MAIL NEWS.

Inangahua Times, Volume IX, Issue 1381, 31 March 1884, Page 2

MAIL NEWS.

«. — Oscar Wilde is going to be married. He is now lecturing in Ireland, and it is there he first met her. She is a ' Dublin girl — a Miss Lloyd, a niece of the late Serjeant Amstrong, very well . known and very much liked in Ireland. To her other attractions she adds the ! important one of money. The poet I will not be dependent (happily for him and her) on his publishers for his bread and butter. There was at first some fear lest London should lose its lion and society its favourite. A terrible rumour had got about that Mr and Mrs Oscar Wilde were to settle down in Dublin. Happily this danger is averted — we keep Oscar. A tailor, named Campbell, living at Bellshill, North Briton, has just received news of a very gratifying character. He has had left him out in j Queensland an estate of 1000 acres, with all the improvement and buildings on the property, and stock, which it is uuderstood, includes 600 head of cattle and 80 horses This is one of those surprises which emigrants mostly give to friends at Home when it occurs that they have " won Dame Fortune's golden smile." Campbell's brother went out to Australia 20 years ago, and nothing was heard of him till recently, when the news of the death came, and with it the above intimation. The property, it is said, is worth from £8;>00 to £10,000. Herr Mathias Strieker, the head of an ironmongry firm in Vienna, committed suicide under very distressing circumstances. He had broken both his arms in a fall, and, in spite of the best medical advice, was suffering from a violent convnlside movement of the upper limbs, which caused him hours of agonising pain. A further trial came. He lost his devoted wife and son ; and when, within the last few days, his daughter fell dangerously ill, despair seized him. He shut himself up in a room, and cut his throat with a razor. From Odessa it is reported that seven girls, employed at a sugar factory in Balta, left that town one ; night a few days ago, but becoming belated on the way, they resolved to pass the night in the fields, and proceed at daybreak. They stopped near a haystack in the field adjoining the highway, and placed their united week's earnings in the hands of one of their

number for greater safety. When, however, the unfortunate girls wore all asleep, a number of young men attacked them, with tho exception of the girl who had secreted tho money in her dress, she having taken tho precaution to cover herself with hay. The ; miscreants, finding no money on tho I persons of the other six girls, rnur--1 dered them in cold blood. They then fired the stack, and in the conflagration and smoke the surviving and terrified girl effected her escape and reached thevillage in safety. An alarna being ' given, the murderous band were all arrested. The survivor recognised the , murderers, who were all employed in | the same factory as their victims. i The excution of Weeler, the strang- ! ler, has tended to purify the moral > atmosphere somewhat; but there . remain a score of condemned m urderers in our county gaol who would be the better for hanging. Wheeler, when he found he could not cheat the gallows, sent for clergymen of all religious ■ persuasions, that he might decide in what faith he should die. He chose, the Catholic religion, was baptised, confessed, and received the sacrament. He had been brought up a Quaker. Within 14 hours of the death a middleaged female, owning some property in this city, who had been attentive to Weeler during his imprisonment, wanted to get married to him, and was very persistent indeed about it, but the Sheriff would not tolerate it. Wheeler thought that by so marrying, sympathy for his wife would be so strong as to produce, a reprieve and ultimate pardon. The great work of constructing the Panama canal is being pushed with much energy. More then ten thousand men, thirty steam excavatoi's, forty i locomotives, and eight hundred tip i cars are employed, and the force will , soon be augmented to 15,000 men. i The total length of tho canal is 4fi s miles. Meantime Captain Eads is actually at work on his ship railway across the isthmus, much further to the north, and it begins to be i quesi tion which will first afford a highway for shipping between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and thus furnish a competitor to the transcontinental railways The French journals are tearing" Queen Victoria's book to pieces. One audacious writer, remarking on the prominence of John Brown therein, declai-es that " Her Majesty takes her second widowhood to heart as much as her first." The hook had been subjected to careful revision but deals with Beaconsfield's career and character in such a way that it must necessarily raise much controversy. A report is current in New York to' the effect that the Prince of Wales has sent an agent over to make, large purchases of lnnd near Kansas city. It is said that his Eoyal Highness already owns 250,000 acres in this locality. On November 27th, a match factory in Prussia, owing to a new set- o£* improved machinery, turned out 1,000,. 000 hoxes of matches, the huge loesot' wood going in at one end and coming out at the other in an endless row of well-packed boxes. In Berlin a society has just been promoted to protect society from the Christmas card nuisance. > The members pledge themselves to send no complimentary cards, and to put away a sum of money equal to that which they would have expended on the stationery. This is given to the poor in an unostentatious way. Skinny Men. — "Wells' Health Renewer, " restores health and vigor cures Dyspesia, 1.-npotence, Debility. Moses, Moss & Co., Sydney, General Agents.