LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Manawatu Standard, Volume IV, Issue 42, 17 January 1884, Page 2

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

The Dunedin Freethinkers' organ • The Echo 1 is dead. It does not say much for the liberality of that body when they cannot support a small weekly piper wdited by their leading spirit, Mr Robert Stout. The heads of the leaders of Hi-ks Pasha's staff have been discovered attixed over the gates leading into El Obeidj- the scene of the disastrous engagement. The Taranaki Herald understands that a number of Mr Samuel's friends are urging that gentleman to" contest the seat for Egmont with Major Atkinson, and promise to actively cany ass the district oh hio be* half. The Post is informed that it is the intention of a gentleman well-known m Wellington to institute lrgvl proceedings against the promoters of a gpldtnining company at Makara for the recovery of the money which he subscribed for the purchase of shares two or three months ago. It understands that the promoters are willing to refund the amount minus expense?, but that the investor is not con* tent to accept anything less than the whole, hence his determination to sue thgse who were instrumental m floating the company, which is now ia course of being would up. The barque Deva, Captain Pirrepoint, which arrived m London frpm : the Bluff on the 2nd inst., experienced a fearful hurricane off Oape Horn on 18th September (when m lat. 68 S.), m coarse of which one of the men, a foreigner named Antonio Edwards, was washed \ orerboard. 3?ne barque herself got fearfully knocked about, every moveabla thing being swept into the sen, the c»bin skylights store m, the cabin flooded, deckhouse smashed to pieces, and nearly all the sails blown to rags. The gale lasted 48 hours, and the weather was bitterly cold, freezing salt water on the decks and coating the rigging with icicles; The barometer went down to 2815. A writer m an English paper says ; — From reliable information received by me from both Berliu and St. Petersburgh, I find that a Kuropean war is looked upon as certain — but not for eighteen months or two year?, Russia is doubling all her lines of railway, whioh converge towards the German frontier, and is hastily constructing new fortresses. Germany is constructing .new lin^s of railway of great strategic vale on her eastern frontier, and thousands of men are working day and night at completing her new fortified places. Foot-and-mouth disease has been very prevalent m England lately. A doctor states that he has traced forty -cases of ■ illness m one pßrish to drinking milk from cows suffering from the disease. In consequence of an enormous fall of reck at 'Finke'rib'erg,' near Botzen, m the Tyrol, where two perpendicular walls of iiack form a narrow ; ravine through which a rapid mountain stream forces its way, the river has been stopped, filling the ravine,, and causing a, lake to. form, which is already 20 yards deep. ' The Victorian bowlers arrive m New Zealand by . the .next steamer. Local ■' bowler* are looking'- forward; with great interest to the match v. New Zealand, m which the best players of the Middle Island take part. -. ..„..; ' The European Mail states that Sir John EJaIJ is travelling about seeing as much as possible and m excellent health.