MAIL NEWS. TOPICS OF THE DAY. (FROM OUR LONDON CORRESPONDENT.)

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 213, 30 July 1887, Page 2

MAIL NEWS. TOPICS OF THE DAY. (FROM OUR LONDON CORRESPONDENT. )

Steamship Collisions. June 3rd. Since rtihe last mail we have received news yf several serious accidents in England and ither parts of the world. The rirst was a collision -between two of the White Star Ha of steamers, the Celtic and .(he Brit tan ie about four hundred miles from the Anieri can coast, and had it notboen lor the prompt action of one of the captains, the lots of life would have been enormous. The account given in the "Daily News" is the bebt. After describing the voyage and the Midden \ifting of «. fog in which they were enveloped their correspondent bays that as the vese'g struck "there was a .screech from the steame s' whibtk^, a cry ot horror from the witnessing passengeis, a ;oiai p crash, and the two great iron consoit ships wcie in paitial wreck, with scvams of agony from the dying and wounded, and of hoiror fnnn .the impenlled eiowds ot passengers. Fortunately for all concerned, the blow, instead ot being peipendkular to the line of the Britannic \the ve-^el which was stuick),was at an angle of '_'.>•, and instead of being amidships the cash began on a line in lear of the engine. . • • After a personal inquiry made in thr> steerage department, w here all the casualties occurred, 1 believe that the li^t embiaces twehe killed and t\\ enty w omided. Two children and one -woman were hoiribly mangled, and must have died instantly. .Se\eral men were knocked into the water. . . . Among the bCACiely -\\oundul was an old man, who lost both his leg*, a w oman who lost a limb, and a man an eye. . . . When the ciptaiu ordered the men to lower the boats, se\eiai f'nemen left their posts, and jumped into one of the boats*, crowding out the ladieb who wtie waiting to be loweied. They rowed huniedly to -the Celtic ; but later 'on, when they iouncl that the Biitannie was not, going to sink at once, they returned. As they crept up the side of the Biitannie, wiHi shame showing in their face, the captain greete I them with the simple comment ' Sluave on you,' and they disappeared into the engine loom. Fortunately, the two frhips weie able to go back together to New Yoik. and the lo^s of life was not gi cater than a do/en." Since then theie has betMi a seiious colliery acculcnt near (Glasgow, over two hundred workmen being eu tombed ; there has been the liie of the tuuuway stabler in JSTew York, in which 1,009 horses -\\eie burnt to death and piopcity voith L 1,000,000, 000,000 destroyed ; news fiom Calcutta also speaks of a cyclone in which a \essel with 700 pet-ons on boaul di>appe.iied. But the most tenible disaster ot leccnt ears has just taken place nearer home, in the

