NEWS ITEMS BY THE MAIL.

Waikato Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2289, 12 March 1887, Page 2

NEWS ITEMS BY THE MAIL.

The following items were tclegraphod us on the arrival of the Mariposa on Wednesday, and crowded out of last issue :— War preparations by the Great Powers are carried on. France and Germany are moving troops in every direction. The Emperor William is not expected to live two months. Sir Chas. JJilke has been left a fortune by a distant relative of £200,000. A great miners'strike, with rioting, has occurred in Blantyre, Scotland. The riot was only quelled after three days. The British ship Blair Athol foundered on January 20th, in the Black Sea, and 20 persons were drowned. Baron Denman's motion in the House of Lords in favour of woman suffrage, was rejected without discussion. Lord Colin Campbell's library at Edinburgh has been sold by auction,' and realised a small amount. Lord Colin is threatened with bankruptcy, and is unable to meet the costs of the late suit. Heavy rioting occurred at Dublin on July 29. The people of Ardhill an island off the coast of Mayo, had beaten off the sheriffs and police. A number of Alsatians are crossing into French territory to avoide the German conscription. The American Cardinals arriving at Rome were received by Archbishop Cove of Melbourne. A conflict occurred between a force of police, on their way to execute a number of 'evictions, and part of the population of Denglin Kerry. The people barricaded the roads, and in some places built stone walls across them. The police were at first driven away, but they reformed, and attacked the people with batons and clubbed rifles, forcing them to give way. A number of men and women were injured. Latest reports from the Panama Canal are to the effect that it is not being prosecuted with vigour at present, owing to the lack of laborours. The first dredger is 16 miles inland, but the channel will have to be widened to twice its present capacity. The ground is broken from ocean to ocean, and men are working along the entire survey. The heaviest and only cutting of the moment is at Calebra, which is about 11 miles in extent. When finished it will be 367 feet below the surface. This cutting begins nine and a-half miles from Panama, and about one quarter of it is finished.

The night express train which left White River Junction, Vermont, bound for Montreal, met with a terrible accident near Woodstock, on the Central Vermont Railway, on the morning of the 4th February. The cars were filled with passengers from New York and Boston, who were going to attend the Ice Carnival. The rail broke, and the engine, one car. two passenger coaches, and two sleeping cars plunged over the bridge, falling 70 feet on the ice below. Before the engineer could get to the wreck, the cars had caught fire and rapidly burned. Inside 20 minutes all were destroyed. The bridge was 30 or 40ft. above the water. Many of the unfortunate passengers were penned in the debris of the cars, and could not be extricated, and so were burned alive.

Great excitement prevails throughout Chili at the appearance of cholera on it 3 boundaries from the Argentine Republic. Telegraphic news is of an exceedingly alarming character. At the foot of the Cordilleras, ontheothersideand its neighbourhood, forty cases have been reported in one day. They speak of bodies unburied, houses abandoned, children attacked by disease and left to perish on the wayside by their relatives, who were fleeing southward for safety. The plague in Mendoga was equal in horror to anything that came from Marseilles while the cholera was there. The poorer classes were swept away. Victims perished after six hours most fearful sufferings. San Francisco, February 17. Edison, the inventor, is dying of consumption. Great destitution is reported from Newfoundland. Several business houses at St. John's are much einbarrased. Congress passed on February 11th, a bill for 147,000 dolls to indemnify the Chinese sufferers by the late Rock Island riot. A bill giving the United States Government greater control over the railroad system of the country has become law. Heavy snow storms in the Sierras have still further delayed the overland trains carrying portions nf the English mails.