NEWS BY TILE MAIL.

Grey River Argus, Volume XII, Issue 1111, 19 February 1872, Page 2

NEWS BY TILE MAIL.

Au express train, when between -t'rowbridgeand Holt, en the Great Western Railway, on the Ist December, ran over some men repairing the line while their attention was engaged upon a goods train passing at the time. Two men were killed ai^4 three others had a narrow escape. »~A curious discovery was made at the schools of the Christian Brothers, in Cork. A workman who was fitting up a stove had occasion to lift a plank, and "this led to the discovery, of a,n.umber of rifles and a quantity of ammunition. It is supposed that the, arms were secreted by some young men attending a night sohool which was held in the building a year ago. ' Between BQQ and 900 yards qf the West Pier, at Leith, was destroyed by fije. The pier, which was to a great extent of wood, was being covered with pitch, . when the vessel containing the liquid boiled over •and set the pier in flames. The fire lasted, all day. The communication with, the docks was cut off, so that the shipping escaped. The loss is supposed to amount to about, Ll s,ooo. ; The fex-comedian Lisbonne, who played aprominent part in the Commune, was sentenced to death, There is some doubt about hia being of sound mind; Before joining the insurrection his great ambition had been to play in some military drama, and he was unable to resist the temptation of performing on a real theatre when offered rank under the Commune. He began life as a sailor. ' The appointment of Mr W. R. Grove,; Q.C., tv ba a Judge in the Court pf j

