General News.

Thames Star, Volume XI, Issue 3617, 30 July 1880, Page 2

General News.

The London correspondent of the Herald say*:—The set of emigration, for the present at lent, Mfems to.be distinctly away from the Australian and New Zealand colonies. The United States, British North America, are drain* in* away, I am told, about 90 per cent, of the total emigrants at present on the more from Liverpool. , The reason is not far to seek. While Canadian and American agents hare been cracking up without stint the attractions of their territories, Australian and New Zealand agents hare recently seemed chiefly, engaged in warning off certain classes. The jrablio has been told of mass meetings, at Wellington and elsewhere, of the unemployed. The Lincolnshire farmers, for example, in whose behalf two skilled reporters surveyed New Zealand, are said'*o hare slackened in their enthusiasm; At the same time, the concession granted to them of Auckland land is regarded ia Lincolnshire as a sound stroke ofbusinets. In addition to the unfavorable impression created by warning off the liboriif classes it must be added that there are other reasons for the farmers taking t> more favorable rieir of the horn* situation.

* ■* The Liberal Government hare not been able to produce anew climate for them, but it has succeeded in redeeming some of its pledges. It is presently engaged with • Bill which, before the session ends, will gite the farmers complete control of pestilent ground game. Nor is that enough by itself to hinder emigration. Along, howerer, with a better season than we hare had for four years, the passing of the Bill would put farmers in a more hopeful state of mind. Those of them who can hold on will do it, particularly as legislation on a sweeping ■cale with regard to free land may now be anticipated. It must also be added that recent strictures with regard to the immense debt of the colonies have had a damping}effect upon emigrants. Mr Gladstonelately strayed into some indiscreet utterances about Austria, and an adroit newspaper editor of Vienna at once wrote up to enquire at length what Mr Gladstone's real views were. Of course a veteran statesman was too wary to be entrapped into giving a programme of foreign policy, and Mr Gladstone s reply contained littb more than a statement that he had misunderstood, and the advice that his correspondent should read certain articles on foreign policy which were to be found in the writer s collected works. This, however, was jaot only sufficient for editorial purposes, but seems to have fired a rival journalist with the] spirit of emulation, and Mr Gladstone j presently-received a second letter demanding a new communication to another Vienna newspaper. An English newspaper of a late date writes:—" The Swedish steamer Trafik, sailing from Stockholm to Rochester, has metwith a strange adventure. The Trafik was forcing slowly across the lonely North Sea when the look-out man reported a) ship's boat in the distance. Word was quickly passed among the crew as the vessel gradually beat up to the solitary speck, which when first seen wa§ floating on the edge of the horizon. As the distance between the Trafik and the tiny unknown craft decreased it.was aeen that three men were in it. They were hailed, but no.answer came back to 1 'the anxious watchers crowded to the bows Of the Norse ship. In a few momenta iheTrafik's boats were manned, and trilling hands were pulling lustily to " the help of. the strangers; but when the Swedes approached they found that death had stopped to hail the castaways before them. There is something intensely pathetic in this story ef the sea, for the bodies thus discovered had for so long been floating about at the mercy of wind and wave that the features of .the dead were quite decomposed, and the ■ captain of the Trafik had to order their immediate burial. Even Victor Hugo, in i lome new Toilers of the Sea, might find it difficult to picture the hungry days and bitterly cold nights which the Iwpless three endured as they sat waiting for a deliverance which was never to be theirs"' '•■/■-•■':/■' ■. ' \. ; :

There is in use at Melbourne a telescope that magnifies 8000. It is so powerfoV that a newspaper reporter can »ut his salary under it on Saturday night and imagine that he is about a twenty millionaire going out to Vanderbilt a railrotd.