ENGLISH AND FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE.

Kumara Times, Issue 1513, 3 August 1881, Page 2

ENGLISH AND FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE.

[prom the HOME HeWS.J The Queen has signified to General Roberts her wish that he should sib to Mr Frank Holl, A.R.A., for a portrait for her own possession. After the Derby there is always a report of a fabulous sum having been given to the winning jockey, and the amount dwindles down rapidly till it comes to a common-sense figure. This year it is said that Archer was offered £SOOO to a penny to win the Derby for them. Mr Pierre Lorillavd, the owner of Iroquois, the winner of the Derby, is engaged in business as one of the leading tobacco merchants and cigar manufacturers in the States, and at Newport (Pihode Island), the Brighton of New York, where he wiles away the hot spell in one of the costliest “ cottages ’’ of that unapproachably costliest resort of fashionable Americans. Mr Lorrillard is credited by his compatriots in the secret of his turf affairs with winning £200,000 on the recent Derby. On account of the Princess of Wales riding on the opposite side of her horse to that which ladies usnally do, there have been of late several imitators of the fashion seen in London. A young couple, named Edward W. Ackle and Catharine Johnson, aged 23, both of whom were deaf and dumb, have been married at St. Bartholomew-the-Great, West Smitbfield, Loudon. The bride and bridegroom came provided with prayer books, and followed the service intelligently throughout. Whenever the response of the paities was required each one spelt it with the bauds, thus certifying their understanding the questions put to them by their clergyman. They signed the betrothal and engagement entered into in the same manner. The best man was able to act as interpreter. After the service the parties signed the register in the usual way. 'lhe St. Gothard Tunnel—chiefly due to German enterprise—is now completed, and tlueatens to diminish the large share that Prance has had in the international communication and traffic of the countries lying north and south of the Alps. International traffic through Prance has been injured variously by centralisation at the

commencement of the railway era to 1 wards Paris; by the German war, which had the effect of diverting the channel of English traffic that rati through Prance to Antwerp and Os ten dr At present, it appears cheaper to Forward goods from the north of France) and from England and Belgium through the Mont Cenis Tunnel. It is therefore now proposed to pierce the Alps at either the Simplon or Mont Bl&uc, to establish a direct route from Calais to Marseilles, to improve harbor arrangements, and diminish the fiscal obstacles of trade generally, and oblige the railway companies to guarantee facilities of transport that shall not be behind those of England, Belgium, or even Germany. The New World has again conquered the Old, and the victory of Iroquois over a good field at Epsom has no\V been followed by success of another American horse— the race for the Grand Prix last Sunday. Iroquois, like all New Jersey horses, is a spare, wiry, sinewy, plucky animal; his rival, Fox hall, is a large-boned 'horse, with stupendous powers of endurance, betokening the good effects of his “raising” in the wilds of Kentucky. Iro l quois was purchased by Mr Lorillard from his breeder, Mr. Welch, of Erdeil* heirn Stud Farm, Philadelphia, and Foxhall was picked up at an auction sale for the trifling sum of £l3O. Both horses cost their owners little, and one may expect that the American successes will be productive of useful results to the American turf, which can hardly be said to be more than in its infancy.