ENGLISH NOTES.

Westport Times, Volume VIII, Issue 1143, 20 January 1874, Page 4

ENGLISH NOTES.

The Times says that the cost of the Ashantee war is not likely to be much less than that of the Abyssinian -nine millions.

A monster " pilgrimage to the historic shrines of Europe " and the " Prisoner of the Vatican" is being organised across the Atlantic.

Sir Richard Wallace has made another gift of 25,000f. to the Public Assistance of Paris, for the purchase of winter clothing for the poor. The municipal authorities at Sheffield have resolved upon a new scheme of street improvements, involving a total expenditure of two millions. The herring-fishing season at Fraserburgh this year is the most successful ever known there. The money value of the take is about a quarter of a million. The funeral of Karl "Welhelm, the composer of" the watch on the Rhine" took place at Schmalkaldn, in Hesse and there was a numerous attendance of all classes, and from all parts of Germany. The unparalleled exodus now going on in Europe almost exceeds belief. Last year the British Isles " exported" the enormous number of 300,000 souls to which must be added at least a similar number from continental ports, making in all not less than 600,000 persons, or fully double the number of the whole population of New Zealand. Out of this vast quantity this colony received about 6,000, or say one per cent, of the whole number that crossed the Atlantic in 1872, and cniefly, if not entirely, at the public expense.