Burning of the Opern Coiuiqnc at Paris. As if to heighten the effect, only a fortnight befoie the accident tlieie v.'a<« a discussion in the French Chamber abont this very theatte, an<l the Minister responsible for its safety, M. P.ertheiot, spoke as follows:-- I . . . . Well, that is « dangerous state of things, and it is in the natural Older ot things that the Opera Comique will be burned down some day. (Exclamations of dissent.) Honourable members, need not cry l Oh, oh !' There exists no theatre that has not been burnt down in the eomse of a century. Therefore we may be sure the Opera Comique is fated to be burnt down. (A laugh.) I hope, however, that ib will be put off as long as possible."' M. Berthelot was himself present at the time the fire broke out ; so too was M. Goblet, the late Prime Minister ; General Boulangcr, the most popular minister in France ; and General Saustier, the Governor of Paris, who is the most popular and brilliant soldier in France aiter the War Minister. In fact, the conflagration was nearly becoming ln&toiical for the quality, .is well as the quantity, of its victims. The theatre was crow ded, especially in the upper paits, and at leant 150 persons must have been burnt or fouifocated to death. M. Taskin, the manager, warned by the motion in the Chamber, was prepared for the panic, and came forwam and re peated a few reabsuiinc; woids that he had rehearsed. In this way at least 300 lives must have been saved, and for his self-possession he ib to be decorated with the Cross of the Legion of Honour. Some of the incidents were very distressing. The " Times " says :— " The greater number of the dead bodies reco\ ered show by lacerations on the face and hands that they have been crushed under the feet of the crowd pafcsing over them. In geneial these victims are women. An expression of terror marks the features in cases where they have not been scorched or lacerated. Twenty-seven persons seem to have entered a small bar attached to the galleries thinking that it was a way out. Once inside, they could not leave it. The firemen, when they reached this spot, found the bodies crushed against each other, with arms and legs so locked together as to foimasolid mass." The " Daily News " gives a gruesome story from the mouth of one of the " supers " : "I saw it was useless to try to jump out or to get downstairs, so I threw open the window and stood before it ; the strong draught kept me cold and blew the flame back, and what I chiefly feared was either being burned from below, or when the pumps began to play on my corner being scalded to death with steam . . . The roof jußt over me somehow did not burn, but a river of nothing less than molten lead poured in through the window of my attic. I directed its course with a stick, and it flowed off elsewhere. If it had gathered where I was, the weight of it would have brought down the shaky floor." And again : — "Two men and a woman were seen on the angle of the uppermost cornice ; their gestures expressed supplication and despair. Then the woman went to fling herself forward, and the men held her back. It was thought that the woman would get the better of the men, and drag them into the j abyss. A ladder was brought round, but ! found to be too short. A lesser one was then spliced on to it, and the unfortunates rescued, but the woman was a raving lunatic." Many of the dead are very fashionably attired, but the features arc so charred that recognition is only possible by means of their jewels. The "Standard" cays :— "The body of one lady, whose face is blackened by the fire, has still a pair of magnificent diamond earrings hanging from her ears, and on her fingers', of which there is little left but bone, there still sparkles a large diamond ring. Many will be recognised by the bracelets they wore. "

Primrose Day. Primrose Day has produced a new theory with regard to Lord Beaconsficld's connection with the flower. In early life when he wrote " Lothair " he made Lord Ht. Jerome remark " that primroses make a capital salad," and for aught that his friends know, such continued to be Disraeli's Bentiment until the day of his death. On the day of his funeral, however, the Queen sent a huge wreath of prim-

ropes with a card on which she had written, " His favourite flower." This was the beginning of the primrose craze ; but j the fact was Her Majesty was not thinking j of the Eavl, but of her late husband, who was very fond of the primrose, and whom she generally signifies »y the words " his " and " him."' Unfortunately, the revelation comes too late to destroy the political significance of the (lower.

The Derby. That a favourito should not win is not quite n novelty ; still, under all the circumstances, the defeat of The Baron came upon everyone as a surprise. Eighteen sporting prophets nominated him for the first place ; only one suggested another horse, and even he never thought of Mr Aldington's Mevry Hampton as a dangerous rival. Enterpiise, the winner of the Two Thousand, was expected to do something, but his shoulder was pub out ten days betore the race, and at the last moment he was scratched. It doesn't say much for the shrewdness of his grooms that they treated him for a strained knee for a whole week, and did not discover the mistake until Mr Hutton, the bone-setter, pointed it out. As boon as> his name was struck through, The Baron, in .spite of inmouis about informality in his nomination and leeollections of hiri laziness as a two-year-old, was looked upon as quite &afe. The bookmakers, however, made a dead set against him at the last. The weather, too, had in no way spoilt the course ; at one time it had threatened to be a lepctition of the f-no\Ns of 1807,and then none could foretell the result; but whilst the slight rain of the day before had laid the dust* a flickering sun brightened up, the scene. Next to the Baron, Eirid^pord, who has since won the Givind Prize, wa& favouied. He had impioved greatly since the spring, was gencially expected to finish in the second place, and by the " Rporr&mun " reportei was pointed out as winner. But Meuy Hampton, ne-\er having run as a tv 0-3 ear-old, was a "dark hor.^e,'' and like Blair Athol, iv similar circumstances in 1804, a\ on quite easily. It i 5:i 5 : true that knowing ones consider the entries below proper form, but the fact remain** that Mr Abington's colt covered the distance in a tune that has never been beaten, and only equalled by Blair Athol and Kettledrum. Otherwise, the pi evictions were tolerably on the spot: The Baion out-distanced all those whore form was known ; Maitley has a style and fashion about him that made his success in the Jubilee Stake--, &oem something mote than a llulcu, and the running in the l>eiby justified the jirophecies of hitgetting a place ; whilst Aintrec, by coming home fourth, verilied tjje expectation of his btable. The I'iincc of Wales and many other io).iltie% both English and foieign, weic well to the fiont; but as ,Ixl old tiainer in the paddock lemarked, "You don't see much qunhty hcte to-day ;"' and although he lofouvd especially to the h.or-e-tlC'-.h, his, remark applied equally well ro the human beings on the Downs. The truth is, the Derby was extremely dull. Entries were few, spectatois less than u->ual, and all the piocceding-. scaid and dccoious to a degree. All the old life and meriiment on the road is dying out ; the number of drags goes up, but chair and banter disappear ; the black coat and hat of the cifcy and the club is omnipotent, and chokes oft' all indivi duality and fun.

