GENERAL SUMMARY

Thames Star, Volume XV, Issue 4804, 2 June 1884, Page 2

GENERAL SUMMARY

• The Pope has issued an encyclical letter against Freemasonry, alleging that Freemasons are blind instruments for obscure ends in the hands of their chiefs, and that when their interests require it they do not even shrink from crime. The damage caused in Colchester by the earthquake on April 22 is considerable. It is estimated to be not less than £10,000. The spire by the Lion Walk, Congregational Church, 150 feet high, was brought to the ground. Scarcely a house that is not injured by a falling chimney. At Langenhoe, ten miles from Colchester, every farm house is damaged ; the church —an ancient structure of stone —is shattered.

Rusdeu, in his new history of Australia, advocates the creation of an hereditary order of nobility in the Colonies. Sir Henry Parkes, in a paper in the nineteenth century, favors the same idea.

A New York World's cable from London, May Bth, says:—The Grand Duke Louis IV., of Hesse, whose reported morganatic marriage has been the subject of so much gossip, lias suddenly ttiade his appearance in England without his bride, and was a guest of the Queen at Windsor Castle at the date of the -despatch■-;' the Queen settled £20,000 on the bride of young Louis of Battenburg, her granddaughter, i

A despatch of the 26th says the Duke of Edinburgh will take the channel and reserve squadrons on a summer's cr.uise! in the Baltic, visiting Riga and Cron-; stadt. The visit is designed to increase the friendship between Russia and England. .:•■',•

The Standard of April 27, discussing the Greeley Belief Expedition, condemns the decision to place the Alert at Lyttelton Island; it believes that the Greeley party, if it reached Cape Sabine in bo.ats, would remain there, and concludes that on -the whole he is probably at 'this moment safe and sound at Lady Franklin Bay, and possibly has even reached TJpernavid. The article comes from a high Arctic authority. . ~--~ - There is a sensation in political circles* caused by the withdrawal of Lord Randolph Churchill from the Conservative Union. It seems that Lord Churchill, after becoming Chairman of the Union, ignored the Marquis of Salisbury's Central Conservative Committee. He claimed that the Council of the Union had the entire control of (he Conservative party, and it had become a caucus. He appointed an Executive Committee, consisting of himself, G-orst, and Sir Henry Drummond Wolff; they, however, adopted resolutions that the Council and Central Committee should work, in harmony. Lord Churchill, looking upon this as a vote of censure, retired from the Association. The correspondence" between Lord Churchill and the Marquis of Salisbury is so acrimonious that a reconciliation is improbable. Gorstand Henry Cecil Bailees have joined Lord Churchill; they propose to form a new party. Bismarck spoke on the Bth in defence of the anti-Socialist Bill. He stated that if the measure should be rejected by Government, he would discuss it with another Parliament, and should this likewise reject the bill, Government would be exonerated from all responsibility, and could regard the further development of the social democracy with a quiet conscience.

Owing to the discovery of a plot at Moscow to assassinate the Czar, the festivities in honor of the coming of age of the Czarowitch will be hold at St. Petersburg. The arrest of persons known to be Nihilists, or suspected of connection with the order, continues without abatement. On the sth May a large number of Artillery officers were arrested on a charge of being connected with the murder of the late Chief of Police, (General Sudeikin. The explanation of these arrests is that Degaerieff, who assassinated General. Sudeikin was himself at one time in'the artillery service. Several more students have been arrested at Moscow, and the first number of a paper published in the University there, the Ches-ki Loornito, has been seized; the Secretary of the Board of Justice, and the mistress of the school for women at St. Petersburg, have also been arrested. : i :

During the trial at St. Petersburg of the Black Bank Nihilists, Dubelz Xi and his daughter, the prisoners stabbed themselves, the father fatally, and the daughter dangerously. The steamship State of Florida, which left New York for Glasgow on April 12th, with about 167 passengers and crew, foundered on the 18th, after collision with the barque Pomona, of Chatham, New Brunswick; both ships went down almost instantly, and out of the steamer's passengers and crew only forty-four; including the stewardess;, escaped in boats, arid out of the barque's crew of fifteen, only the captain and two seamen were saved. The collision occurred at 11.30 p.m., about 12Q miles off the Irish coast, and the night, though moonless, was clear, with the sea as smooth as glass. Nest morning the barque was observed bottom upwards, The survivors, after being tbirty^five hours in the boats without food or water, were rescued by the Norwegian barque Theresa of Christiana, from that port, bound for Quebec on 22nd. Twenty, four of them were transferred aboard the Bhip Louis, from Cardiff for Quebec. It ifl believed that 130. lives were lost. A pagsjeDger named James Bennett says that the papip aboard the doomed steamship was frightful, only four lady passengers were willing to go into the boats, and only

one women, the stewardess, was saved by the exertions of the Chief Engineer, who lost his life in doing so. The captain and crew seemed paralysed; most of the steamship's crew were shipped at Glasgow, and' the scene outside the steamship office there when the news was received is described as heartrending.

