The Press.
London, England, 1858-10-09 00:00:00

Obituarg.

BARON WARD, the famed Yorkshire groom, who
played so prominent a part at the Court of Parma,
died on Wednesday night at Vienna. The history
of this extraordinary man is full of remarkable
events. He left Yorkshire as a boy in the pay of
Prince Lichtenstein of Hungary, and after a four years'
successful career on the turf et Vienna as jockey he
became employed by the then reigning Duke of
Lucca. He was at Lucca promoted from the stable
to be valet to his Royal Highness. This service he
performed up to 184. About that period he was
made Master of the Horse to the Ducal Court.
Eventually he became Minister of the Household
and Minister of Finance, which office he held when
the Duke abdicated in 1848. At this period he be-
came an active agent of Austria during the revolu-
tion. As Austria triumphed he returned to Parma
as Prime Minister, and negotiated the abdication of
Charles 11., and place:l the youthful Charles 111. on
the throne; who, it will be remembered, was assassi-
nated before his own palace in 1854. As soon as
Charles 111. came to the throne the then Baron
Ward was sent to Germany by his patron as Minis-
ter Plenipotentiary to represent Parma at the Court
of Vienna. This post he held up to the time of his
royal patron's tragical end. When the present
Duchess Regent assumed State authority, Ward re-
tired from public lite, and took to agricultural pur-
suits in the Austrian dominions. Without any edu-
cational foundation he contrived to write and speak
German, French, and Italian, and conducted the
affairs of State with considerable cleverness, if not
with remarkable straightforwardness. Baton Ward
was married to a humble person of Vienna, and has
left four children. Perhaps no man of modern
times passed a more varied and romantic life than
Wald, the groom, statesman, and friend of sove-
reigns. From the stable be rose to the highest
offices of a little kingdom, at a period of great
European political interest, and died in retirement,
pursuing the rustic occupation of a farmer, carrying
with him to the grave many curious arcana imperii.

979

THE MINES IN THE UNITED KINGDOM produced in

,856 66,445,450 tons of coal, valued at the pit's month

at 16,663,8621.; 24,257 tons of fine copper, valued at
2,983,6111.; 3,586,377 tons of pig iron, valued at
13,345,508/. ; 73,120 tons of metallic lead, valued at
1,755,0961.; 6,177 tons of white tin, valued at

821,54. I/. ; and 614,180 ounces of silver from lead,
valued at 153,4701. In 1857, 10,444 colliers arrived
in the port of London, and the total quantities of
coal brought to London both by sea and by land
amounted to 4,368,708 tons.
THE GREAT CHESS MATCH between Mr. Morpby
and M. Harrwitz has been suddenly brought to a
doge, in consequence of the latter gentleman being
constrained by ill health to decline going further.
The state of the games at the close was—Mr.
Morphy. five, M. Harrwitz two, and one draw. The

terms of the match were that the winner of the first

seven games should be the victor.
THE STATE UF THE ATLANTIC CABLE has been
reported on by Mr. Henley, the electrical engineer,
who states that the results of his experiments lead

him to the conclusion that the cable has been
seriously injured about 300 miles from Valentia.
He expresses an opinion that the fault existed in the
cable before it was submerged, and that it should
have been tested in water during its manufacture.
He has put his large magnetic machine in operation,
with a view to transmit massages to Newfoundland,
but he will not know whether they have been received
until intelligence comes from the colony by the or-
dinary route. He does not believe that the defect
will be found near the shore, but he recommends
that fifteen miles of the cable should be taken up
and tested. Any attempt to raise the cable in the
deep soundings would, in his judgment, cause its de-
struction. Finally, Mr. Henley does not despair of
making the cable workable, provided that it does not
get worse. Altogether the report may be regarded as
encouraging rather than otherwise.
STATISTICS OF SUP-IDE, from which we coiled the
following, are furnished in the able report of the
Registrar-General, just published. In the five years,
185'2.56, 5,415 persons put a period to their earthly
career by self-destruction—viz., 3,886 males and 1,529
females. The annual average of mate suicides is
777.2, and that of females 3058. The general
average shows that upwards of 1,000 persons put an
end to their sufferings by committing suicide in
every year of grace. The lowest, number of suicides
was 1,031 in 1853, and the highest 1,182 in 1856.
Poisoning being the easiest is a common but by no
means a general means of self-destruction. The
favourite poisons are arsenic, opium, laudanum,
prussic acid, the most rapid in its action, and essential
oil of bitter almonds. It is a remarkable fact that
female suicides manifest a strange predilection for
the very painful irritant poison called oxalic acid.
As many as thirty-four were so foolish as to choose
this compound of oxygen and carbon, while only
fifteen males resorted to it. On the other hand
sixty-seven men resorted to hydrocyanic acid and
thirty-three to the oil of bitter almonds, while only
eight women had resolution to swallow the former
fatal poison and eighteen the latter. Strychnia was
use 1 by one man and one woman, and in one case
camphor was used. But hanging is by far the most
general mode of suicide, for nearly half the annual
average of suicides terminate their miserable lives by
suspension. Cut throats and drowning stand next in
the order of frequency; B.loths of all the suicides
are committed in one of these three ways. Asphyxia
proper, or suffocation by the fumes of charcoal, is by
no means a favourite mode of suicide here, as in
France. The greatest number of suicides occur
between the ages of thirty-five and forty -five. Thirty-
three persons of both sexes committed suicide at ten
years of age, and fourteen persons of both sexes at
the sge of eighty-five.
THE COPYRIGHT CONGRESS AT BRUSSELS, OD the
question of international copyright, has concluded its
sittings, and the results may be thus briefly stated :-
1. International admission of the right of literary
and artistic copyright, with or without reciprocity.
2. The establishment of a uniform law, that protec-
tion to the produce of intellect may be universal.
3. Complete equality between native and foreign
authors. 4. A simplification of the formalities re
quired for an author to publish his work in a foreign
country. That is to say, that the fact of his having
complied with the requirements in his own country
shall be sufficient. 5. Dramatic works and musical
compositions to be placed on the same footing as
literary works, as regards copyright. 6. An author's
or compositor's right over the representation or per-
formance of his works. 7. Works of design, painting,
sculpture, architecture, and engraving to be placed on
the same footing as regards copyright as works of
literature. 8. Au abolition or, at least, a reduction
of Customs dues on all works of genius. The prin-
ciple of perpetuity in literary anti artistic copyright
was rejected by a large majority. The King and the
Duke of Brabant attended the third sitting of the
Congress, and appeared to take • great interest in
the proceedings.