Parliamentary liODg-lVin deduces. Lord Denman, the son of the famous judge of that name and brother to one of the present judges, has brought in si bill for shortening speeches in the two Hou&es of Pailiamentv He proposes that no Privy Councillor *hall speak above one hour, and no ordinary member exceed a quaiter of an hour ; that a bell should be runjj as soon as tlie limit ie> leajched, and that if anyone else wants to address the House, the speaker must bit dow n. This would prevent a repetition of Mr Big-gar's famous feat in reading from blue-books for four hours continuously to "U'as.te time ; but perhaps it would not have much eflect on what Loid Salisbmy calls " the dieary drip of dilatoiy declamation."

a ma mast England is nob the place for blasting on a phenomenal scale ; but at Llanben's last week about the biggest on record took place. A mass of rock standing between two workings of the quarry and weighing four hundred thousand tons, endangered the lives of the men, so a tunnel 118 feet long diiven into the ba?e of the rock. This branched out into six deep chambers, each terminating in a shaft. Explosive gelatine was built into each shaft, and the whole so connected with a fuse that it would explode at the same instant. Notice was issued throughout the distiict warning people to open windows and doors, and leave their homes. The advice was taken. Property was packed up, cattle driven off; shops closed, and the highways guarded by police. Gelatine equal in power to two tons of gunpoAvder was exploded ; the rock was shattered and brought down into the quarry and the lake below.

Mail Coaches Revived. A most unusual scene took place last week in one of the busiest thoroughfares of the city. Mr Blackwood, secretary at the Po&t Office, has instituted a revival of the old mail coaches for carrying' parcels from London to Brighton during the summer, and the first of these, m making a trial journey, revived a tradition of older days. The driver came to a point at which the traffic is for convenience regulated by the police, but ao which he did not wish to be delayed like ordinary vehicles. He therefore burst through the line, but a police - sergeant at once stopped the horses. The driver refused to go back, and maintained that Her Majesty's mail could not be stopped on the Queen's highway by any person whatever without the consent of those in charge of it. He refused to give his name, and pointed to the royal legend oa the panel of the coach as his authority. Finally, after the traffic had been stopped for ten minutes the driver was dragged from liis seat, gave up his name, and drove off with a defiant j blast of his horn amidst deafening cheers from hundreds of persons who liad crowded round.

