ITEMS BY THE MAIL.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 5682, 16 June 1879, Page 3

ITEMS BY THE MAIL.

The death is announced at Waring, near Vienna, of the poet Karl Beck, He was born in 1817 at Baja, in Hungary, and was of Jewish origin. Hie poems', tire said to .be, full of the strange passion characteristic of the Hungarian race. . ■ -: The marriage, of the Eight Hon. H. C. E. ..Chiidere,, M.H,' and the Hon. Mrs. , Gilbert Hlliot was solemnised at the British Embassy, Paris, by the Eev. Dr. Forbes, on Easter Eve. “We shall make a great mistake," writes home one of the most distinguished of English generals, “ if we take it for granted that two Englishmen are equal to three . Enins. The Zulus are not well armed, it is true, but the, desperate courage that they showed at -Isandula never has been surpassed.” Mr. Eugene Schuyler, the American, Consul at Birmingham, who became celebrated for his

report on the Turkish atrocities in Bulgaria has just received a highly complimentary letter from the President of the newly-constituted Bulgarian National Assembly. Colonel Gervase P. Bushe, of Glencaim Abbey, near Lismore, in the County Waterford, died very suddenly on April 18, near his own residence. The deceased gentleman went to Mallow in the morning, returned by midday train, and spent the evening with a friend in the neighborhood. When walking home about half-past seven o’clock he was seen to totter and fall, and on approaching him life was found to be extinct. Deceased was a magistrate of the county, was a nephew of the late Chief Justice Bushe, and a grand-nephew of Henry Grattan. He had served in the 15th and 7th Hussars, and was much respected. The Oxford and Cambridge boat race came off on Saturday, April 5, and was an exceedingly hollow affair. Cambridge took the lead in the first few strokes, increased it to between two and three lengths at Hammersmith bridge, and kept it till the end. The crowds seemed to be as great this year as ever, but there was not perhaps quite as much enthusiasm. The stroke of the Oxford eight rowed admirably, hut he was very feebly supported. One of the reasons why the Oxford crew was so unsatisfactory is that no pains .were taken, and no generalship shown, to get it together by the President of the 0.U.8.C., Mr, Grenfell. Victory .in the Thames Derby implies not only superiority of oarsmanship, but unflagging industry in organisation and impartiality of choice.

Myles O’Reilly, of Knock Abbey, who has just vacated his seat for the County of Longford, by accepting the comfortable berth of Assistant-Commissioner of Intermediate Education in Ireland, is well up to his work, for he was formerly one of the Board of Examiners at the Catholic University when Dr. Newman was the rector. He afterwards served in the Pope’s array under General Lamoricibre, and was returned for the County of Longford in 1862 by the patriotic party, in their indignation at Colonel Luke White's accepting a lordship of the Treasury. The assistant-com-missionership is worth £BOO a year, and the work is sufficiently light. It is no secret, however, that it was first offered to Mr. O’Shaughnessy, M.P. for the city of Limerick, who has taken a prominent part of late in debates on education in Ireland ; but he was unwilling to give up his seat in Parliament, and refused the post, to the great surprise of those who are convinced that the Home Rulers are all placehunters. Mr. O’Shaughnessy is Mr. Butt’s colleague, and it must be inferred from his refusal to accept office that he does nut despair of the prospects of his party. The war between labor and capital continues to rage fiercely in the north of England, and at the present moment there are upwards of 100,000 miners out on strike in the Durham Colliery district. Here arbitration has failed, but it has failed because it has not been fairly and fully resorted to. The men desired that the whole of the proposed reduction should be arbitrated on; the masters insisted that first a reduction of 10 per cent, on subterranean labor and per cent, on labor above ground should be enforced, and then that there should be arbitration on the balance. At the present moment there is every sign of the struggle being conducted with the greatest obstinacy for some time to come.

Lord Derby’s formal defection from the ranks of the Conservative party' can, scarcely be considered a surprise. . He has written a letter in .which he regrets his inability to remain a member of the Lancashire Union of Conservative Associations, of which he has, long been a patron, “ under existing political circumstances.” For some ' time’ past. Lord Derby has 1 sat upon the cross .benches in the House of . Peers, thus showing that the last links which bound him. to official Conservatism are completely severed; Between Lord Beaconsfield, as well as between Lord Salisbury'and himself, there exist the strongest personal as well as political diff erensos, and it is not likely that either will ever be healed. Whether a middle, party, of which Lord Derby and Lord Carnarvon will be members, will be eventually formed, is exceedingly doubtful. England, we have often been told, does not love coalitions, and the Whigs do not care for fifth wheels to their coach.: None the less will Lord Derby’s secession be a severe loss to the Conservative party. His personal and territorial influence is great in Lancashire. Lancashire has for some time' been tbe stronghold of official Conservatism,; and it will be surprising if some valuable Conservative seats are not lost in Lancashire at the next general election. ‘ • An exceedingly amusing and, in its way, important case has recently been tried. ~ The Duchess of Westminster was summoned by a former lady’s-maid named Jones, on a charge of having libelled her in a letter to a friend of her Grace’s, Mrs. Arthur Chapman, who had inquired as to her character. In this letter the Duchess had plainly stated' that in her opinion “Jones”, was out of her mind, and therefore not a fit person to engage in domestic service. Jones’s insanity was tolerably well proved, arid her Grace of Westminster, there-: fore, absolved from the accusation brought against her. So far so good. But it transpired during her Grace’s cross-questioning that the Duchess of Westminster had, even at the time of Jones’s alleged lunacy, given her a general character. Courteously asked by the counsel in court how she reconciled this with her sense of duty to her neighbors, the Duchess naively answered" that though she should, of course, be very sorry if “ other people ” found that they had engaged a mad servant, she (the Duchess) could hardly be expected to take the same interest in them as in her own relatives.

