CLIPPINGS PROM THE HOME NEWS.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XI, Issue 180, 21 July 1876, Page 4

CLIPPINGS PROM THE HOME NEWS.

The itinerary of her Majesty's ship Serapis, which will be paid off in a few days, is well worth recording. She has kept her time as if she were a chronometer from the beginning to the end of her cruise, and has been a most agreeable surprise to those who remember the accounts of her early performance. Here ara her runs : — From Portsmouth to Malta, calling in (as an incident) on her way to Plymouth, 2245 miles ; Malta to Brindisi, 373 miles ; Brindisi to Athens, 471 miles j Athens to Port Said, 594 miles ; Canal, 88 miles ; Suez to Aden, 1307 miles ; Aden to Bombay, 1649 miles ; Bombay to Goa, 228 miles ; Goa to Bey pore, 305 miles ; Beypore to Colombo, 394 miles; Colombo to Tuticorin, 126 miles ; Tuticorin to Trincomalee, 498 miles ; Trincomalee to Madras, 290 miles ; Madras to Calcutta, 744 miles ; Calcutta to Bombay, 2128 miles ; Bombay to Aden, 1847 miles ; Adeu to Suez, 1304 miles ; Canal, 88 miles ; Port Said to Alexandria, 148 miles ; Alexandria to Malta, 863 miles ; Malta to Gibraltar, 984 miles ; Gibraltar to Lisbon, 249 miles ; Lisbon to Portsmouth, 850 miles. Grand total, 17,452 miles. She travelled 18,000 knots through the ' water in 1780 hours, burnt in doing so 5415 tons of coal, aod made 4,698,753 revolutions of her screw, her speed varying according to circumstances. An atrocious attempt to sink an ironclad has just been discovered. Tbe Cale lonia, ly'n» at Devonport, is being temporarily used as a naval trainingship, and 500 boys are berthed on board of her. Rumors have been quite current that a plot to sink her had been discovered, and that although every effort bad been made to conceal it, the news bas been corroborated. The leave of tbe boys had been stopped owing to the misconduct of some among them, and muoh discontent prevailed in consequence. Early yesterday morning, water was found to be coming into the ship rapidly, and signals for assistance were made by flashing lights. Several feet of water were found to be in the hold. The pumps were set to work vigorously, aud gained ou the inflow. It waa then discovered that a valve had been opened under conditions wbicb made it impossible that it could have been accidental. This was stopped, and the ship was pumped dry, A court of inquiry is to be held. On her Majesty's recent visit to the London Hospital, she spoke to a boy, eight years of age, who had hia leg broken by having been run over. As soon as he went home to Sp : ta!fields, the child wrote of his own accord— and without his father's or mother's knowledge — a letter to the Queen. He went and bought a stamp and posted the letter. It bore no other address than the words "Lady Queen Victoria." It reached the Queen's hand and eye, and she discerned tbat it w&s simple and genuine in its child-like gratitude, and on due inquiry it has been found that it was the boy's own simple act. Her Majesty has sent a kind gift of £3, through her chaplain, the Rev. J. T. Rowsell. The parents have asked Mr Rowsell to buy a Bible with some of the money to represent the gift. At Nuneaton the other day fourteen persons were drinking in the parlor of the White Horse Inn, when the entire floor of the room in which the people were sitting gave way, precipitating the whole of the company, together with tables, jugs, and glasses, into the cellar below, a distance of about eight feet. No one was injured. On the Blh May the old colors of the 97th Regiment were handed over to the Ddan and Chapter of St. Paul's, to be placed in the dihedral over the monument erected there to the memory of tbe officers and men who fell in the Crimea. A correspondent writes : Cl The Hon j Hugh Courtenßy, to whom you have twice alluded, has made the tour dv monde as an impostor. He is well kuown and very much wauted in Calcutta. He bad a merry little knack of losing money at playing cards in that •city, and paying (say) £20, by giving a cheque for £50, and pocketing the difference : sequel, cheque dishonored. He even fooled Lord Northbrook, dining at Government House, and escorting a lady of title on a voyage to England some two years ago, aa far as Galle. There he got a hint that his true character had leaked out, and he cleverly shaped a course to Austra'ia. Tbe money with which he paid his passage to Calcutta he borrowed, I think, of a guileless gentleman of the Woods and Forests Department. He was profuse in his thanks to him, ani promised him, by Gad, a day's ratting on his estates in England as soon as he caught him there." The ships under the command of Sir James Drummond in the Mediterranean will, by the end of the month consist of tbe ironclads Hercules, 14, Captain Bowden-Smitu (flag-ship); the Devastation, 4, Captain B. W. Richards; the Sultan, 12, Captain tbe Duke of Edinburgh; the Swifteure, 14, Captain J. K. E. Baird; {he Invincible, 14, Captain C. T. Jago; the Monurch, 7, Captain Michael Culme Seymour; the Triumph, 14, Captain G. H. Parkin (flag-ship of Rear- Admiral Rice, seeonJ ia command); the Pallas, 8, Captain H. E. Beamish, and the Research, 4, Captaiu H. E. G. Edrle. In addition to these powerful ironclads, the unarmored iron frigate Raleigh, 22, Captain George Tryou, C,8., will shortly join the Mediterranean fleet, bringing the force

