ENGLISH MAIL NEWS.

Grey River Argus, Volume XII, Issue 1082, 16 January 1872, Page 2

ENGLISH MAIL NEWS.

i iv / — ♦ — ' L--GENERAL ITEMS. Lord Belmore will succeed Sir Seymour F!itzgerald,aa^!G|»Yernor*o£^ombay««f^ Julia Matthews is playing with, considerable success at*, fbe Gkiety Theatre. ■ Miss Cleveland (Mrs Charles Viner) has. taken a leading-position on-the-Lob-don stage in the " $pman in White." Mr Charles' Cowper/ 'tie Agent-General for New South Wales, has had t interviews with the Chancellor of the Exchequer and Lord fKiraberly: recently on matters relating to ; the colonyy ■ i Caffyn, the cricketer, is said to have brought to Eugland a challenge from the brothers Gregory, of- Australia,; to~ithe ' brothers Grace of England: The report has caused considerable, excitement..^ -- v ■•' Mdllri. Schneider, who is in Paris, has just been presented by an unknown gentleman (who is said to be an Englishman) . with a magnificent gold and diamond comb, worth 200,000 francs (LBOOO sterling). .. .:..;,'■ .•-.....,■.-/./. '■•V'J The Liberia says, with a stretch -of extraordinary'fancy; that Lord Lyons will be replaced by Lord Loftusj'as'it is prp poaedto appoint Prince Alfred, Viceitoy of India and the Australian colonies, with Lprd Lyons as IFnder-Goverhpr,Mo reside in Melbourne. ''..,'. '' The Government of Belgium. have entered into a contract, with the directors of the Thames Iron Works for the establishment of a fortnightly mail service;between .Antwerp, and New York,' by vessels of from 2500. to 30QQ tQns,..ioc,nf teeiuyears. Arrangements will be made by which this line of mail -packets! will'- call at Dover to take mails and passengers en route. Captain Boadon, -of. the ship Star of Peace, has been cha,rged\ with assaulting and imprisoning a seaman named James Evans, whilst" on ~a**voyage from Melbourne to London. The seaman hadlbe'en kept a prisoner whilst oh board the' ship for two months, and for three' day?; after its arrival in England. The captain "was , remanded and admitted to bail. . . The certificate of the, captain;? of the Underley, wrecked on the Isle of Wight, the cargo, of which is being sold in. London, : has been siispendeb> ; '-'for, 'three > months. He had a pilot oh board, but was without ' the waters -of compulsory pilotage. A good deal' of difficulty has arisen from the fact that the question of insurance is still unsettled, and consignees will be considerably inconvenienced thereby. . ,''.■...';.,'.'..' • ;, r In connection with Irish affairs we may .mention that Mr Isaac. Butt,, of whose election as a: member of Parliament our readers are already aware, addressed; a public meeting at Glasgow the other eyening., The. subject-matter: of the speech was, of course, Home Rule, for Ireland. The learned gentleman argued that, after seventy; years of trial, the union between England and Ireland had proved a failure, and should consequently be repealed. That this doctrine, obtains , sympathy in many quarters cannot be doubted, and that the succeeding Session of Parliament will have the consideration forced npon it is pretty generally understood. At the ; Middlesex Sessions,! on the 19th October, Rebecca Skinner, aliaa Burke, alias O'Connor,. - was 'lirought up to be dealt with as; an incorrigible vagabond. J. W. Hor3fordj?6fitef "offiber of the Mendicity Society, proved , having knowtt the prisoner for upwards. of 20 years as having been frequently convicted, -but she had been kuowri to the Mendicity-" Society ever since 1835. She had been in custody 76 times. Mrs Howe, .. warder, at the Westminster House' of Correction, '- ; said the prisoner was constantly in prison, and it would be almost impossible to produce all the convictions against u her. .; > Ttie Judge sentenced her to be imprisoned for six months. We understand that the efficacy of the mitrailleur as a weapon of defence .has been very much increased by an invention of Captain C. P. Stone,' late 77th Regt., in which atmospheric pressure is used aa a motor for giving it an elevating and depressing action above., and i below:; the parapet, characteristic; of the Moncrieff principle. He proposes also the application of this principle for the treatment of heavy guns, a proposal which offers many novel advantages. The same inventor hap also discovered a method. 1 by ; which; submerged 'torpedoes may be destroyed wi|hout hazard to the opera! or. We under? stand that Captain Stone has hitherto refrained from suKmitting^his plans to the Government, 'in^jbrderljUhat they should first pass the ordeal of a v ngorous scrutiny; by certain high mathematical authorities* whose verdict has been given very decidedly in their favor, ■ '■■ ■'■ Two bad cases of cruelty ; to boys, are, reported in the late American, papers, • A cthild, seven jear-s old, and belonging tq tlie "Strong" Woman" of' O'Brien's Circus, bought iv Paris' for lOOdo], has been starved to death, being shiit ! up in a room with his hands tied behind his back. From the window he begged for a piece of bread, which the cook carried up on a ladder and threw on. the floor, saying' he looked as if he had not a drop Of blood in him. Nor had he much, for he died very shortly after. Steps are being taken: to arrest the ■ "strong" woman. — A man in Virginia tied his stepson to the rails of the Atlantic, Mia« sissippi, and Ohio road; where he left him while getting aswit6h in'lihe wood witk t which to flog the 1 youngster. Meanwhife a freight train came along, and as the driver was unable to stop it in : time, and the boy was helpless to ayert.his fate, h©» was cut in pieces under the wheels, aiid the authorities perhaps may soon be in' search of a rope with which" to mete but justice to the stepfather. Foreign affairs are almost portentously qniet. A Ministerial change inAußtria threatened to' have an important aspect that happily passed away. ; The relations between Austria and Germany have not been effected thereby, and both countries are busily engaged in the arts of peacet From France there is, little hews to note. The trials of the Communists continue/ but the interest in them flags consider; ' ably. M. Thiers grows in favor daily, ' and his position becomes more and more assured. Rumors of intrigues have almost died out, and Imperialist* foij^ gotten. . Not altogether, thjs t latter ; how* aver. All the body linen of the Emperor and Empress has been sold, by. auction,;, and hero- worshippers have blessed thefttf pelves for ever by purchasing napkins ami*" pocket-handkerchiefs with the Imperial N". impressed thereon. The toys of the Prince Imperial have been submitted to a iimilar fate, and now the Emperor's wines ire ad vertised . fqr , sale. , In England/the jxiles have been treated after a different

