ITEMS BY THE SUEZ MAIL.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5038, 17 May 1877, Page 3

ITEMS BY THE SUEZ MAIL.

At the University fete at St. Petersburg the Minister of Public Instruction was loudly hi3sed.

A meeting of Russian students was closed on account of the Socialistic harangues delivered by the speakers. Experiments made with the Thorneycroft torpedo boat, off Cherbourg, by the French Government, resulted in her destroying two vessel:-) instantaneously. She steams nineteen knots an hour, and speedily came up with her chases, which were towed by tug-boats. The electric light apparatus was tested on board the Alexandra late at night prior to her departure for the Mediterranean. Within a radius of several miles every object afloat and ashore was rendered distinctly visible. At a point three miles distant from the ship a newspaper was e-isily read when the ray of light was turned in that direction. Mrs. Julia Moses, matron of the Jewish Home, Norwood, and her (laughter, have been acquitted on a charge of stealing a 1000-franc note from Mrs. Charlotte Itamsden, known in connection with the Egyptian mystery, who was staying at the Home last November. Proceedings for perjury are going on against Mrs. Kamsden arid others. Two men, named Warren and Longlands, have been sentenced respectively to six and nine months' hard labor, for a fraud at the Wolverhampton races last August. A mare that had been run as a three-year-old was clipped and disguised, and ran subsequently as a two-year-old. The Jockey Club instituted proceedings. When a vote of £46,500 was proposed for grants in aid to the colonies of Sierra Leone, St. Helena, and the Gambia, Mr. Childers and several others objected to the principle of England making up the deficiencies of bankrupt colonies, and the vote was temporarily withdrawn. Mr. Tjourke, Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, stated, in reply to Mr. Lewis, on the Ist March, that the Foreign Office had received statements similar to some published in the /'all Mali Guzctle of religions persecution in Xlussia, and of troops being employed to enforce obedience to pastors thrust upon the peasantry by the Government. Letters from Mr. Stanley, dated Ujiji, Aug. 7 to 13, were received in London on the 14th March. He has made a complete survey of Lake Tanjanyika, and describes the general purport of his discoveries about the Nyanzas. The feeding lake he has called Alexandra, in honor of the Princes.-) of Wales. His letter of the 13th August reports an outbreak of fever and small-pox at Ujiji, which obliged him to depart. Stanley and his English attendant, Frank Pocock, had both suffered from illness, but were much better. In France, as well as in England, some horrible murders have lately been chronicled. At Berkhamstead a man named East murdered his two young children, and tiien gave himself up to the police, saying that he had done it because he could not support them. The Central Criminal Court at London has been occupied for several days with the trial of eleven prisoners, known as the Ling firm, for a number of frauds. Three were acquitted, and the other eight fpund guilty. A man named Morris Cohen, who was apparently carrying on a lucrative business, was the principal receiver, and was sentenced to ten years' penal servitude. A solicitor named Joseph John Alley Jones has been condemned to five years' penal servitude for obtaining £2486 from a lady with intent to defraud. CL'INKSE IMMIGRATION TO CALIKOItNIA. The Committee of Congress sent to California last autumn, to investigate the Chinese immigration question, made their report at the end of February, which is thus summarised by the Philadelphia correspondent of The Timcx on March 2;—"They say the Pacific coast has been a great gainer by Chinese labor, and owes its rapid development to this cause. While the employers of Chinese labor speak highly

