ITEMS BY THE EUROPEAN MAIL, TO APRIL 25.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5370, 13 June 1878, Page 3

ITEMS BY THE EUROPEAN MAIL, TO APRIL 25.

(From the Home News.)

Chief among the events of the month have been the Circular by which Lord Salisbury has signalised his succession to Lord Derby’s office, and which has created a profound sensation throughout Europe ; the debates in both Houses of Parliament on the policy of the Government in advising her Majesty to call out the Reserves ; the reply which Prince Gortchakoff has sent to the manifesto of the new Foreign Minister, and the appearance of Prince Bismarck upon the European stage as mediator between England and Russia. Lord Derby’s resignation came with the suddeness of a thunder bolt out of the blue. The cabal against him had apparently ceased. He was no longer inveighed against in the philoTurkish Press ; Lady Derby had given only the previous evening, March 27, her first reception at the Foreign Office. The next day Lord Derby announced in the House of Lords that, as he was unable to concur in the measures which her Majesty’s Ministry deemed necessary, he was no longer a member of the Government, and a few minutes afterwards the Prime Minister explained that the reason of Lord Derby’s resignation was that the Cabinet had advised the Queen to . call out the Reserves. The termination of a certain cause cllcbre at St. Petersburg is thought to afford grave evidence of the dangerous disaffection which exists in that city, and throughout the Empire, to the Russian Government. Vera Sassalitoh, a young woman of twenty-six, made an attempt on the life of the Prefect of St. Petersburg, General Trepoff, because ho caused a political prisoner, who had been guilty of some breach of prison law, to be flogged. She was taken in the very act; she made no attempt to deny or explain her guilt; she did not seek to palliate it. She expressed a profound indifference whether she killed or wounded the Prefect. Yet the jury ■ which tried her brought in a verdict of “Not Guilty,” from which it is argued that the sympathy which exists with the attempt of Vera Sassalitoh is the measure of the hatred whith exists among the Russian people towards the institutions under which they live. Since knouting was abolished in 1863, corporal; punishment has been held in the greatest detestation throughout Russia, and General Trepoff has been denounced by less violent persons than his feminine assailant as a “ Bashi-Bazouk nearer home than Bulgaria.” The Nihilist propaganda is said to be considerably extending. There may be some exaggeration in these announcements, but it is clear that the Russian authorities have no reason to bo satisfied with the state of feeling that exists at home, and it remains to bo seen whether they will attempt, as a desperate remedy for internal troubles, a second foreign war, involving, as such a war must, a strong chance of national bankruptcy. The pacification of Bulgaria, which was one of the ostensible objects of the war, seems to be still as far'off as ever. Tho oppression of the Russo-Bulgarian regime is pronounced intolerable, and the Mussulman inhabitants of the province have risen against their new rulers and self-elected liberators.

A few days afterwards it was announced that Lord Salisbury would succeed Lord Derby, the Indian Secretaryship being taken by Mr. Gathorne Hardy, who is replaced at the War Office by Colonel Stanley. On the 2nd of this month Lord Salisbury's now famous circular was published. In it his Lordship pointed out to the representatives of her Majesty’s Government that the treaty of San Stefano, involving as it does in every material stipulation a departure from the treaty of 1856, violates also the protocolof the London conference of 1871, which recognises as an essential principle in the law of nations that no Power can liberate itself from or modify treaty engagements without

the consent of the, other contracting Power?. Lord Salisbury next , remarked that the new. Bulgaria will be a strong Slav State, under the control of Russia, with harbors on the Black Sea and Archipelago, and will be so constituted as to . merge in the dominant Slav majority a large mass of Greeks ; that the administration of Albania and Slavonic provinces left to the Porte, separated as they will be from Constantinople by the new Bulgaria, must be most difficult; that the compulaoryalienatiou of Bulgaria from Xloumania and the acquisition of Batoum by Russia will make her supreme in the Euxino and its vicinity ; and that Russia, possessing the Armenian strongholds of the Porte, will have at her mercy the European trade which now passes from Trebizond to Persia. . Prince Gortchakoff in replying to this document rather set himself to criticise some of Lord Salisbury’s specific objections to the Treaty of San Stefano than attempted to justify its general spirit. Prince Bismarck, impressed perhaps by the menacing condition of affairs in the neighborhood of the Turkish capital, suggested a compromise between the Russian and English demands—a. preliminary conference of the different European Ambassadors at Berlin, with a view to facilitating a Congress, on the understanding that the treaties of 1856 and 1871 shall form the basis of deliberation. This preliminary conference, the German Chancellor suggests, shall be preceded by the withdrawal of the Russian troops from the suburbs of Constantinople, and of the English ironclads from the Sea of Marmora.

How thoroughly T'rance is settling down to the new regime of Constitutional Republicanism may bo judged from the result of the elections held on Sunday, April 6, to the Chamber of Deputies. Of these elections fifteen took place, and in no single instance did the enemies of the Republic succeed in gaining a seat. Only in one case did the Republican candidate fail to gain. the absolute majority 'necessary to enable him to dispense with the second ballot. The Republican triumph is the greater because in fourteen out of the fifteen instances the seats contested were those of Royalists or Bonaparfcists who had been unseated for haying obtained their elections illegally. This is not, the first occasion on which this sort of experience has been obtained, in France, and the net result at the present moment is that out of the fortyone seats which the parties of the Right won at the general election, and which the Chamber of Deputies has invalidated, only four have , successfully stood the test of a second trial of conclusions.

Sir Rowland Hill and other residents in Hampstead have commenced proceedings against the Metropolitan Asylums District Board for damages occasioned by the erection of a small-pox hospital in that locality. The plaintiffs declare that their property has been damaged to the extent of «£50,000. The case came before the Queen’s Bench on an application as to the necessity of certain interrogatories. The Judges allowed some to be put to the defendants and disallowed others.

: A letter from Bordeaux reports that a terrible tragedy has just occurred at Plaisance (Gers). A man named Courtade, who was once a soldier with medals of good service, recently had a dispute with his landlord on the subject of repairs ; and the Juge de Baix, before whom the case was brought, visited the spot in order to obtain A better insight into the matter. He was accompanied by his clerk and bailiff. The examination over, the magistrate condemned Courtade to pay the sum claimed. The defendant then burst into a violent passion, and cried out, “Is that the way in which you deal out justice ?’* and, drawing a revolver, he fired at the owner of the property and his wife, both of whom fell to the ground, and afterwards discharged the weapon at tbe judge and clerk, the latter of whom he killed with a second shot. The murderer finished his work by blowing out his own brains. Sir Charles Bowyer Adderly, K.0.M.G., &c., is raised to the peerage as Lord Norton of Norton, in the county of Stafford. The funeral of Sir George Gilbert Scott took place on April 6, and the remains of the eminent architect were laid to rest in Westminster Abbey, on the south side of the nave, close by the ashes of Sir Charles Barry, Robert Stephenson, Thomas Telford, and other fellow-workers in the fields of art and science.

Mr. O’Donnell has given notice of his intention to move for an address praying her Majesty to appoint a Royal Commission of inquiry to report upon the management of the estates of the. late Lord Leitrim during the past twenty years. , The Emigration Commission has been abolished. Sir Stephen Walcot, the commissioner, has retired, and the duties and staff of the office are to be divided between the Colonial Office and the Crown .Agents for tho Colonies., Dr. James Risdon Bennett has been.unanimously re-elected President of the Royal College of Physicians.