GENERAL SUMMARY.

Thames Star, Volume XVI, Issue 4995, 15 January 1885, Page 2

GENERAL SUMMARY.

Gr. A. Sala will visit America before going to Australia. He will sail from Liverpool for New York the day after Christmas, and lecture in all the principal cities from New York to 'Frisco.

The local government of British Columbia has received intimation thnt its coal harbor has been definitely selected as the terminus of the Canadian Pacific Kailway.

Louise Michel, the notedfCommunist, is reported to be afflicted with softening of the brain.

Cholera re appeared in Aubervillier on the 20th December. Six cases, four of which were fatal, were reported. ConsuNGeneral Cruiser has submitted statistics to the State Department at Washington showing that .Russian wheat is driving American wheat from the markets of Switzerland, Southern Germany, and England, owing to the crops of Rnssia being so plenteous, and also to the reduced cost of transportation.

A delegation of the Woman's Suffrage party called upon Sir John Macdonald, Premier of Canada, and thanked him for incorporating woman suffrage in the pending Canadian Franchise Bill. Mitchell, the English pugilist, has been arrested in New York on a charge of murder. He inflicted such severe injuries on a slogger named Muldoon a year ago in a fight near Yardlegiville, Pa., that the latter died of the injuries. Herbert Slade, the Maori pugilist, is in San Francisco taking part in boxing matches, and allowing himself to be " knocked out " for coin.

The Philadelphia Press of December 15th publishes a story to the effect that a saloon keeper in that city, who claims to have been made a millionaire by the death of an uncle in Cuba, has written to O'Donnovan Rossa, saying that as soon as he receives the money he would give £100,000 for " scientific warfare " against England.

New York experienced the severest cold weather, on the 20th, known in that city for years. The thermometer fell to 20 deg. below Zero. There was intense suffering amongst the poor.

The Japanese Prince, Alexis Sargo, died in Washington, of typhoid fever, on December 10th.

Mr Wilson, inventor of the Wheeler and Wilson sewing machine, was sent to the Hartford Lunatic Asylum on the 10th. Hopes are entertained of his recovery.

Despatches of the 14th ult. state that the rent agitation is coming swiftly to the front in England as a grave issue. Agriculturalists are making a strong demand for a general reduction of farm rents. The Cobden Glib recognises the danger of the agitation, and is working hard to meet it.

The Skye crofters publicely announced on December 7th that they will not pay their rent till the amount is reduced. On the 9th, the officers, who attempted to serve the writs were driven off.

7499 emigrants left the British Isles for the United States during the month of November last.

Several fast steamers were loading at London and Liverpool on December 10th ostensibly for China, but really with hardly a disguised intention of defying the present blockade of Formosa by the French Jeets. The French Government is apprised. ' It was reported on December 7th that smalUpcx was on the increase in London. The hospitals were crowded with patients. In Leicester there was a serious outbreak, caused by members of a anti-Vaccination Society defyiug the law which makes vaccination compulsory.

Miss Fortescue has again become en gaged to Harry Quilter, a bank clerk and musical critic, whom she had jilted for Lord Cairns' son.

A London paper of December 18th suggests, by the way of reprisal for the insult to England in the German White Book, all grants of pensions be withdrawn from families of German extraction, which includes the Queen aud a large number of her relatives, and the millions thus sared to be devoted to the improvement of the British Navy, in view of the prospect that it may become necessary some day to administer a salutary thrashing to Germany.

Earl Morley, Under-Secretary of War, nddressed an audience at Plymouth, on December 14th. He said it would be necessary in 1885 to renew the Coercion Act in Ireland ; and, in regard to Egypt, that England could never allow any other European power to occupy a prominent position in that country.

The United Ireland thinks the Redistribution Bill will lead to the final triumph of the National cause.

There will be a great meeting of Orangemen at Belfast on January sth, on the occasion of the Wycliffe Quincon* tenary, which will be celebrated throughthe North of Ireland.

The third trial of James Ellis Fr< nch, a director in the Detective department of the Royal Irish Constabulary, for scandalo»s offences in connection with the Cornwall case, resulted on December 20th in his conviction, and he was sentenced to two years' imprisonment.