ENGLISH MAIL.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2444, 18 January 1881, Page 3

ENGLISH MAIL.

NEWS BY THE

THE PANAMA CANAL,

The scheme for joining the Atlantic and Pacific has now assumed definite shape, and the public is invited to take shares in the company started by M. do Lesscps, The great engineer appears to have little doubt as to the operation. There are fewer difficuties than there were at Suez. The canal is shorter, the ground more manageable. In Africa moving sands complicated the question. In America the canal will be cut through the solid rocks, which will form themselves the bulwarks of the waters. Moreover engineering as a a science has moved rapidly ahead since the construction of the Suez Canal. Other great works, such as the piercing of the Mont Cenis and the St. Gothard, have been successfully carried out, and all appliances and machinery have been greatly developed and increased. There seems no reason to doubt, therefore, that the new canal will be finished within five or six years. That it will be a commercial success is also pretty certain. Calculations made upon sound yet moderate bases, show that the amount of tonnage which will probably pass through the Panama Canal will amount to upwards of seven millions of tons. A great quantity of this will come from California; then there is the tea trade of quite a million tons, and the metals, hides, cacao, and other products from South America, and last, not least, the wool and other trade from Australia. The construction of the canal cannot but be an advantage to our Australian colonies. It must shorten the distance between the Antipodes and the mother country, while it will put an end to the dangerous passage round Cape Horn.

BREACH OF PROMISE. Llewellyn v. Strangways. This was an action heard on JN ov. 30, before the Exchequer division for breach of promise of marriage, to which the defendant replied that when the alleged agreement was made he was an infant, and pleaded the statute of frauds. The plaintiff, at the time of the alleged engagement, was a lady’s maid in service at Sutton Lakes, in Herefordshire, and the defendant Avas a farmer, living at Franklins, in the same neighborhood. In 1869 the plaintiff was introduced to the defendant, and soon after he had paid his attentions to her the plaintiff alleged that the defendant made an offer of marriage to her, which Avas repeated in 1872, in May, 1877, and in Januaty and February, 1878, but the marriage, though fixed, Avas from time to time postponed. During the engagement the defendant seduced the plaintiff, and a child was born the maintenance of Avhich Avas made the subject of a mutual agreement, The plaintiff alleged that she made arrangements for marrying the defendant by the purchase of linen and other things, but the defendant paid attentions to another young Avoman, and now refused to marry her. Maria LleAvellyu, the

plaintiff, said she now resided with her widowed mother at Blenheim House, Madley, and gave evidence in support of the proposals of marriage made by the defendant, and the suggestions he made as to the mode in which they should earn their livelihood, including, among other things, farming and the publican trade. After considerable delay the defendant told her that his father did not wish him to marry, and it was then agreed that the}' should many after his father died. When that occurred, in May, 1877, she wrote a letter of condolence to the defendant, and she met him soon afterwards, when he told her that directly the house was put in order he would marry her. In October it was arranged that the wedding should be after a year had expired from his father’s death. The month of April was fixed, but a postponement again took place, and she was subsequently told, and then taxed the defendant with paying attentions to another person. Mr Petheram, in addressing the jury on behalf of the defendant, said he would not call the defendant before them, but yet trusted they would he persuaded that the plaintiff had never really contemplated marriage with the defendant, inasmuch as the agreement binding the defendant to provide part maintenance for the child stated that such payment should be continued only until the plaintiff should marry, and the plaintiff herself went through a course of training at the hospital to become a monthl}' nurse, Mr Justice Stephen said the question really resolved itself into one of damages. The plaintiff had lost the best years of her life while the defendant amused himself by courting her, and although she had given way in the weakness of the moment to one who up to the time had apparently honorably courted her for throe years, yet it was very hard to say that the plaintiff’s character had bean altogether destroyed, after the praiseworthy manner in which she had earned her living in an honest and creditable manner since the occurrence to which he had referred. The jury gave a verdict for the plaintiff, with £GOO damages.