first-floor window, and set the canvas shoot in . fjameg, encircling the female and the fireman. He was obliged therefore to let go his hold of her, and she fell to' the bottom, but fortunately sustained no other injury than some slight bruises. The escapeman was not so fortuuate, for the canvas of the machine was in les3 than a minute burned away, and the poor fellow became wedged in the, wire netting, where he was seen plunging and kicking, with' the fire actually roasting him alive. By a desperate struggle he managed to break away the network, when he fejl heavily to the ground, 'unfortunately upon his head, and with such force as to double up his helmet, and cause the brass to make a deep hole in the back of his head. The; flame3 about his:body having been extinguished, he 'was at puce removed to the Royal Free Hospital, where: everything was done for him by the medical officers, Hiithe died in a "few hours from the injuries he had received. ' He leaves a wife and two ■ children. All this was the work of only about five minutes. A number of engines were soon at work, but the fire was not extinguished unti the premises were burnt but and the roof destroyed. The house on either side have also sustained damage by fire, water, and breakage. Police-constable Carter, upon seeing the fireman wedged in between the wire netting of the escape, found" that his own exit by the regular means was impossible, and he slid down one of the lever ropes. In doing so the flesh was rubbed off his hands, but he fortunately saved his life! A subscription is being raised for the widow and orphans of the fireman. The correspondent, of the Pall Mall Gazette at St. Petersburg says :— "Mdlle. Dementyeva, the lady conspirator who has just been sentenced to four months' imprisonment for printing and publishing a revolutionary proclamation to the stub dents, belongs to a curious section of female' society in Russia, which, though of very recent origin, already numbers among its members women .of all ! conditions. These' ladies call themselves Progressists (pierodovye). They profess the dootrine of woman's rights in the most extreme form, and although recognising marriage, . utterly repudiate : the doctrine that the tie between husband and wife continues to be valid after either of them desires, to break it. A Progressist accordingly makes no scruple of leaving her husband fo? another man as soon as she is" tired of him ; nor'dpes 1 she consider the ceremony of marriage necessary except

as affording a legal provision for her children.' I know a Progressist family here, consisting of two ladies, a medical student, an engineer, and two children. These people all live in the same houde£ and have everything in common. T^fi^, boy's name (he has of course not been christened) is Reason ; the girl's The ladies, are governesses, and they and the men put all the money they earn into : a common fund, which pays. for. ihe~exp^nses of the house and its irimatesf But to return to, Mlle.;Dementyeva. She is nineteen years of age, pretty, highly educated, and an orphan. In her evidence before the court she described how she became a ' Progressist.' ' I saw,' she said, ' how dreadful was the fate of a woman of education who must work for her bread. She must toil from morning till, night, to obtain the' bare means of existence! phe reason of this is that 'the scope of female action is too limited. Our poor: women of the better classes are only educated as governesses; their number, is. thus constantly increasing, competition is tremendous, and salaries fall. . . .1 therefore determined to establish a practical school for nomen^ where they could learn any: trade or profession. , I began by opening a printing office, as the first step towards introducing a new branch >of women's work. But I had uo! money ; I fell into debt ; and having, had- a legacy of 3000 roubles left me which was to.be paid onthe day I was married, I sought for a husband. Mile. Dementyeva was . was at that time themistress of MV Tkatcheff, a journalist of considerable ability, who afterwards also joined the conspiracy, and she therefore only concluded' a , 'fictitious marriage,' her husband'haying promised her .in writing that he would leave her immediately "after the ceremony. Such marriages, she added, are by no means uncommon among 'Progressists.' •A woman who becomes independent financially by means of her labor, naturally wishes also to be legally independent in other respects. This can only be ;ob* tamed by a fictitious marriage. T?he woman ia under the protection .6l her parents and guardians; she exchanges this protection for the purely nominal one of a fictitious- husband, who never troubles her once the marriage ceremony has been concluded.'" • ■ . • One of the most touching : incidents ,\ of the late war has yet to be recorded. When the Prince de< Salm-Salm retunied 8 to >■■ Europe after the death 'of th ; e° Emperor Maximilian at Queretaro, the Arohduohess Sophia' appointed .the" Princess .to an official post at Schbenbrurin/; The Princess soon became the bosom friend. and companion of the Archduchess, who still* refuses to be comforted for the loss of her favorite son.. The Prince meanwhile had joined the army, arid fell atGravelotte. The Princess, although entirely deprived of all fortune by the. deplorable everii of .Mexico, and wholly dependent on the bounty of the Archduchess, hesitated not to sacrifice the sum of 50Q0 franos-r-aU she, possessed — to remove her husband's re* mains. The watoh, the signal of recognition of the body, besides the usual tokens of uniform and accoutrements, was of peculiar make— a present from' the Emperor Maximilian, and. of pure Mexican gold, to which was attached a chain of the same material with a locket containing a small photographic^ portrait of the' Princess, with the initials -of husband and wife, and the motto, four times repeated, "For ever mine;" ini 1 German, English, "yrenimpHTidTSpauish. : -For a considerable time, no hope was entertained of the'recovery of the body, when at last the five thousand francs reward was claimed by, a certain peasant at Gravelotte who had discovered the body of an officer in iiijiform, too much decomposed,; ho wisiver, t0 be recognisable, but in wfcosefeoqliet tse .watch; ;was found with; a'vportiofc? of v. tH& chain still : ,attached;> The printed fa-. ;soription distributed all 'over the oountry had made it familiar enough, to the inhabitants. The reward was cHeerf ully paid, although, the chain was broken , and the Iccket with the Princess's likeness Was gone. The bodyVwfis^broughtto Vienna, there interred with all due reverence, and tlie Princess de"SaTm wenT toTpray each day beside the 'tomb. Last'weeic, intelligence arrived from "the Mayor of .Gravelotte,. dqplaping that the real body: of the P ; riiipe. of Salm had been 'found 'in' a little wood on ths hill beside the battlefield, and as proof ...of the identity, in spite of the -utter; impossibility, of Tee.bg--nition, f the pookefcbook, marked with the Prince's cypher, containing several letters addressed to him by the Princesa, were discovered beside him, and the remnants of a gold chain, to; which was attached i the locket containing the portrait of the Princess, were found still clutched in the skeleton fingers of > the corpse. The announcement has produced the greateat sensation in arid tfcr suppoSiiftui is thai the watch must have been found in. the possession of a robber, and that the Prince had succeeded iri : tearing the portrait from his grasp J . , ;