GENERAL SUMMARY. London, May 10.

Te Aroha News, Volume I, Issue 53, 7 June 1884, Page 3

GENERAL SUMMARY. London, May 10.

Advice 3 from Cape Town mention a strike and serious disorders in tho fields. The men are searched daily at the conclusion of work. The steamer Assyrian, with provisions for the French forces in Madagascar, has been wrecked at Providence Island, Indian Ocean, 240 miles north of Madagascar. Five arches of the cavalry barracks in process of erection at Portsmouth, England, suddenly fell yesterday, injuring thirty conricts who are at work on the structure. According to a Berlin despatch, all the Federal princes have agreed if the Reichitag rejects the measure prolonging the anti-socialist law, the dissolution of that body shall ensue. The most important event abroad has been the extraordinarily magnificent reception given to the Crown Prince of Austria by the Sultan ; £200,000 were spent on the festivities, a new palace was specially built, with the finest new furniture, meats were served in difhes of pure gold, and at some of the festivals the whole court, thousands of soldiers, and the entire fleet took part. The criticism passed on this laborious attempt to conciliate the future ruler of Austria and render him proof against any desire to annex Turkish territory is that the Crown Prince has seen the Sea of Marmora, and that is enough to stir any sovereign's greeds. He is described as a meditative young man, with a passion for ornithology. The earthquake of last Tuesday was the most serious in England for 300 years. People felt it quite perceptibly in London, and thought their houses were coming down, and servants went screaming from one room to another. One house was twisted on its foundation, another was shattered from basement to roof ; at least four church towers were thrown down at Colchester, where the shock was greatest, and the damage to property is about £10,000. Hundreds of people rushed screaming into the streets, ana a locomotive engineer declares that he felt his engine rock like a reed. The affair has been so serious that everybody has been uncomfortably meditating upon the possibilities of another, and ' a philosophical weekly journal speculates on the effect a constant recurrence would have on the stability of the EngKsh character. While the newspapers are filled with acoounts of all the grand doings over the marriage at Darmstadt, the " Memoirs of the Princesß Alice " throw a painful light on the •mallmiseriesofthegreat. Whenfirstshewas married her dining-room was so small and stuffy that she could not invite anybody to dinner, and when she had her first child the Queen had to send the baby linen and pay for the doctor. She could not visit her mother nor keep a governess, and when the Emperor of Russia paid her the compliment of a visit she was almost beside herself at the expense of entertaining him. The Queen had at last to come to her rescue by spending £20,000 on a new palace, and as the English nation all the time was giving her £6,000 a year, besides a dowry of £30,000, the German Prince cannot have contributed much to the domestic expenses. Labouchere, who was in Darmstadt when he was an attache 1 , has set all London roarIng by his description of the way the Dukes and Counts used to club their money together in order to play cards with the English Minister foy shilling points. One of the rumours of the week was that Prince Albert Victor was going to be created Duke of Dublin, but the story is ,contrafiivttdj and it ii generally thought that tht