of its advantages in continuing to develop that section, they are in some cases fearful of its future moral effects. The teachers of religion favored Chinese immigration as affording an opportunity of Christianising them. The laboring classes desired to restriot it because it threw the whites out of employment. Opposition to the Chinese was also found among the professional classes, merchants, and divines, who said the apparent prosperity derived from the Chinese population was deceptive, ruinous to the laboring class, promotive of caste, unwholesome, and dangerous to free institutions. The average number of Chinese residing in San Francisco is estimated at 35,000, living in filthy, unwholesome dwellings, and praising vices especially affecting the yoMg. They are described as monopolising the employments of white persons, throwing many out of work, and driving white women to dubious courses of life. Their presence also has a tendency to degrade working people to a servile class. This causes bitter feeling, produces laws of doubtful propriety, and also results in the abuse of individual Chinamen. The better classes have been deprecating violence, and, in the hope that Congress would deal with the subject, have been able to repress oppression. The safety of Republican institutions forbids the Chinese exercising the franchise ; yet that is their only adequate protection. Such an element as the Chinese would be objectionable in the community, and especially so when exercising political power ; and the only way to reconcile these conflicting considerations is to discourage a large influx of strangers to whom the ballot cannot be confided. The testimony taken shows that the Pacific coast must either become American or MongolUn, for the two races cannot live together, and the Mongolian supply is apparently inexhaustible. If they are permitted, the Chinese must gain possession of the Pacific States. Although these views were challenged by some, yet it was admitted that it would be better for the Californian population to resemble that of the Atlantic States than be composed of Asiatics. The of the San Francisco Criminal Courts described the Chinese as great liars, and useless as witnesses. The ethnological testimony taken indicated that the Chinese have not sufficient brain capacity to furnish motive power for selfgovernment. All the testimony agreed in condemning Chinese morals. The Chinese merchants at San Francisco carried on trade honorably, except in evading Customs duties. There is no intermarriage between the whites and Chinese. The testimony as to the advantages or disadvantages of an influx of Chinese is conflicting, the preponderance of opinion deeming it pernicious. The Chinese populatio on the Pacific coast steadily increases from immigration alone, and each Chinaman whose term of service has expired leaves this country with the money he has made. They do not desire the franchise ; they could not intelligently use it, and if they had it they would control the elections. The number of Chinese adults in California is as great as the number of white voters, and their adult populition increases more rapidly than the white adult population. They understand no form of government but despotism. Their women are sold as slaves for prostitution, and are treated worse than dogs. They have a government of their own in each city, which confers penalties, even to the taking of an offender's life. They have feuds among themselves ; are inhuman to their sick, turning many of them into the streets to die ; and the condition of the Chinese quarter of San Francisco is such that, if transferred to Atlautic cities, it would soon make them uninhabitable. A similar Chinese quarter is fouud in every town on the Pacific Coast. The committee think that in twenty-five years the Chinese question will have to be met much further east, and that the belief that it threatens republican institutions and Christian civilisation is well founded. Free institutions can only exist on the basis of adequately paid labor, families, aud the education of children, and nil these are wanting in the Chinese. The recommendations made by the committee are that measures lie taken by the President for a modification of the existing treaty with China, confining it to strictly commercial purposes, and that Congress legislate to restrain the great influx of Asiatics to the United States. The committee does not believe either of these measures will be regarded with disfavor by the Chinese Government ; but whether it be so or not this duty is owing to the Pacific States and Territories, which are suffering under a terrible scourge, but are patiently waiting for relief from Congress." THE TBAI'FIC THKOUGH THE SUEZ CANiAL.

The Pail Mall Gazette of March 13 observes: —The returns of the tonnage passing through the Suez Canal during 1576 show that England keeps its lead, while the trade of other nations with the East is on the whole decreasing. The tonnage of merchant ships of all nations using the canal last year was 1,986,698, against 1,908,970 in 1875. Of the 1,950,69 S tons, 1,010,198 belonged to British ships, leaving only 476,500 to be credited to the mercantile marine of every other country. Thug the British shipping which paid toll to M. da Lesseps was more than three times the total tonnage comprised under every other flag. In 1875 the foreign tonnage was 494,549; so that there was a fTilling off last year to the extent of 18,049 tons. This falling off, however, was more than compeusatcd by an increased British tonnage of 95,777. But for this increase in British trade the traffic of the Canal would have c-mtrasted unfavorably with 1875. The total number of merchant ships which passed through the Canal last year was 1395, against 1411 in the previous year ; but British ships increased from 1001 to 1092, or as nearly as possible three a day. After the British, lonr/o latermlh, comes the French mercantile marine, which sent a tonnage of 135,345 in 187 G, against 129,400 in 1875. The Dutch, with their Eastern possessions and long-estab-lished trade, naturally rank next, sending through the Canal a tonnage of 101,031, against 88,110 in 1875. Then comes Italy, with a diminished trade of 00,988 tons last year, against 05,325 in 1875. Austria sent 50,280 in 1870, and 05,223 the year before; Spain, 37,233 and 31,57 S ; Germany, 27,281 and 31,049, rather :i serious per eentage ot reduction ; and Russia was in the same position with 10,027 tons last year to show, against 18,222 in 1875. It must be remembered that 1870 was a year of exceptionally bad trade, but 1877 promises to be no butter, and, with war, may be worse. The Government vessels and yachts of all nations passing through the Canal reprosi'n'cd in 1870 a total tonnage of 109,172, towards which England contributed 08,035.