ITEMS BY THE MAIL.

Manawatu Times, Volume II, Issue 36, 21 February 1877, Page 3

ITEMS BY THE MAIL.

\ Russian newspapers affirm an emis- . sary to have arrived at, Bokhara from Turkey, who is endeavoring to incite the Mussulmans' of Asia to a. religious war against Russia 'on the side of Turkey ■■ '\- It is rumoured that the custom of a daily celebration of the Holy Communion is about to be restored at St. Paul's Cathedral, after an intermission of some 300 years. Mr Gladstone has declined, with regret, the honor of unveiling a statue of Burns at Glasgow next month. The Earl of Limerick, Grand Master of the Mark degree of Freemasons, has been nominated for the , same office for the ensuing year. " The Committee of the Chamber of Deputies charged with the revision' of the Italian penal code has unanimously voted m favor of the abolition of capital punishment. The -Vatican has invited Catholic countries to take part m the Exhibition of Ecclesiastical Objects on the occasion of the episcopal jubilee of the Pope, which will be celebrated m the month of June, 1877. A conspiracy to carry oil the exSultan Murad V., and" take him to Odessa has been discovered. Four individuals implicated m the affair have been arrested. Two of them are Turks ; the third is a Pole, and the fourth a Greekjformerly assistant dragoman at the British embassy. "... A motion will be brought forward m the Greek Chamber of Deputies pro-

posing that a vote of thanks be presented to Mr Gladstone for. his support of the Hellenic cause. There is every probability of the motion being adopted. The receipts on account of revenue j from. April 1 to December 9 were ! £49,957,568 against £49,437,312 m the ] corresponding period of the preceding financial year. The net expenditure was £5.1,689,713 against £51,173,544. '< A Kentish paper announces the death of the " Swanley Fat Boy, Richard Beenham." He was twelve years and four months old, stood five feet m height, weighed 25 stone (141bs to the stone), and measured 69 inches round the waist. A private of the 87th Royal Irish Fusiliers, named William Stringer, has been attacked by a man named Kenny m Galway, and beaten about the head until he died. The remains were then thrown into the canal by Keniiy and a woman. Another woman who had witnessed the occurence gave information, and both were arrested. The body of the deceased has not been recovered, and it is conjectured that it has been washed out to sea. Ellen Branning, sixty years old, has been brutally murdered by her illegitimate son, John Ervin, m her house at Ballyvalley, near Dromore, county Down. He killed her with blows of his fist and by leaping on her chest. She died almost instantaneously. The police found the murderer standing naked over the body, evidently labouring under a paroxysm of temporary insanity. He was secured with difficulty. A verdict of " wilful murder " was returned against him at the inquest. After many more or less unsuccessful attempts the " Emperor's Bell " m the cathedral of Cologne, the monster bell cast out of French cannon, has at last been made to give forth a clear sound. The previous failures appear to have been m part attributable to the insufficient weight of the clappers used, though the largest weighed 15 cwt. Now a huge clapper, weighing over a ton, has been put up, being suspended by leather straps, and the result is that the sound evoked is not only deep and clear, but the two strokes on either side are also equal m strength. Still one or two minor faults remain to be remedied. M. Vambery, writing from BudaPesth to a contemporary, points out that the prophecies as to the good qualities of Staltan Abdul-Hamid, which were made upon his accession to the throne, are rapidly approaching their fulfilment " This young monarch has," he says, "begun by imitating the noble type of former Mussulman rulers m many regards. He is economical m his own household as well as m matters of State. He dismissed lately 100 of his .servants of the palace, advising them to be enrolled m the army, and by diminishing his civil list to one-third of the former amount he compelled otherwise greedy dignitaries to follow his example. Formerly Sultans would have lost the sympathy of their people by such measures, but Abdul Hamid is, nevertheless, the favourite of the Turks. He shuns etiquette, and by being accessible to everybody — nay, by visiting even private soldiers m the sentry houses— he has acquired an astonishing amount of popularity if we regard the short period of his reign. Apart from these princely virtues, so rare m the modern East, he distinguishes himself by truly Liberal, nay, Democratic tendencies. Is it not astonishing, asks MV 'Vambery to hear that he lately chose for governor to his children Ati Sauvi Effendi, who must be known, m certain classes of London society as the editor of the Turkish paper called, "Mukhbir" (the correspondent), which he publishedin London, where he lived m exile m consequence of the sharp language he used against the misrule of the Sultan Abdul Aziz ? Ali Sauvi delivered lately a discourse m the secret hall of Aya Sophia, mixing with the religious exhortations an exposition of the present political state of Turkey, and finished by showing the necessity of radical changes m the true liberal spirit of the old democratic institutions of the Islam — institutions which must extend without any deference of creed and race over the whole population. I may add to this that public affairs are freely discussed m the Turkish daily press m a spirit which would do honour to any European country." An artillery volunteer, named French, has been fined 30s by the Brighton magistrates for failing to make himself an efficient member of the corps by [ attending the requisite number of drills. A post-office clerk, who has been m the Government employ twenty-two years, and was entitled to a pension, has been convicted at Exeter of letterstealing, and sentenced to five years' penal servitude." In England the leading Chambers of Commerce .have memorialised the Government m favor of the establishment of a Colonial and Indian Museum on the Embankment site, as proposed by Dr Forbes Watson.