English and Foreign Items.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 15, Issue 776, 7 April 1870, Page 3

English and Foreign Items.

Paris is intensely excited by the death of , M. Victor Noir, the republican journalist, at the hands of Prince Pierre Bonaparte, cousin of the Emperor. For some time past a- democratic journal called La Bevanche, and an imperial print, the Avenir de la Corse, both printed and published in Corsica, have been blackguarding each other v to their heart's content. At the beginning of January the Avenir contained a letter from Prince Pierre Bonaparte, in which Jhis highness attacked the enemies of the Eevanche in language anything but parliamentary. So far the dispute remained entirely on Corsican ground. But unfortunately the Eevanche has a representative in Paris, one Paschal Grousset, who happens to be a contributor to the Marsellaise,and this last-named paper was brought into play against the prince and his family. Irritated by the attacks of M. Kochefort's organ, the prince sent a challenge to MRochefort. In the meantime, and entirely ignorant of this letter, M. Grousset had determined to to " call out" the Prince, and selected two of his friends, Mil. Noir and De Fonvielle, to call on his imperial highness. What took placo is best told in the words of the parties themselves. M. de Fonvielle says:—"On January 10, Victor Noir and myself went to the House of Prince Pi rre Bonaparte, on behalf of M. Paschal Grousset, to demand from the prince satisfaction for certain injurious articles published in the Avenir de la Corse. We were shown into a drawing-room. A door opened, and his imperial highness entered. We advanced towards him, and rhe following words were exchanged between us: —'Sir, we come to deliver you a letter from M. Paschal Grousset.' ' You do not come, then, from M. Rochefort, and you arc not one of his valets (manoeuvres)?' ' Sir, we came about another matter, and I beg you to read this letter.' I handed the letter to him, and he went near a window to read it. He did read it, and after having crushed it up in his hands, he returned it to us. ' I provoked M. Bochefort because he is the porte drapeau [stan-dard-bearer] of the crapule. [Crapule is one of the strongest Billingsgate expressions in the French language, signifying gross, coarse, hoggish, villainous people.] As to M. Grousset, I have no answer for him. Are you solidaires [conjointly responsible] with these cliarognesV [Charogne is a low expression meaning a nasty stinking carcase.] ' Sir,' I replied, ' we come to you honorably and courteously to fulfil a mission entrusted to us by our friend.' 'Are you solidaires with those wretches?' Victor Noir leplied, 'We are solidaires with our friends.' Then suddenly advancing a step, and without any provocation on our side, Prince Bonaparte gave with his left hand a blow to Victor Noir, and at the same time drew a ten-shot revolver which he had kept concealed and ready cocked in his pocket, and fired it pointblanc at Noir. The latter sprang up on receiving the wound, applied both his hands to his breast, and tottered through the door by which we came in. The cowardly murderer then rushed towards me and fired a shot directly at me. I then seized the pistol I had in my pocket, 'and whilst I was striving to get it out of its case the wretch threw himself upon me, but finding I was armed, he drew back, placed himself before the door, and took aim at me. Then it was 1 comprehended the ambuscade into which we had fallen, and reflecting that if I fired persons would not fail to say that we had been the aggressors, I opened a door behind ma and rushed out, crying, 'Murder!' At the moment of my egress a second shot was fired, and the ball again passed through my coat tail. In the street I found Noir,

who bad just strength enough to descend the staircase and was expiring." The following is the prince's version of the affair: —•' They came into the room with a ihreatening air. They both had their hands in their pockets. After having read M. Grousset's letter, I said, 'With M. iiochefort, willingly ; but with one of his valets, never.' ' Read the letter,' said the bigger of the two (Victor Noir) in a tone. I replied, ' I have read it all. Are you bound by it ? ' I had my right hand in ray trousers pocket, the finger on my small five-barrelled revolver. My left arm was half risen in an attitude of defence, when the big one struck me a heavy blow in the face. Thereupon the little one (M Ulric de Fonvielle) drew from his pocket a six-barrelled pistol. I bounded back> and fired on the one who had struck me. The other crouched down behind an armchair and tried to fire, but he could not cock his pistol. I approached towards him and fired, and I don't think he was touched. He then escaped and got to the door. I might have fired again, but as he had not struck me I let him go, although he still held his pistol in his hand. The door still remained open. He stopped in the adjoining chamber, turned round, and presented his pistol at me. I then fired again, and he disappeared." M. Noir, on being shot, rushed from the house, crying "Murder!" A mason and a concierge named Voogts entered the gateway and found Noir, who had fallen on his knees and was endeavoring to support himself by his hands ; he tried to speak? but showed by signs that he was suffocating. "Voogts opened the coat and waistcoat of Victor Noir, and found in the region of the heart a wound from which blood was flowing. Voogts, a ssisted by the mason and another man, carried him to the shop of M. Mortreux, a few doors from the residence of Prince Bonaparte Dr Samazeuil resides in the same house as the pharmacy, and on being sent for immediately descended, but the wounded man was already dead, having expired before reaching the shop. Prince Napoleon surrendered himself to justice without waiting to be arrested ; but his trial had not taken place at the time of the departure of the mail. The French Chamber, by a majority of 226 against 34, authorised the arre3t of M,

