SAN FRANCISCO MAIL.

Patea Mail, Volume VIII, Issue 1040, 28 May 1883, Page 3

SAN FRANCISCO MAIL.

(by TELEGRAPH FROM AUCKLAND.) ' The warehouse of Sir Edward Bates and the ship-chandlery of Garnock, Bibby, and Go., Liverpool, were destroyed by fire on the night of April 22, The, loss is estimated at £250,000. The Marquis of Queensbury, brother of Lady Florence Dixie, in a letter to the Daily Telegraph on April 21, appeals to the Eton gentleman said to have been in the vicinity at the time of the alleged attack on his sister, to come forward and make a full and direct statement. When the Queen left for Osborne; on April 17, she was unable to walk owing to a sprained knee, and Her Majesty had to be lifted into the carriage. The route was carefully guarded. A gigantic attempt at land-swindling has been thwarted in New York by an inquisitive Scotchman. The promoter of the scheme was James Madison Hogg, of Chicago, who represented he was owner of 600,000 acres of mineral and timber land in South Western Virginia,.for which 450,000d01s were asked. A syndicate was formed to buy it, wi th (Japt B Cunnigham, of Glasgow,, at the head, and several English, capitalists and noblemen. It was found on examination that the property belonged to, other persons than Hogg, and that the signature of the county officials have been forged, but before this Captain Cunningham had paid Hogg 6,000d015. for the syndicate as first instalment of purchase money. Hogg, and his attorney Syndham, were arrested for fraud and perjury. At the Phoenix Park trials a sensation was created in court when Patrick Delaney r and Thomas Caffrey ; were arraigned on May 3. They pleaded guilty to the charges against them and both were sentenced to be hanged on June 2. Before Caffrey pleaded he was informed that the Crown gave no hope for a mitigation of the sentence of death which would be passed upon him. When Delaney pleaded lie- added . “I was brought into this at first foolishly, not , knowing what it was, and I was forced from my work to go to the Park, We had to obey the orders of the society or take the consequences.- When I got into the park I could not get away, . I saw the murders committed, but took no part, in , them. The murder were committed by Joe Brady and Timothy Kelly and by nobody else.” When Caffrey was placed in the dock his face wore a smile. The consequence of pleading guilty was a second lime explained to him in open Court, but he persisted in his plea, and, on being asked if he had anything to say wh}' sentence should not be passed upon him he replied “ All I have got to say, standing on (he brink of the grave, is that I did not know what was going to happen until ten minutes before the murders were committed. I was bound to go to the park under the pain of death.” These confessions have strengthened the hands of the Government and carried dismay to the agitators. Sympathisers in the United States are wholly dispirited.