The Aborigines. Sir William Me Arthur -whose nephew, by the way, has just succeeded in maintaining one of the Cornwall constituencies in the Glad3tonian party, and who is almost the only "native of Australia in the English Parliament— took the chair the other night at the Aborigines' Protection Society. There was a general opinion that j the natives of West Australia had been most cruelly treated in some cases, and that a Government inquiry was desirable. The Rev. J. Chalmers, of New Guinea, protested against the subjection of the natives to Queensland rule ; he vras afraid of the introduction of fire-arms and spirits, and of slave labour being taken for the sugar fields in Queensland. The intoxicant question provoked a reference to Tawhaio and the Maoris. This same missionary gave vent to a curious opinion, at the meeting of the London Missionary Society, about the way Christianity should be preached in New Guinea. His antipathy to Roman Catholics excludes a

friendly emulation in good works. He complained, bitterly ot the fact that when they had opened up the country, and I mado it safe for anyone to enter in the Roman Catholics had began missions side by side with theirs. " I cannot think it is gentlemanly," he said ; "at any rate it is not Christianity " (?). At the meeting of the Religious Tract Society, the Rev. W. W. Gill, a member of the same Missionary Society, spoke mo^fc hopefully of the natives of the South Seas and New Guinea, and said that they would gladly refund to the Society the cost'of translating and producing such books as the "Pilgrim's Progress," which were very popular amongst them.

miscellaneous. In the •• Graphic" of May 28th appear a number of engravings illustrating the recent outrage on the Premier of Tonga. The drawings are acknowledged ns having been supplied by Mr W. Boodle, and the descriptive loiters provided by Mr E. E. Bilbrough, both at Auckland. Dr. Parker, who lias been asked to take the pastorate of the late Mr Ward Beeeher, threatens to visit Australia on his return journey. A Dr. Dale and aMr Spicer are coming out to the Antipodes as representatives of the Congregational Church, and Dr. Parker will come to test and supplement their work. The torpedo boats, which were going to do such great tilings, .seem rather a failure after all. Twenty-four of them have just been exercising oiF Portland, one of the trials being a ninefcy-inile race. One blew up her boiler, another had to put out her fire to prevent .such a disaster, two collided and smashed up, a fifth broke her screwpropeller, and seven others, making just half the squadron, had their engines paitially disabled. L4O a dozen is a fairly high price for 74 champagne to fetch in these hard times, yet ihat<was the price gi\en for some periier touet.at Christie's sale last week. Loud DelcAal Beresford, youngest brother of the popular Lord Charles, has been rather more successful than several other patricians who have gone out to a cattle ranche in the far west. After tin cc years* hard v^ 01 kin Now Mexico he has made his large speculation pay very well, and hopes soon to be I able to spend the greater portion of the ' year in England whilst his subordinates look after the estate. A novel marriage ceremony has juit been invented by a collier near Bolton. He took his fair charmer to Wigun to be married, but persuaded her that jumping over a long biu-4i handle was all that was necessary. This ceremony was duly pei formed, they returned to Bolton as a married couple ; but the nuptial knot thus tied has proved somewhat insecure, as the wife has since left him, taking his wages with her. Mr G. li. Sims has had a quiet iling at the Jubilee craze, and has offered a Jubilee prize, consisting of a beautifully executed poi trait of our gracious Queen, to the editor of any newspaper published in London whose columns do not, duiing the next week, contain either of the following words: "Jubilee/ "Buffalo Bill," or " Ireland." Everybody is utterly sick of the woid, for wherever we go "Jubilee this " or " Jubilee that " stares us in the face from every shop window. But it will be hard to beat '•Jubilee dripping, ihepence a pound,' 1 as displayed in a shop in Drury Lane. A Pat see bai 1 ister, who has been studying in England, was in ten icwed by a correspondent of the " Pall Mall Gazette "' a few days ago, and is reported to have made the following observations :—": — " Then inscead of your soldiers receiving backbheesh and a feast, what happens ? The paymaster sergeant cuts oft" a- day's pay to devote ib to one of their funds. It means that for a week every time the soldier puts his hand into his pocket and fincK no tobacco, ho curses. Will it be the same in India ? Well, in India the subject of this Jubilee is altogether beyond comprehension. Ib is so utterly inconsistent with our traditional customs under which the throne dispensed the charity and backsheesh, that to be asked to give backsheesh to the throne is simply staggeiing. It is not) called a tax } so it must be backsheesh."