ENGLISH MAIL NEWS.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume VI, Issue 318, 2 April 1875, Page 3

ENGLISH MAIL NEWS.

Machines for tunnelling similar to those used at Mount Cenis have been prepared to commence the Channel, tunnel. An English company has been formed under the-prcsidency oLLord Richard Grosvenor, and the French company will co-operate. The tunnel will extend from St. Margarets Bay, on the east side of Dover and west of Calais, in France. The only fear is meeting hard rock in the centre instead of soft chalk anticipated.

The retirement of .Mr. Gladstone has been a fearful blow, to the Liberal party, which may almost be said to' have ceased to exist,-and it is now split into many factions.'

The ' World ' has been having a . little chaff at Mr. Vogel in a political - article apropos of the leadership of the Conservative and Liberal parties in -England It alludes to the joke put forward about a politician who, having carried all before him in the Colonies, had come" to England in search of new fields of victory and was yet in a• state of uncertainty "whether-to fill the vacancy caused by the retirement 'of Mr. Gladstone or supersede Mr. Disraeli. , . cz ~""~

It is reported -that categorical instructions have been forwarded to the Catholic priests to refuse absolution of Easter- confessions to anyone withholding his belief from the Vatican decrees and infallibility of the Pope. ' - The Emperor of China died of smallpox. A great festival was to beheld-that-day m honor of the~Goddess ~of Small•pox. ' '. - _ ~-_

A German paper says that Bismarck has concluded- to remain in office on .the personal appeal of the Emperor. Prince Hohenlohe is expected to partially relieve him.

The German Government contemplate the establishment of an" extensive military camp on the left "bank of the Rhine, to be the centre of spring manoeuvres. ~ r „ There is great'corrimercial depression in New York and many failures have .occurred.

A match manufactory at Gotenburg, Sweden, crowded with working people, took fire, and-the flames spread with such-ra-pidity that the employes on the upper floors were unable to escape. -Fifty-one were killed by burning or by jumping from the windows.'

- By a firelSe Port au Prince; two-thirds of the city was destroyed, six or seven 'hundred- families, and-the damage- done -is jestimated at two millions of dollars. It originated through the explosion of a barrel of kerosene.

The cost of the British Arctic Expedi - tion is estimated at £98,000, including the price\of the vessel, and-three years' stores. Experienced navigators" consider the present season unusually favorable. It is thought the German expedition now bein<* organised at Bremen will receive Government aid.

ftlr. Gladstone has published another pamphlet entitled " Vaticanism,""in reply to Dr. Newman and Archbishop Manning, in which lie says Dr. Newman's secession was the greatest loss to r the English Church since Lesley's. iHe maintains his original assertion, and points to the declaration lepudiating the doctrines of papal infallibility and temporal power, by mean's of which the jEhgjish and jlrish Catholics obtained full civil liberty, i . i Tiieie seems to|be somejdoubt' 'whether ICelly, "thefclojr <lancei>sho| in fean Francirco, was Kmy cpniieGted|vith?the £ahforjnian troupe, f - I .\ r - f ""^ There have l9e<in great religious -"rcvnal proceedings, at Sa\i: Fi ancisco, led-by Jjre ings were,, thougfi 4hi weatner was unfavoi able * -> In Asia Minor there is cohtiriued distress among the famine-stiicken people The New Zealand bhipping Company despatched the ship Ciceio from Plymouth to Canterbury on the Ist of Febru lry with seven saloon passengers and 196 adult emigiants ; and the ship IVenniiiirton fmm Plymouth to Otago nn the 3id, with 116 adult Government emigunts Ktsi.'

Tiie BiiiVii Government has oilLitilly reo gnit-ed Alfonso Kuiy ./, Sji.iin A telegram receiver! in Lordon - h<-w. Sirgapore reports that an out K rcik oc/urred artio lgst the Chinese piisuneia in lh.it place, ttliuh was iiwt sapjire.-sea bci<.-'6 sixty-sstwn weie kibed and injure!, including sixteen wanders of the naol;