General News.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XIII, Issue 1022, 4 May 1869, Page 2

General News.

The guano at the Chinchas Islands is exhausted, and the Guanape Islands are now to be worked. The American House of Representatives has passed a bill allowing women in Government employ the same pay as men. The working men of Liverpool are raising funds for a testimonial to the Premier, and have already subscribed nearly £6OO. The Weekly Register says that considerably over 2000 persons have been received into the Roman Catholic Church during the year 1868. Opium eating has become very general in the State of Maine, United States. This is a result, it is argued, of the prohibitory liquor law. A rchbishop Manning has, it is said, received £SOOO from the Marquis of Bute towards the new Homan Catholic Cathedral at Westminister. On the 14th January, the Great Eastern, lying at Sheerness, commenced shipping the deep-sea portion of the French Atlantic telegraph cable. At that date the total length manufactured amounted to 1,009 nautical miles. It is stated that the command of the big steamer has been given to Captain Halpin, who was the first officer under Captain Sir James Anderson while laying the 1865-66 Anglo-American cable. It is related of the late Archbishop of Canterbury (Dr.Longley) that he once received a severe shock at Somerset House, whither His Grace had gone to execute a deed. “What name?” said the clerk. “ Longley,” answered the prelate. “Go to ” (a place which need not be further described), rejoined the clerk ; and some explanation wa3 necessary before it became evident that the official had no radical hatred of episcopacy, and had only unwittingly aspirated the L of the department (arranged alphabetically) to which he wished to direct Dr. Longley. The Marquis d’Ourcbes, by his will, founded a prize of 20,000 f. for the discovery of a sure and simple means of recognising if death be real or apparent. Dr Carriere, says the Couniere de l’Eure, intends to claim the money for a process which he has employed for 40 years. The system consists in placing the hand, with the fingers closed, before the flame of a lamp or candle. In the living person the members are transparent and of a pinkish colour, showing the capillary circulation and life in full activity; whilst in that of a corpse, on the contrary, all is dull and dark, presenting neither sign of existence nor trace of the blood current. A correspondent, signing himself “ Homo,” writes strongly in condemnation of the proposal to expend a large sum of money in the reception of the Duke of Edinburgh in this Colony. He eoncludes as follows “ I for one say, receive the

Queen’s son as a private gentlemen, as the captain of a man-of-war, and let him see the country in its nakedness —the burnt homesteads of the ruined settlers, where years of toil have been wasted, and many a manly heart crushed and broken. Let him see and inform our mother, as she is called, of the truth : let no flimsy veil be drawn over the unsightly picture.”

The German savants who went to Bombay last year to observe the great eclipse have brought home a poor account of what they saw, the eclipse having been visible only for six seconds. But they tell some curious stories about the natives of India and the state of their education. At a meeting of the Geographical Society, held at Berlin, Dr. Tietjens, who was one of the party of observers, mentioned that during the period of the eclipse the assembled natives paid no attentionto the phenomenon itself, as they were entirely engrossed with watching the tent and the operations of the European magicians. They believed that the whole thing had been got up for the amusement of the Governor, who was present ; and after it was over they addressed a petition to him that he would kindly allow the exhibition to be repeated. Dr. Tietjens also narrated one or two other traits of the natives, from which it would appear that the European schoolmaster has still a large field before him. Somewhare in the neighbourhood of Bombay, some ploughs, which had been imported from England were regarded, not as the instruments, but as the gods of agriculture, and were preserved in a temple as an object of prayer.

A important judgment was given in the Court of Queen’s Bench, on 29th January, by the Lord Chief Justice. Last term Mr Phillips brought an action against ex-Go-vernor Eyre for assault and false imprison* ment sustained during the Jamaica outbreak. Through his counsel, Mr Eyre argued that —a Bill of Indemnity having been passed by the Colonial Legislature to save him and his colleagues from the consequences of whatever illegal acts they had committed —he was liable to no penalty. It was contended, on the other hand, that even if Mr Eyre could not be prosecuted in Jamaica, where the Act of Indemnity had been passed, Mr Phillips had a right to proceed against the aggressor in the courts of England. It was argued, further, that the Act of Indemnity was illegal, since the governor of a colony had no anthority to sanction a legislative measure which was concerned with his own conduct. The Lord Chief Justice has rejected both the plaintiff’s pleas. An Act of Indemnity, passed by a Colonial Legislature, has authority in England ; and the governor of a colony is no more debarred from assenting to a Bill of Indemnity which shelters himself, than the Queen is prevented from assenting to measures which deal with her own rights j and privileges.