Mr Herbert Spencer declines to visit Australia.

The tunnel under the Mersey, to con* nect Birkenbead with Liverpool, will be formally opened on June 15th. The eldest daughter of the present Lord Lytton, aged 13 years, has, finished a story that gives evidence of literary ability. A proposition from Longman's to publish it was declined.

By consent of the Dutch Government, an English force will be sont against Rajah Tanom, of Sumatra, to rescue the crew of the wrecked- British steamer Nisero.

• Lord Ijtowton, Beaconsfield's literary executor, has found no memoirs among his effects; only a mass of partly arranged notes and letters, selections from which will be published in the autumn. It will take two years to prepare a memoir of the deceased Earl.

Mr Gladstone has announced his positive refusal to include a clause enfranchis ing women in the Franchise Bill.

American remittances to Ireland for the purpose of political agitation have fallen off of late, and the police' think the recent ominous notices from' the Invincibles found about Dublin is a trick to stimulate arrests.

Michael Davitt has abandoned politics; he purposes taking up his residence in Australia for the future.

A cable despatch, of April 21st, on the situation of the Mercantile Marine in England, says that the depression amounts almost to a paralysis. The destitution and suffering of the unemployed men is on the increase, and public' subscriptions are being organised at Newcastle-on-Tyne, Liverpool, Shields, and Sunderland for the men.

Portmont. Castle, near Dundee, was burned on April 21st, when many valuable paintings were destroyed. ■ The Bell Tavern, near Old Bailey, London, was burned on the 22nd, when two barmaids perished in ,the fire.

Lord Colin Campbell, .youngest son of the Duke of Argylei from whom his wife recently obtained a decree of divorce, after a private hearing, moved on .April 22nd for a new trial. w,

A number of wire cartridges were found near the Four Courts, Dublin, on April 22nd. The officers of the Court and jurors had received threatening letters ; a notice! was also found in Phoenix Park, near where Lord Cavendish and Mr Burke were assassinated, declaring the InvincU bles impregnable.

The jury in the Srnythe murder case gave a verdict that Elliot, Swords, Byrne, and Fitzpatrick were morally and legally guilty of the murder of Mrs Smythe. The Judge concurred, and sentenced each to 10 years' penal servitude. Swords and Elliot protested their innocence.

A telegram, dated Dublin, April 26th, says that James O'Kelly, M.P., who went to the Soudan as correspondent of the London Daily News after the death of Edmund O'Donovan, has been taken into custody by the Egyptian authorities. Suspicious documents were found in his possession ; among • them were letters from Frenchmen to El Mabdi., . . A canister of gunpowder exploded on April 26th in the area of the barracks in :Ship street, Dublin. The wiudows were shattered, but several officers dining in the rear, directly above, were uninjured. Clockwork was found in the vicinity. No arrests have been made.

Lord Falmouth's racehorses were sold on April 27th. Sir John Willoughby bought the three-year-old Harvester for <£86C0; the three-year old filly Busybody was purchased by Lord Arlington for £8800. The total realised by the sale was £32,228; .JiH.:.

The cavalry barracks in course of erection at Portsmouth suddenly fell on April 28th, and injured thirty convicts engaged on the building.

The Ceylon Coinpany,\of London, failed on May sth, owing to the late Oriental Bank collapse, for £400,000.

At the trial of Invincibles in Dublin, on the sth, the prosecution stated that James Lyons and Patrick Reynolds were the local leaders of that organisation, and Moran deposed that P. J. Sheridan vi3ited Tubbercurry in the garb of a priest, and formed an inner circle.

The English railway companies, owing to the depression in trade, discharged 2500 employes on the 7th, and have reduced the salaries of the clerks 10 per cent.

Ten women were blown' to pieces and two others wounded by an explosion of dynamite at Nobel's factory on the Bth May. Gounod's new oratoria " Tho Redemption," met with a very cordial reception in Paris on its first performance—a most unusual occurrence for that class of music in France. Sr. Saens presided at the organ, and the principal vocalists were Faure, Albani, Rosine Bloch, and Ketten.