MAIL NEWS.

Thames Star, Volume X, Issue 3166, 12 April 1879, Page 1

MAIL NEWS.

An English resident at St. Petersburg, whose testimony is unimpeachable, writes, under date of Feb. 3, as folld#B:-^ Al the Russian journals are forbidden to publish intelligence of the repressive character of the authorities, I hastento communicate to you what has just occurred under my own personal observation. Last week a strike took place at the new Russian cotton mill, in the principal manufacturing district of the capital. A large number of strikes have occurred there of late yearß, and the police have sometimes sided with the weavers. On this occasion, the workpeople struck for shorter hours at the same rate of pay, the existing period of labor—l3^ hours a day —being not unnaturally regarded as excesHire. In the morning, "the wearers and spinners assembled in a crowd outside the mill, and the district police-master hearing of the disturbance sent some mounted police to reason with them. The gen* darmes, however, produced no effect, and the strikers set off en masse from the New Canal to lay their case before the Czarevitch. Intelligence of this was at once sent on to the nearest tchast (the district building containing the police, military, and other barrack), and as the mob passed the place they were surrounded by a number of Cossacks, who drove them into the tchast yard, using their sabres and whips freely among them. Many of the strikers were cut about dreadfully. After the mob was locked up in the barracks a police commission was instituted to try them', the verdict being as follows:—' All the men above the age of nineteen (seventy in number) are to be exiled to the province of Archangle, after receiving sixty lashes apiece; all under that age are to be sent back to the village whence they came, and are to be kept there the remainder of their lives; all the women employed in the mill; and men who did not actively join in the demonstration, are to be discharged! and fined three roubles a head all round.' In a word, the entire working staff of the new cotton millabout 800 hands—is cleared away at the stroke of a pen, and a fresh set of people, to work from five in the morning till eight at night, is to be engaged to take their places."

The thirst for realistic acting in Paris is becoming so great that conscientious actors and actresses are • really afraid to take a part unless they have made themselves practically- acquainted with it by means of personal experience. We dentioned in a note not long ago the case of a famous comedian who spent an hotir or more a day for several weeks'in a coalhole studying^he attitudes and dialect of a representative of Auvergne. Siuoa^hVnj! whole host of artistes from the various /FrenchT theatres have been diverting; themselves in a similar way to acquire the actual habits of the class they are to mimic on the stage. Mdlle. Alphonsine, in preparing for the part of Madeline in a w;ell-known modern comedy, was heroic enough to get up at five every morning and repair to the great market for the purpose of observing a real live dame de laKalle. The adorable Chuumont is said to have learnt riding on purpose, to make with good effect her entry'} dri' horseback., in the second act of '■' Casiniif' the Great ; while Mddle. Ju'dic ii supposed to be _at the present/ time engaged in leaching the harp for a scene in the forthcoming play by M. Gondinet. As for M. Breton, whose personification of Ladislaus Bolski at the Vaudeville has been a subject of so much conversation,' he prepared for it by studying-^not 'Polish, which would, perhaps, have been the better plan, but—the art of hair-dressing. In the matter of drunken scenes, to which we are so everlastingly treated, tew actors have probably taken so much pains as M. Gil-Naya, of the Aubigu, This gentleman, before be undertook to represent a man in delirium tremens, had the courage to become an inmate of the hospital "where such persons are treated* and remained there no less than a fortnight exposed to the influence, or as one may almost say, the infection of the place. Finally, M. Ligier, who had to play the part of an Euglish fool, went over to London and made a stay of six weeks, collecting hints aud patterns. We are not, unfortunately, informed what part of London or of its inhabitants he found most suitable for tlie end he had in view.

A New York telegram announcas the death of Mr It. H. Dana, senior, at the ago of'-ninety-one. He was the son of Mr Francis Dana, United States Minister in Russia, and Chief Justice of Massachusetts. In 1814 Dana became connected with the North American Beriew, then recently established, aud in 1818 he became joint editor of the review with Professor Canning. He was the father of Mr K. H. Dana, tho author of " Two Years before the Mast, and several well-known legal works,' and who was a year or two ago nominated American Minister to England, but the appointment was rejected by the Senate.