Common Pleas, was announced. There is a report, that Mr Grove also will shortly be appointed a member of the Judicial Committee. "It is Btated that Mr Quain, Q.C. , has been appointed to the Judgeship in the Court of Queen's Bench which has been vacant for two years. -v-----'A\Berious,dißpute i i8 i said i to : --have < ari«eiiir : ar-^ between M. Thiers and the Committee of „ Pardons, each wishing to throw the rfr- V sponsibility of Rossel's execution on the ■■btherV' i; "' ; The : "re^drt : iß''that ; i^e w (tommittee ! «- K ' s * have written a very sharp. letter to the * President respecting certain insinuations which are of a nature to expose them to the revenge of Democrats, - It is some consolation even now to see both parties anxious to wash out the stain of this tragedy. „. , ; . ;..: The death of Lord Chesterfield has been : ~ f-jj already mentioned. His lordship was in A J his fortieth year, and was unmarried. : ;*;*;■ The deaths are also announced of Sir Henry (Edmund Austin, who since 1832 : •has been a gentleinanof the Privy Ghani- '- ber; of Mr W. H. Tinney, Q.C.; a late / ■* Master in Chancery, and an eminent real*' property lawyer, in his eighty-eighth year ; of Mr W. Brett,, brother of Mr Justice. = - Brett, and . private' secretary to Lord - r , Romilly ; and of Richard Patrick, the MacGiUycuddy of the Reeks, in hia, ■ twenty-second year. • : . • ■-.- ■' A fatal accident took place at brie of ' the collieries belonging to the Earl of «• Dudley, near Dudley; Four men, named *■' Pritohard, Timmins, Smith, and Astley, entered a skip which was about to descend tho pit. The engineer pulled the skip up too high, and Pritchard and Astley jumped over, but missed the stage/arid fell into the shaft. Their bodies were folind at. the, bottom shockingly dis-., „ I figured. Timmins also jumped, but, seeing ; ' danger, clung to the tackling of the skip, and in this way he was; safely let down with Smith, whp sat still. ; . , ' " Two little children were burnt to death in Finsbury. The children having fallen asleep, their mother laid them on a pillow on the floor, and went out to order some . coals. -About a quarter of an hour pre-. : viously she had filled a lamp with paraffin -„ oil, lighted it, and suspended it from the ■ ceiling by a copper wire.. When she re-?-..l turned the roof of the house was nearly 1 burned off, and thechUdren^were after? [ wards found reduced tq cinders, j? At the 1 inquesiithe. jury- returned a verdict, of .ac-; ,;; \ cidental death, and expressed an opinion that it was extremely reprehensible to leave children locked up inX.roomby -: themselves. -;!"''■' Mr Bright has been visiting the" Mar- T qnis and Marchioness of Ripon at their ;^ { s,eat in Yorkshire. Mr Disraeli's visit to, " : b Glasgow, to be ingt^ed L/>rd Rjec.tor of i the tJniversity, is, it js said, %be made ' the occasion of a grand Conservative de- * monstration, Mr Ohildera will address c; , his. constituents at Pontefract on the 22nd -■■.. 1 December, Mr Roebuck (who is now in V; 1 London) is so much 'better that it is hbped'"'" \ he will be able to deliver his promised L . address at Sheffield -before long. Lord , Rosslyn was installed as Grand Master • Mason of Scotland on the 30th November. At the banquet which followed the installation, in the Freemasons^fiaU at about 300 members of the .. . . ; , ' craft were present. Sir John Trelawny." > has informed his committee that he shall - ■ not contest East Cornwall at the next * election. Lprd;Tenterden, the Assist^n.t , 1 :Under ; Secretaryc fif t\& . Ifoteigri* Ofiloe, | left London for ;.. ' ( .^'.:.~ i^ i [ M. Thiers is said to be violently 'ojh ' [ posed to the Princes of the House of . Orleans taking their seats in the Chamber ■■ and breaking the engagement which they i entered into last session- on the occasion i of the abolition of the laws of exile. The ' Princes assert that the' situation is now entirely changed,., and . that the engage- v £; ' ment no longer holds good. The frien^ ' of. the Dug d'AumaJe endeavouEed' to persuade him to take his seat on the opening of the Chamber, but he preferred to'ialk over the matter with M. Thiers inj '{[ ■ . the first instance. : . The Princes' Have '' shown so much deference to the opinions of 1 the. President, and. so. much-anxiety^^, riot' to be the cause of any. dissension^ that no one would be asloiiished should they consent to renounce their plaims. The question whether they can remain deputies is shortly to be brought before the Chamber by ,M. Jean Brunet, who means to present a bill'to thp e^ct th,a| deputies nof taking their seats sixmpnthj( ,; after election sha]l be deposed." \y hen this motion cpm.es on, the question pf the Princes will be. decided irrespective of M. Thiers. ; . /;,;•" The question of ; rernpdellin.g the regH, f ; . lations of the. Geneva Convention is again ■ discussed in the foreign press, and seems ? to be especially desired by the German authorities, though they refuse to take- - upon themselves the direct proposal of such a reform. One journal apprehends that every step on their part would be. viewed with doubt and suspicion by other ' Powers, but has reason to believe' that Russia will call attention to the, subject,' as it once before made itself the advocate ; r of the interdiction of explosive bullets; • The latest Russo-German negotiations are affirmed to have related to the subject. The Militar Wochenblatt considers the ; . enlargement of the Convention into an international sanitary "code yery desirable. > and censures the present regulations on ; account of their vague and equivocal^., terms. It is convinced that , a reform / would work well in many ways, but reminds humane legislators that in the excitement pf war many of the laws laid $ down in cooler-times are apt to yield to--« the pressure of " iron Jaecessity." r . Under all circumstances, it would be useful to revise the code at a time when there is f universal peace, before " vast ambitions" | again raise up foes to humane provisions. * Preau de Vedal, 6he v of the men implicated in the cold-blooded assassination" of Gustave Chaudey, has-been sentenced tpdeath; but the chief actor in theter T ' ' rible scene^-tp wit, I^aoul Rigault^hiwi long sin(3e,paid tlie, penalty of fflinp of.hig; v crimes. The third council of war occupied itself lately with the case of Jausoulle, who commanded at Asineres, and was so strict a disciplinarian that : his men arrested him, threw him into prison, and ■ £ selected another commander. Having : " been liberated by Vermorel, Jausoulle raised a corps of lascavs ! The lascar re- -', jeived high pay,^ and^ was subjected to; ?• ievere regulations. Drunkenness was ';.'•■ punished with death ; the disputing of an >rder or criticism of a chief was followed - jy expulsion. The lascar attacks with ;he bayonet, seizing the enemy as a lerpent seize 3 his prey, say the rule* of he " corps ; he marches . witliput asking '. vhere he is going, or troubling himself with the strength of the enemy. Jauooulle itas formerly a dramatic author and a •ootj and received assistance from the