Rochefort. in consequence of his revolu. tionary appeals in the Marseillaise against the whole family of the Bonapartes. The paper was printed in large type and deep mourning, and contained mostinflammatory appeals for vengeance. His trial took place on the 22nd December, and he was sentenced to one months' imprisonment, and a fine of 3,000 fr. The Funeral of M. JSToir was attended by a body of citizens variously estimated at from 50,000 to 200,000 in number, and great excitement was manifested. Prince Pierre Napoleon Bonaparte is a son of Lucien, Prince of Canino and is now 55 years of age. He has long been noted as a man of temper. His victim was a young man — scarcely over 20 years of age —who had not long devoted himself to journalism. His real name was Salmon. It is said that his marriage had been fixed for the day after that on which he was murdered.

Mrs Stowe has returned to the Byron controversy with an elaborate volume, in " vindication of Lady Byron." Her preface is a piece of angry declamation against the Engli h and American press. She reviews the whole case with much ingenuity, and more fully details her conversation with Lady Byron, but does not add any essen tial facts by which to strength her position. The lettors published in the Quarterly she disposes of by theory, rather than rebutting proof. Public opinion, as far as expressed, though still wavering on some points, is almost unanimous in condemning her revival of the subject in this form. The quiet capital of Norway has recently been subject to a popular commotion of a most extraordinary pharacter. For several days previous to the 17th December, the date of an English letter, the Freemasons' Hall in Christiania was the centre of continued riotous demonstration; numerous arrests were made by the police, and at night, the military were placed under arms. Similar scenes have been witnessed and they are the outcome of a curious superstition. Among the lower class there is a belief that once in seven years the Freemasons have to discharge one of their secret duties at the expense of their fellowcitizens, by supplying a few plump human bodies to tickle the appetite of the Grand Turk—Trynetyrken or swine-snouted Turk, as he is irreverently denominated in the

vernacular. Under the present panic, which is precisely similar to that described by the popular poet Wergeland more thai: twenty years ago, young people of the poorer class and servants refuse to move out of doors after dusk, and are the sub jects of unfeigned terror. The most extra ordinary stories are afloat of " suitable persons" being carried off by force in broad daylight; and it is generally believed that the city authorities assist in procuring the Turkish tribute. The people arrested in open war upon the Freemasons state specifically that fourteen bakers have disappeared ; and one tailor and an unknown number of young w >men and boys are also supposed to be on their way to the Sultan's table. The magistrates have tried to allay the popular frenzy by issuing a caution to householders requiring them.to keep young people out of the way, and pointing out to them the stupid nature of the panic. The Aftenpost, in commenting on this strange commotion, ascribes it to the fact that many persons emigrate to America without apprising their friends of their intention, and says that this circumstance, brought into connection with an exaggerated historical tradition handed down from the time when European nations paid tribute to the piratical States of Tripoli and Tunis, accounts for the whole affair..

An American paper, received recently, thus records un incident of slavery :—lt is like living in two ages of the world, a century or two apart, to reflect upon the deaths of a certain husband and wife, now buried at Mount Auburn Cemetery, near Boston, which have both occurred within the memory of men yet young. On the 7th January, 1816, the Rev. Charles L. Torrey expired in prison at Baltimore, having been convicted of assisting slaves to gain their freedom. When his body arrived in Boston from Baltimore, the opposition against opening Park-street Church was so strong that the funeral had to be held in Tremont Temple. Mr Pratt, still living in obscurity, wa3 then Governor of Maryland, and had refused to pardon Mr Torrey, who was dying of consumption. In the eyes of a chivalrous slaveholder iike him, Torrey's crime was beyond the exercise of magnanimity. Perhaps he did not dare to brave Southern opinion. Had Torrey been a robber and murderer, like Barabbas, there is no doubt he would have been allowed to come home and die in the presence of his wife and friends. On his monument are the words —"It is better to die in prison with the peace of God in one's breast, than to live in freedom with a polluted conscience." His talented and lovely wife—twenty-five years of age when he was taken from her and shut in prison in the name of law and justice, and twenty-eight when death gave him freedom —has lived or) in widowhood, till now we observe in a New England weekly paper the following among the deaths: —"At Med way, Mass., at the house of her father, the Eev. Dr Ide, of typhoid fever, Mrs Mary L. Torrey, aged 51." She was buried beside the remains of her husband Mount Auburn. She lived to see the ex-, tinction of that foul, haggard, and accursed system, in which every power and interest of the Government lived and moved and had its being, and in hatred of which her husband died a martyr. Her death is one of the events which strikingly remind us of the vast changes effected in our national condition and in the publio mind within a few short years.

