GENERAL SUMMARY. (European Dates up to October 20th.)

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 229, 19 November 1887, Page 5

GENERAL SUMMARY. (European Dates up to October 20th.)

The steamer Great Eastern was sold in London, October 20th, at auction, for £21,000. The Count of Paris intends to visit Dordrecht to receive and confer with royalist deputations from the North and East of France. The steamer Agrippa collided with and sank the German barque Planteau off Beachy Head on Tuesday, 18th October. Eleven persons were drowned, and the captain of the baique has since died. Only two of the crew survived. Austrian " Lloyd's," in an inspired article published on October 20th, expressed the readiness of Austria to enter into the closest alliance with England. The youthful Earl Cairns has been left a fortune of upwards of £1,000,000 sterling by the decease of hie uncle, Hugh McCalmont, who departed thi* life October 19th. Michael JDavitt reached Queenstown October 20 on his return from New York. He was given an enthusiastic welcome, but declined to receive an address from the League. His health had been completely restored. The closing meeting of the Liberal Federation at Nottingham on 19th October was one of the largest ever held in England. Nearly six thousand persons were present. The hit of the meeting- was when Gladstone, taking a candle in his hand, read a telegram announcing thai Dr Kane had repudiated Chamberlain's Parliament for Ulster. Saunderson, the parliamentary leader of the same party, had formerly repudiated his land purchase scheme. The second point of enthusiasm came when Gladstone referred to Chamberlain's de- i mand for a plan of dealing with Ulster. A Government report gives the number of destitute people in London at 100,000. Dr. Johnston's house at Litchfield was sold at auction, October 20th, for £800. Evelyn, Conservative M.P., has resigned the beat for Debtford, being unwilling to support the Irish policy of the Government. Right Honourable Alexander James Beres- \ ford Hope, Liberal M.P., died in London, October 20th. The Registration Bill foreshadowed at the Nottingham Conference is really a reform bill, granting manhood suffrage, abolishing revising barristers, political agents, etc. Gladstone is the author of it. Sir Charles Dilke and Lady Dilke have had • an, extraordinary reception from the Sultan of Turkey. They were received twice in audience at the special State banquet given them, when all the. Ministers and household wei'e present. Dilke refused the Grand Cordon of the Medjidie, bub Lady Dilke accepted the Grand Cordon of Chefakat, or Order of Generosity and Fidelity. The Turks and Greeks vied in hospitalities. This ex-

traordinary favour is largely due to Dilke's book on the present position of European politics. A. London dispatch (October 20) says " Fanny," the servant girl who figured in the Dilke cape, lias denied that there was the least truth in Mrs Crawfords statement of her refusal to appear at the trial. She had nothing to do with the Dilke case. Dilke's friends are working gradually to wards some action. The Manchester "Mail "announces that Mrs M. E. Parker, near Warrington, whose standing and respectability it endorses, has organised an association for conveying needy gentlewomen (for whom most emigration schemes make no provision) to California, where she promises them "good and comfortable fortable homes in a pleasant land." The movement is intended to counteract the necessity of employing Chinamen in households. Professor Gustavo Robert Kirchoff, the eminent natural scientist, and discoverer of the spectroscope, died on the 17th October. A London stockbroker,- named Fairban, absconded on October 18th, leaving debts amounting to £80,000. It is officially announced that the Niger Districts in western Africa, including the east line between Lagoos and the western bank of the Rio del Rey and the Niger company's land, are under British control, Gladstone's tour of the midland counties of England is in the nature of an ovation. Mrs Ciaite (Miss Diana Maria Mulock) died in London, October 12th. The British ship Monmoufch, Captain Corbett, from Manila, August 30th, for Now York, has been lost on Mindova Island, one of the Philippines. The captain and three of the crew, named Dews, Rcdford, and Crupp, were drowned. The remainder arrived at Manilla. Mrs Hughes-Hallett has addressed an appeal to the Conservative Committee of Rochester asking them not to call upon her husband to resign his seat in Parliament ' Owing to repeated applications for chips from trees felled by Mr Gladstone in Hawarden, a printed circular has been issued fixing a uniform charge of eigbteenpence for a small block, or three shillings per cubic foot, exclusive of carriage. A snowstorm, accompanied by thunder and lightning, prevailed on the 11th of October in England and Wales. The Welsh roads were blocked with ice. The scarlet fe\er epidemic continued to spread in London. On October 12th there were 1,900 cases in the hospitals. Richard Tich borne, the doughty claimant, was removed to the London City Lunatic Asylum, October 10th. He broke a street lamp in front of the Mansion House a day or two prc\ iously, saying he wanted to sec the Mayor, to get a little Home Rule. The Shakespeare memorial fountain, piesented by G. W. Childs, of Philadelphia, to the town of Stralford-on-Avon, was dedicated with imposing ceremonies, on October 19th. Henry Irving made the dedicatory speech, and a dedicatory poem from Dr. Olliver Wendell Holmes, Boston, Mass. , was read. The Newmarket Middle Park Plate was won, October 12th, by Sir F. Johnson's Friar's Balsam ; Lord Londonderry's colt Hazel Witch .second ; Lord Calthorpe's Seabreeze fchiid. Five starters. Fordham, the noted jockey, died October 11th.