Mr. Justin McCarthy took his seat for the' county of Longford, in the room of Mr. O'Reilly,’ resigned. The Join nal des Dehats, commenting upon the news from Egypt, says ;—“The Governments of France and England doubtless foresaw this change of attitude on the part of the Khedive ; they should therefore be prepared to adopt a joint resolution which shall cause their dignity to be respected, a consideration which must take precedence over any other. It is imperatively necessary that France and England should remain indissolubly uni; ad ; their union will enable them to overcome all difficulties. Let the Khedive be on his guard against the last aot of the comedy he is playing.” The Imperial Family of Germany has been afflicted by the sudden and unexpected demise of Prince Waldemar, the third sou of the Crown Prince. and Princess. The young Prince, .who hid, only attained his eleventh year, was nominally a lieutenant in the Ist Regiment of the Prussian Guards, a rank bestowed, in accordance with a long-established rule in the House of Hohenzollern, on all royal princes on their tenth , birthday. His Highness, of whom most promising hopes were entertained, was snatched from this life by the same dire disease which bad done such cruel havoc in the family of the Grand Duke of Hesse. .

A fire broke but in Philadelphia on April 7 in a block of buildings between Crown and Fourth-streets. The loss is estimated at 750,000d01. 1 ' The Prince of Wales, Grand Master of the Freemasons of England, has intimated his intention to appoint Viscount Ebrington, eldest spn of Earl Fortesciie, to the Provincial Grand Mastership of Devonshire, vacant by the resignation of the Rev, L. Huyshe, of Clyst Hydon. Lord Ebrington is Senior Warden of the Barnstaple Dodge, and is now only twenty-four years of age. His grandfather, however, was Provincial Grand Master' of Devonshire for forty-two years. •• The Very Bey. Dr. Chureh, Dean of St. Paul’s, is among those who have promised their support to a proposed Hellenic Society. The Duke and Duchess of Connaught may be sincerely congratulated on the choice of their trip. There is probably no more delightful place in the world, during the Holy Week, than the “ Pearl of Andalusia,” when the gaities of the fair and the devotions of the season attract to the city all the bright eyes of the province, and the early spring of the South causes the prbihegrantes and the roses to vie in blooming amidst the palms and* the orangetrees. '’Whoever has not spent a night on the banks of the Guadalquiver, walking or riding along the Delacias, at the time when London society begins to cram into stuffy ballrooms and opera-houses, has ho adequate idea of human happiness. A correspondent points out that the generosity and magnanimity of Lord Beaeonsfield in supporting Lord Chelmsford are more noteworthy when it is remembered than the first Lord Chelmsford, father of the present peer, assailed the Premier with bitterest invective when his claim to be again. Lord Chancellor was, put aside in favor of Lord Cairns.

It is stated that they are making a war balloon' at Woolwich which is to be sent to the Cape when it is ready; which will be about Midsummer next, just in time, it is hoped, when the ; war will be all over.

It has been an Arctic Easter. Her Majesty, who is about to leave Baveno, has had anything'but Queen’s weather, though she has not suffered herself to be deterred by its rigors from making a series of excursions. Her Majesty's subjects at home have dona the best that they could to enjoy their holiday in the

face of difficulties which might have depressed the spirit of Mr. Mark Tapley. Frost and snow, sleet, hail, rain, and bitterly cold winds, have been the atmospheric accompaniments of Eastertide. It is the period of the vernal equinox, and some weeks ago American meteorologists, who are usually right, foretold that, the winds which blew at this time would continue to blow with very little break till the autumnal equinox set in. The Electrician says that on March 28, between eleven o’clock and noon, no fewer than 215 messages, averaging thirty words each, were disposed of on a single wire—London and Birmingham—by means of the quadruplex. The number is unprecedented in the history of telegraphy. The apprehensions entertained that the Russian police are secretly leagued with the Nihilists appear to be well founded. The Government has deposed Colonel Anatoff, chief of the police at Odessa, owing to his participation in the revolutionary propaganda.