SAN FRANCISCO MAIL NEWS.

Kumara Times, Issue 2610, 17 January 1885, Page 2

SAN FRANCISCO MAIL NEWS.

The Pacific Mail steamship Zealandia arrived at Auckland from San Francisco at half-past nine o’clock on Wednesday night, four days behind her due date. But she was detained four days at San Francisco owing to the non-arrival in time of the mails from England, which were delayed by a severe storm. The same cause broke down the wires, and interrupted telegraphic communication; and an eleven days’ south-east storm had prevailed in California up to the time of the steamer’s sailing, doing much damage. The Zealandia left San Fraacisco at 4.20 p.m., on December 24. The passage was uneventful. Passengers for New Zealand—Miss Poulshoot, Mis Batman, Mrs and Miss Gunell and two children, Mr and Mrs Martell, Mr and Mrs Bagley, Rev. W. Swain, Hon. Mr Trefusis, Messrs Capp, Adams, Greenwood, M'Murragh, Middleton (2), R. S. Willon, Devon, Guthrie, Deans, Karr, Williams and Dr. Youth. For Sydney 53. On her passage from Auckland the Zealandia, due in San Francisco on November 29, was delayed till the morning of December 6, by damage of a piston of the high pressure engine on the 21st ult,, just before reaching Honolulu. By working the low pressure engines and maintaining a mean speed of 10| miles an hour, the steamer reached the port of San Francisco in seven days and eighteen hours from the islands. The following is a summary of the news, dated San Francisco, December 24 : The contracts with the Zealandia and Australia, of the Pacific Line to the colonies and the steamers Arabic and Ocean of the Occidental Line expire next June, and it is not expected they will be renewed. Despatches of the 14th December state that great agitation is coming swiftly to the front in England among farmers. Agriculturalists are making strong demands for a general reduction of farm rents. The Cobden Club recognises the danger of agitation and is working hard to meet it. Earl Chorley, Under Secretary of War, addressed an audience at Plymouth on December 14. He said it would be necessary iu 1885 to renew the Coercion Act in Ireland, and in regard to Egypt, that England could never allow any other European Power to occupy a prominent position in that country. Plymouth Church is boycotting the Rev. Mr Beecher, for hie democracy. The St. James’s Gazette of the 17th says the Powers now assembled at Berlin have obviously a stake iu the proposed Virginia Canal, and are likely to co-operate with England to oppose the project. In that case they could form a strong auxiliary force opposing America, which would make it difficult for that country to carry out the project. After the fire in tho parcel office of the Windsor Railway Station was extinguished on December 21, a brass clock, the wheels of American manufacture, and a bottle containing suspicious material for explosives, were found among the ruins. The room adjoined the covered way over which the Queen passed on the Wednesday preceding, when she started for Osborne. The managers of the Great Western Railway assert it was purely accidental, and not due to any foreign agent. They also say the ill-smelling liquid in the bottle was simply horse medicine. The crofters publicly announced that on December 7, that they will not pay rent till the amount is reduced, declaring they are unable to pay the sum demanded through poverty, resulting from excessive rents they have heretofore baen forced to pay. On the 9th the officers who attempted to serve the writs were driven off. Several fast steamers were loading in London and Liverpool on December 6, ostensibly tor China, but really with hardly a disguised intention of defying the present blockage of Formosa by the French fleet. The French Government is apprised. It was reported on December 7, that small-pox was on the increase in London. The hospitals were crowded with patients. In Leicester there was a serious outbreak, caused by members cf an anti-vaccination society defying the law which makes vaccination compulsory. According to a despatch from London dated December 22, Lady Archibald Campbell proposes to embrace the stage as a profession.