up to 113 guns of the heaviest calibre afloat, and considerably over 4,500 men. This does not include the large uumbpr of smaller wooden vessels in the Mediterranean, which are manned by about 700 men, making the total number of officers, searaeD, and marines on lhe station by the end of the present month upwards of 5,000. Tho following act of courageous self-control and presence of mind may be compared with advantage to the honors won by deeds of daring on the field of battle. Two workmen were engaged fixing a lightning-conductor on the summit of a steeple at Ville-sur-Ourthe, in Belgium. To accomplish this somewhat difficult and delicate task it was necessary that one of tbe workmen should stand on the shoulders of his companion. While in this position a violent gust of wind made the topmost man spill some molten lead, which fell sn the hand and forearm of his friend. Notwithstanding the sudden intensity of the pain thus inflicted, the victim of this accident had the courage to remain motionless while the lead burnt its way into his flesh. He knew that the slightest movement might suffice to precipitate his companion from a height of 70 feet into the street below, and he bravely endured the pain rather than imperil the life of his fellow-worker. A telegram through the Press Association states that, in answer to a request for Her Majesty's patronage for a bazaar in aid of a Wesleyan chapel at Kensworth, near Dunstable, the following letter was received by the applicant from Sir T. M. Biddulph. The application had been addressed to the " Empress Victoria ":— " Buckingham Palace, May 17, 1876.— Sir T. M. Biddulph iB desired to acknowledge Mr — — — 's letter addressed to the Empress Victoria, and to aay that the title is not applicable to the Queen. The Queen is unable to subscribe to purely local objects."' Lieutenant C. J. Reddie, of the Raleigh, was sentenced by a courtmartial to lose one year's seniority, and to be dismissed his ship, for going to sleep when officer of the watch in Bombay Harbor, on March 12, whilst waiting for the embarkation of she Prince of Wales. The same Court also sentenced Sub-lieutenant E. H. Mossom, of the Jumna, to lose three years' seniority for smuggling liquor on board at Malta, and delaying his cure as an invalid by taking a larger quantity of spirits than ordered. Last we-k a large shoal of whales visited Kirkwall Bay, and immediately a great many boats were manned, with a view to capturing them. In Firth Bay a number of harpoons were fired, and in this way several of the whales were caught. Two boats were upset during the chase, but the crews were rescued. One maa was seriously hurt by the firing of a harpoon. Altogether sixty whales were driven ashore. A large fire has just been raging at Quebec, which has ravaged an entire suburb, that of St. Louis. Thousands of persons are homeless, and the damage done is estimated at a million of dollars. It is supposed that the fire was caused by some children playing with matches. A high wind was blowing, and the houses were of wood. The Archbishop of York, speaking at Sheffield recently on the occasion of laying the foundation-stone of a new church, said that in 1800 there were four churches in that town to a population of 30,000; now there were thirty churches to a population of 270,000. Other wine churches were to be erected, however, at a total cost of £50,000. Another speaker announced that a lady was willing to give £10,000 or even more for the restoration of the parish church.