RUSSIA AND ENGLAND.

Manawatu Standard, Volume X, Issue 13, 13 June 1885, Page 2

RUSSIA AND ENGLAND.

» — A RUSSIAN " SCARE " IN WEST AUSTRALIA. The captain and crew of the H.M.S. Diamond, which left Adelaide a week or so ago with sealed orden, have succeded m ■ affording an immense amount of harmless amusement m the placid Western Australia. The Diamond arrived at King George's Sound m full expectation that war had by that tiraebeeen declared against Russia, and their suspicion! were aroused by observing that the lights m tha lighthouse were burning unusually low. The English warship extinguished her lamps, and six boats' crews, armed to the teeth, were lowered, and Bwept through the waters with muffled oars towards the supposed scene of the Russian surprise. The boats completely surrounded the lighthouse ; and while the party advanced silently to the landingplace, the other crews remained on the watch ready to storm the place as soon as the signal was given. The gallant tars of the Diamond who had landed on the rocks perceived, m the dim twilight, an old man seated at the lighthouse door quietly smoking his evening pipe. Anxious to capture him without giving an alarm to the supposed Russian guard inside the building, the marines crept forward towards him on their hands and knees, and seized, gagged, and carried him to the boat. Their aged prisoner was interrogated by two of the officers m English, but he merely stared around upo;) his armed oaptors with every appearance of terror m his face, and answered never a word. The officers then tried him m French, next with the soft (?) tongue of Germany, and as a last desperate resource addressed him m the liquid (?) accents of Russia. Although they were ineffectual m eliciting a reply, the triglot torture resulted m sending the unfortunate old man into a series ot alarming fits, so that it was teared he would expire m the armg of the gallant officer commanding the boats, who had experimented upon him with Russian. When at length the ship's surgeon had brought him to, and his companion had also been marched out of the lighthouse,^ it was discovered that the aged lightkeeper was a thoroughly loyal subject of the Queen, but stone deaf. He had reciprocated the Diamond's mistake by imagining that he had been captured by the Russians I