ENGISH CLIPPINGS.

Kumara Times, Issue 911, 1 September 1879, Page 4

ENGISH CLIPPINGS.

RAILWAY ACCIDENTS IN THE FIRST quarter up 1879, > A Parliamentary paper haa been issued, giving a summary of railway accidents reported to the Board of Trade during the first three months of the present year shows that during that period 230 persons were killed and 1195 injured on railways. Eight collisions between passenger trains or parts of passenger trains, were reported, by which 18 passengers and one servant were injured; 23 collisions between passenger trains and goods or mineral trains, engines, &c., by which 69 passengers and 13 servants were injured ; 10 collisions between goods trains or parts of goods trains by which 12 servants were injured; 22 cases of passenger trains or parts of passenger trains leaving the rails, by which 4 passengers were injured ; 2 cases of trains running into stations or sidings at too high a speed, by which 5 passengers were injured ; 327 failures of tyres, 1 servant being injured ; 98 failures of axles, 2 passengers being injured ; and 1187 broken rails, one servant being injured. In addition 105 servants of companies or contractors were reported to have been killed and 423 injured by trains or vehicles in motions. By other accidents than train accidents proper 114 persons were killed and 155 injured, 20 of the killed and 114 of the injured being passengers. Eleven persons were killed and 481 injured by accidents upon railway premises not connected with trains. A MELANCHOLY STORY. The Eastern Province Herald, of Port Elizabeth, Cape of Good Hope, has the following :—A warrant has been issued by the Resident Magistrate of Swellendam for the apprehension of Robert Gray, D.D., late secretary and treasurer of the Divisional Council of Swellendam, on a charge of theft by means of embezzlement of rates collected by him for that Council. This is another instance of a life wasted by dissipation. Robert Gray was a cultured man, and possessed of considerable abilities. He was also, in younger days, a great athlete, and was of the order of “ sporting parsons. ” He came to Natal several years ago as Dean for Bishop Colenso, and for some time was respected and popular. He could preach a fine sermon, and possessed a highly accomplished wife, who was a gifted vocalist, and a valued assistant at all the fashionable concerts. People used to rush to the Cathedral on days of high festival, not only to hear the Bishop or the Dean preach, but also to hear Mrs Gray sing. By-and-by strange stories began to leak out, and eventually it became known that the Dean was not all that he should be. He left Natal suddenly, and was understood to have gone up country. Later on he was heard of in the Cape Colony, and now he is an outlaw, with a grave charge against him. Russia’s costs in the late war. According to the latest published official returns, quoted by a German military paper, the total expense incurred by Russia, from the 13th of September, 1876, to the 13th January, 1879, in prosecuting the late war against Turkey, amounted to 302,000,000 roubles. Of this sum 74,000,000 roubles were spent for general, 87,000,000 roubles for engineer purposes. The average monthly war expenditure consequently amounted to 32,200,000 roubles ; and the average daily expenditure to 1,037,000 roubles. In reality, however, the monthly expenditure varied greatly at different periods of the war, falling as low as 4,388,000 roubles in March, 1877, and rising, on the other hand, to 83,000,000 roubles in December of the same year. The extraordinary high expenditure during the last-named month was caused partly by the provision of three months’ supplies in anticipation of a winter campaign, partly by the construction of the Bender-Galatz military railway, and partly by the mobilisation of fresh bodies of troops. As soon as a portion of the Russian field army returned home the expenses naturally began to diminish rapidly, amounting in November, 1878, to 9,000,000, and in December, 1878, to 5,000,000 roubles only. A rouble is equal to 3s 2d English money. A COUNTY COURT JUDGE, It is stated in a provincial contemporary (says the Echo) that the attention of the Lord Chancellor is shortly to be called to the peculiar style in which Mr Lefroy, a County Court Judf?e, conducts the business of bis Court at Yeovil, and elsewhere. Several complaints have been lately made, and that in more than one local newspaper, that Mr Lefroy not unfrequently commits himself to an opinion on a case before hearing a word of the defence. Recently he has gone a step further, and at Yeovil the other day Mr Lefroy oave an opinion adverse to the defendant before he had heard a word of evidence, and when he had only heard the opening speech of the plaintiff’s solicitor. The case arose out of a collision between two vehicles, the' driver of each contending that the other was in fault. The plaintiff’s solicitor having stated his case, the judge observed that he did not see that there could be a shadow of defence. The defendant’s solicitor naturally objected to this off-hand mode of doing business. Whereon the judge retorted that it was absurd for a man to defend himself when he had, m broad daylight, run the shaft of his cart into another horse. It did not strike the learned gentlemen that possibly the other horse ran against the shaft which, indeed was the contention of the defendant, supported by five witnesses. Of course, when a judge makes up his mind as to the merits of the case from the opening speech of the plaintiff’s counsel there is an end of the matter ; but we cannot he surprised that the defendant’s solicitor declared that in future he would have a jury in any case in which he was

eiigage.l when the matter in dispute was over L 5 in value. PROFESSIONAL AGITATORS AMONG THE AMERICAN WORKING CLASSES. According to the Philadelphia correspondent of the Times, the success of Dennis Kearney in forcing a new constitution on semi-Socialist principles on the people of California has led to some excitement in States east of Mississippi. The Socialists of Chicago, the great majority of whom are Germans, want to make Kearney's success the signal for a general labor strike; but the professional agitators, who, as in other countries, derive handsome incomes from fostering trade disputes, have not made much impression on the great body of the laboring classes. We are told that there never has been a time when there was more contentment among the American working classes or a better understanding between the employers and the employed. The Communists are warned that if they attempt to make any serious trouble they will be suppressed sooner or later, at whatever cost that may be necessary. The hint may not be taken by the frequenters of the beer gardens of Chicago and New lork, but the statement nevertheless, wo believe, accurately represents the determination of the vast majority of the working men of America. The labor question in the South has caused a large number of planters to consider the advisableness of importing Chinese laborers. The treatment of the negroes in the South is fast becoming a political question between the two great parties in the Union. Large sums are being subscribed in the Northern States to aid the negroes in emigrating to Kansas, and it is alleged that the planters are "patrolling the rivers" at the various steamboat landings, threatening the negroes with death if they attempt to leave and the boat companies with loss of business if they take them away The whole question has relation to the next presidential election.