As Miss Howard, a lady engaged at the Greenwich Theatre, was going home on Monday night the 10th January, she heard piercing screams for help proceeding from under the Catford Bridge, which crosses the river Eavensbourne. Looking over the bridge she saw two children struggling in the water, having evidently fallen in from the footpath. Plunging at once in to their rescue, she succeeded in getting them both to the side, but the. bank being ,Bft high, and nearly perpendicular, she was unablo to climb up it or make good a landing. The weight of her clothes and the children clinging to her rendered the task of keeping above water a difficult one, and all three were on ihe point of sinking when Superintendent Griffin, who was travelling on horseback, hearing their cries, galloped up and rescued them from their perilous position. The British Australasian Telegraph Co., for laying the submarine cable from Singapore to Port Darwin in Australia, through Batavia, and thence to Bourketown, in Queensland, has been organised.

The Duke of Marlborough has been ap pointed leader of the Conservative party in the House of Lords.

A correspondent at Kingscourti county Cavan, Ireland, writing to the Freeman's Journal, under date 10th January, says r —One of the most shocking murders, per* haps, ever recorded in this country, wasperpetrated very early on Friday morning,, in a small cottage on the road«ide leading between Drumconra, county JM,eath, and* Kingscourt. The victim of the assassin ia this case was a poor woman, named Margaret M'Cormack, who kept a petty huxter's shop, and the object of the murdererdoes not appear to have been plunder, but simply the gratification of some petty feel* rag of revenge, which is at present very difficult to trace to any of those causes which ordinarily lead to the perpetration of such dreadful and brutal crimes. The nearest guess that can be made at the cause of the deceased being obnoxious is the fact of being on very friendly terms with a family in the neighborhood who are, from some cause or other, very unpopular. A wholesale attempt was made some three months since to destroy this whole family by entrapping them into the using of arsenic, which was mixed up with a quantity of flour and other materials, as if intended to make a cake, and in this manner was made up in a parcel, and, as it were, accidentally dropped on the road where it was known some of the family would soon pass. The diabolical trap succeeded. The flour was picked up, taken home, and that very night converted into a cake, of which the whole family partook, and three of them, brothers, afterwards died from the effects of the poison thus insidiously administered. The house in which the deceased lived is a low thatched cottage, consisting of two rooms, in one of which another womaa, named Clarke, lodged. This woman states that vary early ia the morning, before daybreak, she was awakened by a scream proceeding from M'Oormack's room, into which she endeavored to get, but found it barred against her. She then tried to get out by the front door, but that too was fastened. She states that the murdered womaiirdid not shriek a second time, and her subsequent appearance leads to the conclusion that she was at once strangled, and the bloody deed completed by the use of an iron weight, which was found in the room stained with blood. The presumption is that the murderer entered the house by making a hole in the thatch, and after completing the dreadful act he pulled down the roof on the dead body to make it appear that it was by the falling in of it the poor woman was killed. Four men have been arrested on suspicion, and have been remanded until brought up at the inquest.

The JRev. George G-ilfillan, U.P. Minister for Dundee, made a protest from hia pulpit on the 9th January against proceedings being taken against him for saying that he did not believe all the statements of the Assembly's Shorter Oateohism. He would stand, he said, on his distinct legal rights: and he repeated that the doctrine of the eternal reprobation of non-elect infants, and the statement that the world was made in six literal days—both found in the Catechism—were each, to say the least of them, very dubious matters. The former was bad theology. The Colonist, a weekly journal devoted to the promotion of Colonial interests, and the integrity of our Colonial Empire, is announced to appear in London so soon as sufficient inducement may offer. Sir David Baxter, Bart., of Xilmaron, Scotland, has given £3OOO towards the erection and endowment of an institution for the education of young ladies at Cupar* Fife. The English telegrams contain some very sad news about the brave veteran explorer, Dr. Livingstone. The news is contradictory, one paragraph saying that letters had been received from him, and another that intelligence had been brought of his death. His staunch friend, Sir Hoderick Murchisou, whose faith on a former occasion in the dootor's safety was not shaken by long absence and sinister accounts, is proof against this new trial, and Sir .Roderick still is confident that his friend will eventually return to the hauuta of civilised men. Most sincerely we hope that his anticipations may be realised. The Cuban difficulty is still very threatening. Ledru Rollin has been permitted to return to France.

"I suppose," said a quack, while feeling the pulse of a patient who had reluctantly submitted to solicit his advice, " I suppose think me a bit of a humbug?" "Sir," gravely jrephed the sick man, " I was not aware until now that you could so readily discover a man's thoughts by feeling his pulse."