General News.

Thames Star, Volume XVII, Issue 5192, 7 September 1885, Page 3

General News.

A leading Edinburgh writer informed Truth a few weeks ago that he expected that in the coming autumn nearly every castle and mansion will be shut up in Scotland. The moors may let well, but the agricultural depression in the north is to great that the lairds cannot get their rent* as formerly. Fat Scotch cattle are being sold by farmers at about fourpence and fivepence the pound; while the botchers do not hesitate to retail it at tenpence to one shilling and fourteen pence a pound. What, says the writer, is wanted in Scotland is an Encumbered Estates Act. At a recent meeting of the Scottish Land League, it was announced that Henry George received §2C06 as an honorarium for his recent course of lectures in Scotland on land reform. Two strangers have been arrested lately in France for making surveys of military positions in the neighborhood of Lille. The strangers had a plan, believed to be that of one of the Lille forts, and a German chart of the French northern frontier. One described himself as a Belgian, while the other admitted that he was a German. They were assumed to be German spies. A minister in Cleveland rode to church one Sabbath on a bicycle. As he swept tip to the sacred edifice a Newfoundland dog, belonging to the senior deacon, came lumbering out to meet the pastor. The bicycle struck the canine head under a full head of steam, and ran him down j with a shock that could plainly be felt i with the naked eye. The " reverend " j took a header and jimmed his high silk hat down over his ears so tight thet he had to crawl through to get out of it. The scattered leaves of a seven-head sermon flew around the avenue like a theological snowstorm. The dog made J Borne howl with his wails, and attracted a crowd of 300 people. The parson's coat was split down the back, and bis trousers ripped across the knees. He pinned np the knees, and had to wear a pepper andsait sac coat the sexton loaned him. When he appeared in the pulpit in this garb the congregation smiled, and when he announced his text—2 Kings, xii., 6v.," But it is so * * * the priest had not repaired the breeches "—tbere wasn't a dry eye in the conventicle. Hartmann, the Nihilist, states that out of 3000 men and women personally known to himself among the many thousands who were enrolled in the ranks of the Russian conspirators, between 1876 and 1878, .nearly all have been killed or sentenced to hard labor in the mines of Siberia. He knows of only two men who are still at large. Speaking of the hopes and plans of the Nihilists, he says : "They will not loose anything through a war with England or any other power. In the first place, a war will overthrow the financial credit of; the Bussian Government, and it would be-, come bankrupt. There would be universal; discontent, and absolutism would be overthrown, not simply by a small class but by the people themselves. That is why it j would be silly to kill the Czar at present. He will kill himself." According to the same person who professes to be well in* formed as to what is going on in St. Petersburg, and is in correspondence with the Nihilist officers in the army, one of the reasons which baa been urging the Russian Government towards a war in Asia is to enable it to get rid of some troublesome regiments—those whose officers are known to hold, or are suspected of entertaining, subversive opinions, and are therefore viewed with distrust, if not with apprehension, as likely under certain circum* ttances, to take the lead in a military revolution. The Madras Mail writes that a few days ago a gentleman residing in Fondicherry discovered, on arising in the early morn" ing, a dead cobra under the cot upon which he bad been sleeping, and his dog lying by its side, apparently in the last agonies of death; the snake measured five feet nine inches. The dog was a country bred half-bull, and a great pet, but not at all ferocious. On examination it was found to have been bitten severely in three different places. Every effort was used, by Europeans and natives supposed to be skilled in such matters, to save the faith* ful creature's life, but no signs of recovery appeared, until an itinerant " snake, charmer" turned np and undertook to cure the dog for Es. 10, which he did in tbe course of a few hours. Four days after the affair happened the dog was perfectly well, and apparently none the worse for his fight with the cobra.