"SWEEPS."

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 2, Issue 366, 17 January 1880, Page 2

"SWEEPS."

Considering the prevalence of monster sweeps, sham art unions and other forms of lottery speculations, an opinion just issued from the office of the Assistant Attorney-General for the Post Office Department of the United States, will be read with interest. Its purport, says the New York Tribune, is that according to the provisions of the statutes letters addressed to lottery companies, or to individuals as agents of such companies, are unmailable per se, and that the postmasters must refuse to register such letters. There are said to be at least one hundred lottery schemes, &c t which hereafter will be cut off from the use of fhe post office. They can neither send circulars, nor can letters be sent by mail addressed to them. It will now be held that the fact that the letter is addressed "> ti lottery must be taken as furnishing sufficient evidence that it is a letter contiiMngii lottery, and is, therefore, unmailable. The ingenuity of the lottery men is boundless, and so is the cupidity of their customers;, but, at any rate, the Government, so far as possible, will not be made a go .between in this business.

Ihere are increasing indications that a general election must shortly take place in England. Messrs Shaw, Saville, and Oo.'sship Zealandia \\r <niled for London with a cargo value ri 671,392. It is officially known that Bismarck has warned Russia that Germany would not tolerate a Franco-Russian alliance. It is rumored that the Southeastern Railway Company intend to constructs new line from Folkstone to Dover; and abandon that at present running through 1 the warren. The greater portion of the new route will be by tunnel. A man named George Sands was apprehended jn Glagow, on Monday, on a charge of having murdered an under-gamekeeper, in the employment of the trustees of the late Sir William Stirling-Maxwell, at Dunblane, on the 2nd or 3rd of last month. It is possible that within five years Beaconsfield, Gladstone, Bismark, Emperor William, Gortschakoff, and Emperor Alexander will have passed away All are in failing health, and all, except Bismark and Alexander, over seventy years of age.-Philadelphia Ledger. '

The Rev Berry Little, a preacher of the Primitive Baptist persuasion, lives and labours in Jasper country, Ga. Though seventy-one years old, he has the care of five churches. Having preached all day Sunday,he goes into the woods on week days and splits rails for a living. The Indian troopship Mrlabar arrived at Portsmouth on Saturday,, with drafts, of the time-expired men and .invalids. During Saturday a very severe frost set in, and its effect was much felt by those just return from a long sojourn in India. The Bavarian papers report a typhus fever epidemic at Rudenschwinden, in the Rhone, where, of 200 inhabitants, 68 on the 26th of last month were attacked by the disease. Insufficient nourishment' and clothing are believed to be the cauße of the outbreak, ' . ." ■■:■ Two engines, coupled together, whilst proceeding from the South-Eaatern engine' depot at Deptford' Station, about eight on Monday morning,' got off the rails', blocking the'do'wn lineV.frdnrDept; forn to Greenwich. ,l " Tlie 'traffic was* not seriouily interferred with, "'"••""