HOME AND FOREIGN.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 19, Issue 1478, 12 November 1872, Page 2

HOME AND FOREIGN.

The death is announced at Chicago* of Mr Tollefscn, a Norwegian, " probably the tallest man on record of the present day." He was 7 feet 9inches in height, and weighed 375 lbs.. He refused all offers from speculating•; showmen, proposing that h« should exhibit himself. He was "in the saloon.-, business."

It is stated that the Pope is about totake up his residence at Pat*, where a» chateau has been placed at his disposal, by the French Government. The steamer Metis, of the New York and Providence line, came into collision with a schooner on the night of August 30, during a storm, and sank. Sixty, persons were drowned..

His Holiness Pius IX has an elder brother, who has just entered on his 90th year, and whose health is as. robust as his mind is clear. Count Gaetan Mastai Ferrctti is still activeenough to come and go in the Vatican without any assistance. pThe foregoingparagraph is copied from the EuropeanAlail, Sept. 6. A telegram from dated Sept. 28, announces that " the eldest brother of the Pope is dead."] Affairs in Turkey, (says the European Mail) both civil and military,, seem to be drifting into a more progressive groove.

As a consequence of the strike or lamplighters in Edinburgh, the lamp* of the city were recently allowed to, burn all day. The London costerra-ongers are starving in consequence of the failure of the fruit crop.

A Birmingham firm has contracted! to furnish the Prussian Government with 150,000 rifles of an improved pattern.

The potato crop is a partial failure throughout Great Britain.

In Ghent the Tir-National has beenopened with great display and rejoicing; The King of the Belgians and theCount of Flanders arrived from BrusFelj3 in the morning, and paraded through the gaily decorated streets. The shooting was succeeded by a banquet in the Casino, where the Burgomaster entertained twelve hundred guests. In the evening the city was. illuminated.

M. Thiers returns rather abruptly to. Paris, and will probably have to make* a prolonged stay there. He has ordered; vigorous measures to be- taken on the Spanish frontier for intercepting any Carlist reinforcements which General Cathelineau may be muster ingon French territory.

M. Edmond About has had another adventure with the Prussians—this timeat Saverue, where ho has been, ai rested suddenly,, on account, it is stud—impto* bably— of his attacks on the Prussians in his last work, which is so popular in France. The French Foreign Office is h\ movement to obtain his i>elease..

Prince Bismarck's right-hand man in* the Chancellories, Herr von Thile, has resigned his Secretary ship of the Foreign Department. Personal differences with the Chancellor are mentioned among the causes of his retirement.

Among the rumors which are being, diligently floated as to the imperial proceedings in Berlin, the Eastern question begins to take a prominent place. In one quarter it is alleged that Russia flatly stipulated for the abrogation of the Treaty of Paris as the price of an alliance with Germany and Austria.. In another the story runs that Prince Bismarck held out the bait of supporting Russian supremacy on the Danube in order to bring the Czar to a good understanding with the Emperor Francis Joseph. King Amadous, of Spain, in opening the Cortes, expressed a hope that the Pope would soon become convinced of the? veneration and respect entertained for his Spiritual Power. In the programme of the session he specified measures for the punishment of the Carlist insurgents, the reorganization of the Cuban Government, the resumption of payment to bondholders, the. susbstitur tion of universal military service forconscription, and a re-equipment of the army. Reinforcements are to be despatched to Culia to hasten the suppression, of the insurrection,

A milder edition of the Chelsea tragedy has been enacted within fifty yards of the scene of the Hoxton murder. The parties are a young man named Augustus Elliott, belonging to Grarcsend, and a girl, Ellen Moore, ■whom he had been visiting for a period of four years. On September 16, on hearing a pistol-shot in the house where they were, the neighbors rushed in and found the girl lying on the floor bleeding from the face, and the man on the bed also wounded. Elliott had, according to the girl's statement, shot her and then himself. From the Ist of October India is to eh are with the British Colonies the benefits of money order communication with the United Kingdom.