Ministers of the Fine Arts and the Interior. He had a wonderful escape at Asnieres, where a shell blew op five houses and killed thirty Federals, Jausoulle was the only man who escaped, and the court, probably not wishing to revoke the apparent decrees of Providence, merely sentenced him to simple transportation. The vulgar phrase, "a caution to snakes," is likely to be no longer meaningless, at least in India ; for it appears^ that Lord Mayo, like a true Knight of St. Patrick, has declared himself favorable to the extirpation of snakes as the best means of grappling.with an evil which defies all effort* of medical skill and research and destroys annually abont 20,000 lives in our Indian empire. On this topic a "Medical Officer/ writing to the Punjaub Times, affirms, as the result of long experience in the treatment of snake bites, that the offering of rewards for dead cobras and ' keraits is the only effectual way of reducing the rate of j mortality from this cause. In 1859 he was stationed near the Terai jungle, where both these kind of snakes abound ; numbers of bitten people were daily brought to him for treatment, and, although he tried everything, he never succeeded in laving a case bitten by either cobra or kerait. In these circumstances he sent

criers with toni-toms through^ the town and neighborhojd, giving notice that he would pay four anuas (6d) for each dead cobra and kerait. The result was that numbers of dead snakes were daily brought in— on ono day so many as twenty-two dead cobras. To prevent deception the heads were cut off in tho surgeon's presence ; and he gives the fact as an indication of the numbers destroyed, that for several months he paid out for rewards I L 6 on an average evnry month. The writer, who has recently tried the new "cures" without success, recommends that the plan of extirpation .should be sanctioned by Government and carried out by all civil surgeons. A correspondent of the .Afap York Tribune has discovered in Weatyn Virginia quite a primitive population. They inhabit a canon, or deep gorge, through which rnna the so-called New River. The population is not numerous, and has been so long isolated from tho rest of the world thnt it is to a strange degree rude and peculiar. Its occupations are mainly hunting and fishing ; to a small extent it grows corn and rears calves also, but milk forms no part of its diet. The country has always afforded a safe and convenient refngo to persons who had reason to fear the law, and ia said to have been originally settled by abscondera from justice. During the civil war, the people, with the most exemplary impartiality, preyed upon both sides in turn, knowing that no general would venture to send hia troops in pursuit of them into the deep and dangerous ravine they inhabit. Ampng their social customs two are especially remarkable. Widows, it is said, are commonly cared for after the Old Testament rule ; and it is tho custom not to marry a woman until after her flrSt child is bora. The explanation of this latter practice given to the- correspondent was that the people are poor, doctors are not attainable, and the birth of the first child, as the people believe, always dangerous to the mother's life ; wherefore the intending husband chooses to wait and throw upon the parents the trouble and expense of a possible funeral. "He wants a. wife to cock, wash, sew, and keep house for him, and if she is to die ho don't want hec at all." These people arc at last about to be brought into comniunicution with the rest of the world by a railway which, is boing run through their ravine, and apparently they resent their intrusion. When the engineers of the railway first entered the region the women and children used to hide themselves at their approach. Gradually they grew bolder ; and one day a little boy was caught, and, after some questions, asked whero his father was. The child replied that he was gone up into the mountains to find a place upon which to settle, as he didn't wish to remain in his old home any longer " now the railroad's comin' along." To which the correspondent adds, that he believes it is a fact the people are gradually deserting the ravine as the railway works advance.