GENERAL SUMMARY.

Thames Star, Volume XVI, Issue 5063, 7 April 1885, Page 2

GENERAL SUMMARY.

The United States Senate has made an amendment to the Post Office Appropriation Act, voting 800,000 dollars for the transport of foreign mails, including transport across the Isthmus of Panama, and authorising the Postmaster-General to contract with the lowest responsible bidder for the carriage of said mails, not to exceed fifty cents each nautical mile in the trip each way actually travelled between the terminal points, but providing that such be carried on American ships, and the aggregate of such contracts shall not exceed one-half the sum appropriated by-the amendment. The appropriation was warmly opposed on the ground that it would fall into the hands of a few men owning steamships, and tend to the revival of the old Pacific mail subsidy. Several speakers treated the Bubsidy as certain to fall into the hands of the Pacific Mail Compauy, and said that the company already paid handsome dividends. The appropriation was, however, passed in the Senate by 30 to 18. On sending the bill back to the House, the subsidy appro* priation was disagreed from, and a con* ference appointed. At two meetings with Senate, the latter insisted upon its adoption, and the House finally withdraw its

opposition, and the subsidy was passed. This will be available for subsidising the San Francisco mail service.

On March 7th a strike of 55,000 English minors against the reduction of wa es was threatened.

London society was exercised on March 6th over the suicide of a young Englishman, recently married, who had lost £50,000 by gambling.

The American contractors are furnishing the British Government with pumping engines for the projected pipe Hoe between Suakitn and Berber.

The breach of promise suit of Lady Claude Scott against Captain Spicer, of the Life Guards, was settled for £33,000. The Swedish steamer Norden was run into by the English steamer Cumberland, near Cuxbaven, on February 27th, and sunk. Twenty*one persons on 1 the .Norden perished.

The Gordon National Memorial Fund had reached £10,Q00 on March 3rd. Rothschild and Baring each contributed £2500. The memorial will take the form of a great hospital and sanatorium, to be erected at Port Said, and open to people of all nations.

The ex-Empress Eugenic and -Duke de Bassioo were thrown out of a carriage while riding at Fairborough, and badly injured.

Among the latest items of war news is the vote, on March the sth, by the House of Commons of £35,000 for extra naval expenses in Egypt, and for the construction of ironclads. The supplementary fiscal estimate provides for the increase of 3000 men in the military service, and shows the expenses of the 'Soudan campaign to the March 3rd to be £3,300,000.

Two dynamite cartridges were exploded in a Protestant church in Glenfianen a remote mountain district in Donegal County, on March 3rd, and several square feet of masonry were destroyed. Several more cartridges were found in the vicinity.

A tremendous fight occurred between soldiers "and civilians at Watcrford on March 7th. A detachment; of the Boyal Irish Regiment, numbering 100, who were waiting ,to - embark for Portsmouth en route for India, were allowed by their officers to break rank and enjoy themselves. They did so by getting drunk, insulting all residents, and kissing all the women they met on the streets. Business was suspended, attacked the soldiers, who beat off' the charge with their fists add the buckles of their belts, and many were seriously wounded. A'gang of rowdies took part with the soldiers against the police, and the latter were stoned, kicked, and clubbed until they were forced to take refuge in the Custom-house.

Lord Monteagle is having a serious quarrel with the tenants on his estate near Shanagolden, County of Limerick. The tenants decline to pay rent in future, uuless, considering the hard times, a reasonable abatement be made. Lord Monteagle stubbornly refuses all reduction, and wholesale eviction is the order.

According to a despatch from Borne, March 11, Italy has undertaken the relief of Kassala, and plans for the campaign have been completed. Zebehr Pasha was arrested at Alexandria on March 14tb, and in his house documents were found proving his corn-

plioity with El Mahdi. He was put on board a British frigate, and will be interned on the Island of Cyprus. The Pasha has been under surveillance practically for the last two years. General Gordon was in favor of Zebehr being restored to power in the Soudan. It has now been discovered that he has been in correspondence with the Mahdi both before and since the capture of Khartoum and the killing of Gtn. Gordon. - Several

other prominent Egyptian notables will shortly be arrested. The Times says if Russia withei to. fight, England i« not only ready bat willing, and Russia has only to say the word. The tune of the Russian Pren continues bellicose. " Russia and England," says the Noroe Vremya, of St. Petersburg, March 14, " will soon meet on dry land, and the result will be that the isolated security hitherto enjoyed by the British Empire will be destroyed." The winter in Canada is exceptionally severe; many persons hare been frozen to death. There was great excitement along the borders of Canada on February 26, caused by the published statement that 30,000 Irish revolutionists intended invading the Dominion. Recently O'Donovan Rqsia received a box which he opened with fear and trem* bling, suspecting an infernal machine. It contained a mouse, with a suggestive knot under its left;ear. It is supposed that Mrs Dudley sent it. The strike of the iron moulders in San Francisco, and carpet weavers in Lowell, Mass., has ended in a victory for the operatives. Stockton, California, put a Cnrfew Law into effect on February 26th; a bell warning minors to seek their homes is rang afe ten minutes past nine. -—# A cartridge company at Bridgeport, Connecticut, received on March 6th an order from the British 'Government for. 50,000,000 cartridges, and another from Russia for 100,000,000 more. These are the largest orders ever received by any concern in the United States, and, for that matter, in the world. The Russians have also made proposals for the purchase of ships in New York to be used as transports. . ~. ' Vaenx, March 12. The Turkish authorities in the Arabian prorince<of Hedjaz have seized hundreds of placards distributed by the emissaries of El Mahdi at Jeddah, Tokah, Lith, and other seaport towns opposite Soudan. The placards order the •• faithful" to organise and expel the Turks from Arabia, promising that the Prophet will soon arrive at Jeddah and lead his hosts to Meets, where there will be such displays in the sky as will leave no doubt as to his identity.