fashion. In May last, that being the natal month of the Empress, it was inJ£nded to make a complimentary presentation to her. The times were " out of joint," however, and tho affair was postponed. It came off on Tuesday last, the eve of the Fete St. Eugenic. A bouquet measuring four yards in circumference, and an album containing 25,000 names of admirers, was presented to the Emperor at Chislehurst, the Empress being still resident, in Spain. The presentation was a great success, and the Emperor was considerably affected. Of home topics the resumed Tichborne trial in interest absorbs and overshadows all the rest. Judge and counsel have already begun to exchange grim jokes about its duration, the Chief Justice hinting at eighteen months, and the Attorney-General at the end of next year. We give an analysis of the new evidence, so far as it has gone. There has been nothing sensational as yet, but a witness has been handled in a way that shows that the lawyers have come back quite refreshed, and ready to be " down" on anybody. Those who do not take a great interest in the case, having made up their minds, are likely to be wearied and irritated by the protracted examinations and by the incessant discussions on the subject, but they must submit. The claimant's side has made "a poor mouth," and objects to the heavy expense of the notes of the hearing, some L7OO a week, it is said ; but the defendants gallantly declare that they will pay all, though it is very hard on the infant's estates. The black man, Bogle, who. had been a servant in the Tichborne family for so many years, has been under examination. It is the object of the defendants to show that this man availed himself of his knowledge of the family affairs to "cram" the claimant. He held up very well against the 1 Attorney-General, and so far the evidence is strongly in favor of the claimant. The Australian evidence excited intense interest, and Australians are asking why reliable evidence as to " who's who" has not been obtained from Wagga-Wagga. Any decent resident of that far /off /MtuTumbidgee town could affirm whether the claimant be De Castro or Orton, or either or neither, and with fuoh evidence very much of the present perplexity would be cleared up at once. In the meantime, the Tichborne case is the general centre of observation, r but people are. beginning to wonder why it lasts so long.