young gentleman will be sent on another travelling expedition before he settles down at home. The great ladies of the Faubourg St, Germain have taken to appearing at public concerts for charitable purposes, and no less than £600 were taken at a hall in Paris from people anxious to hear a live Marquise sing, The greatest ceremonial of a religious character that has occurred for some time was the opening of the now oratory in Brompton, a fashionable suburb, by the oratorians, who are the most successful converters in London, and have the most aristocratic congregations. All the Catholic Bishops of England were present, the Duke ot Norfolk, the Earl of Denbigh, and all the other titled Catholics of the country, and a congregation of two thousand persons. Most of the London papers, with that spirit of toleration which is now univorsal in England, speak kindly of the business, and the Protestant Episcopal Church has borrowed another leaf from the Book of the Vatican by introducing orchestral music into its services. On Easter Sunday the band of the Fourth Dragoon Guards, one of our most fashionable and fastest regiments, took part in a serviceat St. Martin's Church, Brighton, and the Hallelujah Chorus was tendered with an orchestral accompaniment. Italy has now a Derby race, and the doubtful advantage of an incursion of English betting men. English bookmakers are now to be seen at work where the Pontifical Zouaves were wont to congregate. The Parnellites have had a great run of luck during the week. First there was the collapse of the Chaplin attack. Nexfc Trevelyan, the Irish Chief Secretary, announced that the Government has almost completed a scheme fcr facilitating the purchase of their holdings by the tenants Third, they have forced a commission of inquiry into the Queen's colleges, which are very unpopular in Ireland because anti-Catholic. Finally, Mr Shaw, the predecessor of Parnell in the leadership of the party, and the chief of the Home Rulers who sit on the Ministerial side of the House, has practically announced his intention to retire from political life and leave the ground olear tor his victorious rival. Abroad, Spain attracts most attention. The Conservative Ministry has fought the elections with the most unscrupulous UBe of power, and events have helped them by a few sporadic and contemptible risings and the big railway disaster just as the ballet boxes were being approached. Every reasonable person thinks that the attempt to make the destruction of a rotten bridge on a bad railroad into a political crime is merely an electioneering dodge. Dynamite has become one of the factors of politics, and is now daily heard of in every country of Europe. From Germany comes the report that a large quantity was found underneath the great national statue which was erected last year, though the coolness with which the report is discussed in the Berlin papers suggests that it is not largely credited. Bismarck is in considerable trouble with his anti-Socialist legislation, whioh is going very slowly through Parliament. It looks ag though it would be defeated. The relations of Russia and Germany have meantime been drawn closer by the extraordinary success of the Russian loan in Berlin. James O'Kelly, M.P. for Roscomraon County, who went to Egypt to try |and reach the Mahdi for the London "Daily News," and for it alone, has become a celebrity during the last few days. His letters give the first intelligible account of the personality and the purposes of the Mahdi, and his detention in Dongola has been the subject of innumerable questions in Parliament. The stoppage of his mission is generally attributed to the fact that, being well known as a fierce Parnellite and an intimate friend of the chief French politicians, he was believed to have, besides his journalistic object, a design to work the Mahdi against the English. The marriage at Darmstadt had some incidents that made it look like abourgeoise rather than a royal wedding. The Princess created immense disgust by selecting two non-noble ladies as her bridesmaids. They were her friends trom childhood. When the married couple were going away there was throwing of rice and of slippers after the good old style. The Queen has allowed a local photographer to take a group of herself, her daughter, the Crown Princess of Germany, her granddaughter, the Princess of SaxeMeiningen, and her great-granddaughter, the Princess Fedora of Saxe-Meiningen, aged five years, a group which includes four generations in the female line. Amusing stories begin to be told of the horror with which the Puritanical delegates of the Transvaal witnessed some of the social customs of Franco. The Boer ladies appeared at every entertainment with dresses closed up to the neck, and when the men were introduced to the fashionable and nearly nude beauties of Paris, they steadily, when addressing them, looked over their heads. When they were at the opera they turned away their eyes when the ballet came on. The Parisian dames, meantime, having exhausted the aviary, have now gone fco the market garden for adornment. The latest novelty is a hat trimmed with artichokes. The latest fashionable disease in England is a species of asthma, caused by the smell of a horse. The Duchess of Argyll and a son of the Marquis of Salisbury are among its victims. The fashionable doctor has written that it can only be cured homceopathically by sleeping for a night above a stable, and grinning and bearing the misery, without taking any remedy. The charges of wholesale corruption on the turf which originated in an American sporting newspaper have found their way here. They are to be investigated, and some ugly revelations are expected. The latest dodge of the sneak thief at races is to raise the cry of "welsher" against a perfectly honest better, and while the crowd is busy in beating him to pick his pockets. Mr William Shaw, the anti-Parnell leader, says: — "I have the most positive knowledge that the Government will announce within the next fortnight a new and important proposal for the extension of Irish peasant land proprietorship. In this Mr Gladstone will name two leading Irishmen, who will be asked to serve on the Commission to be created for carrying out the plan. This plan will place at the disEosal of the Commission £5,000,000 to c lent out in small sums, at low interest and long terms, to Irish peasants who desire to purchase their present holdings, at official valuations, which the Government will force as low as possible. This is wonderful liberality, and the step, if carried out, will do more to place Ireland in the hands of the Irish and secure genuine home rule in Ireland than all the political fuss which any number of leagues could make in a century. But Mr Parnell proposes to oppose thib. He givos no reason beyond saying that the measure is tantamount to an official act of relief for Irish landlords." The German Liberals are meeting^ with great success in their work of unifying their party throughout the Empire. To-day at Stuttgart a national conference of the party was held for the purpose of arranging a final plan for the conduct of the coming campaign for election of members of the K'eichstag, TKred h'tmdrad trod forty regular

delegates, representing all the northern sections of the Empire, attended. Among the resolutions adopted was the following : Resolved, That the National Liberals of North Germany unite in one movement for the creation of a great National Liberal German party, to embrace the entire empire, and having for its object the uniting of the whole German people in the pursuit of prtriotic liberalism. A startling story of subornation of perjury comes from Ireland. Patrick Slattery, a prominent Fenian and an ex-suspect of Derrynakilla Feaklo, county Claro, died today after making, under oath, a confession to the effect that he had been suborned by one Markham to swear falsely against two brothers, Patrick and Michael Delahunty, who were convicted at the Cork winter assizes of 1883 of shooting^a faimer named Donnellan, living at Killbarrow Feakle, in September, 1882. In consequenco mainly of Slattery's testimony the Dealhuntys were convicted of assault with intent to kill, and were sentenced to penal servitude for life. Slattery added that Police Sergeant O'Halloran had also been instrumental with Markham in instigating him to swear falsely. The deposition has been forwarded to Earl Spencer. Mr Henry E. Abbey has secured the lease of the Lyoeum Theatre for next season, and will manage it without the assistance of Mr Gunn. The season will be opened by Miss Mary Anderson, who will be followed by MiLawrence Barrett.