MAIL ITEMS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5139, 12 September 1877, Page 3

MAIL ITEMS.

The San Francisco Bulletin of August 9 says:—Adjusters at Hartford have completed the settlement of losses at the St. John fire. The total amount to be paid by the insurance companies is 6,739,000d015. Of this, English companies will pay 4,822,000d015.; Canada, 1,469,000d015. ; American, 445,000d01n. The latter amount is divided between the /Etna of Hartford, 240,000dols.; Hartford, of Hartford, 140,000d015., and Phcenix of New York, 65,000d015. ' / The correspondent of the Standard at Rome announces that Cardinal De Angelis is dead. He was eighty-five years of age. He belonged to the Intransigent party,' and was at one time regarded as a likely successor to the Pope. The select committee which has been taking evidence on tire question of the desirability of extending the hours of voting in the case of parliamentary and municipal elections has completed, its report. The committee recommend that there should be an extension of time in the case of the metropolis from eight, o’clock in the morning till eight o’clock at night. With respect to the provincial towns, the committee have been unable to arrive at any, decision, and they accordingly ask to be re-appoihted next session in order to settle the question. They 'will' not, however, take any further evidence. ■ There has been on view in one of the rooms of the House of Commons the watches which are about to ; be presented by members to the Welsh miners who saved the lives of their comrades at the Tynewedd Colliery last April. The House of Commons subscribed £4OO, and out of this sum twenty silver hunting watches, with gold chains attached, were bought, and have already been despatched for presentation. Bach watch contains the inscription announcing that it has come from the members of Parliament in recognition of bravery in saving life.

A disgraceful pugilistic encounter took place recently at Bristol. Two women who had quarrelled had a stand-up fight in the public street. They were naked to their waists, and were backed by their respective husbands, and hounded on by a crowd of men and women. The fight continued for a long time; An eyewitness says both combatants bruised and tore each other in a shocking manner, and were covered with blood.

The Jockey Club memorial to the late Admiral Rous will, says Bdl's Life, probably take the form of the erection of some almshouses at Newmarket. At the Kent Assizes the Rev. Frederick Davis, a clergyman of the Church of England, was fined £SO for keeping a lunatic in unlicensed premises. ■ The German telegraph department is at present engaged in laying subterranean cables from Berlin to Metz, by way of Frankfort and Mayence, and from Berlin to Kiel. In course of time underground wires are to be laid on all the principal lines, so as to prevent the risk of interruption by storms. Large printed bills have been sent round to the different London police stations, and exhibited in various parts of the metropolis, offering the Government reward of £IOO for the apprehension of the murderer or murderers of a little child of the male sex, whose body was found mutilated a few days back in one of the carriages of the South-Eastern Railway. It appears that when a train arrived late at night at Belvedere, near Dartford, one of the porters noticed a large bundle under the seat. ■ As all the,passengers had left the carriage (a second-class one), he - took charge of the parcel, conveying it to the statiphmaater's office as lost property. After a time, however, as the bundle caused a bad smell, it was torn open, when it was discovered to contain the remains of a child, one arm being cut off, and the head split open. The police have ascertained that a well-dressed woman got into the train with a parcel at Woolwich, and left it at Belvedere. She was about 22 years of age.