MAIL NEWS.

Thames Star, Volume X, Issue 3190, 10 May 1879, Page 4

MAIL NEWS.

-. A Kieff, correspondent of/the^ St. Petersburg Journal gives the following account of the outbreak among the political prisoners last month. The persons under arrest at Kieff prison resolved some time ago to tunnel under the walls and escape. The scheme was betrayed by one of the cbnsperators. The authorities allowed the prisoners to continue the excavation. When the tunnel was completed, and the prisoners had entered it, one after the other, intending to come up through an opening heybnd the prison precincts, soldiers, previously posted at the opening, shot the escaping prisoners as they came tip. When the bulk of the prisoners, terrified by- the noise of the firing, stopped and remained in the tunnel, soldiers were ; sent in from behind, and the unfortunate -wretches, caught between two fires, were all shot down. The proceeding seemed to give the officials much amusement, and the Director of Kieff Prison was then praised and decorated for having acted with such cleverness and decision." The correspondent adds:— Quite in keeping with this is the statement published by the Russian Chaplain in the Central Prison at Charkoff, in the official Epartial Wedomosti, as diocesan intelligence. He declares that out of 500 prisoners detained at that prison, 200 died within four months." One of the heaviest charges made by the Nihilists against the Russian official administaation was brutal treatment of prisoners, in consequence of which the health of most of them has broken down, many dying and some being driven mad.

I have heard an explanation of the refusal of the Empress of Austria to grace the wedding ceremony at Windsor with her amiable presence. It is certainly not the distance from the Eoyal borough to Eoyal meath. No, this is it, ondit:- — Her Imperial majesty last season, had selected Leicestershire, first amongst: English counties in the annals of hunting, as the scene of her Nimrodian prowess.: On her return journey to Vienna she re-, paired to Windsor to r say farewell .to Queen Victoria. It was a Sunday. The snow was thick upon town and tower, but such little inconveniences are beneath the notice of the illustrious lady ■who faces wind and weather as gallantly as she does the most formidable " bullfinch " to be met with in a 30 miles run. In Eoyal visits it is "the* thing" to announce beforehand the hour of arrival and departure, and the Empress, who had come by the ordinary train, took leave of the Queen and set out in one of the Eoyal carriages to catch the train, which was timed to pass Windsor station within ten minutes of their a^ieux. It was snowing and blowing, and altogether uninviting for even such a short trip as the journey to London; but the Queen, either through forgetfulness or something else, made no offer of prolonging her hospitality-, to''her Imperial sister. So, naturally, things took their course, and the carriage proceeded to station. However, winding down the steep descent' from the castle, one of the horses lost his footing on the slippery road and fell, and before the cortege was again en route, the up train had arrived and departed. The Empress, adhering to the strict etiquette of the Court, nevertheless went straight to the station, and was fain to accept the hospitality of the station-master's parlour, with the accompanying creature comforts indispensable even to a travelling sovereign on a cold afternoon in an English winter. The Empress, they say, still remembers with satisfaction the homely meal and cosy fire at Windsor station; she remembers, also, the fact that the royal carriage was not sent back to invite her to return to the castle, and that no inquiry was made by her royal sister as to how she got over the little contretemps. Hence the very unmistakable refusal to accept the invitation to the coming nuptials from the high- spirited lady now hunting the fox at Summerhill, and taking captive the hearts and freeing the tongues of the "finest peasantry in the World" by the graciousness of her manner and the boldness of her equestrian feats on the " crack " hunter of the " crack " hunting county of Ireland.—London correspondent Baltimore Sun.