Connecticut western news., 1880-02-11
NEWSOF THEDAY.
GENERAL ITEMS,

French missionaries in Mosul give painful account of the ravages of famine in Mesopotamia and Kurdistan, where Christians, Jews and Mahomet- ans are all suffering.
 A Chinese wash house was destroyed by fire in San Francisco The number of it's occupants is not known, but the bodies of ten Chinsmen bave been re- covered from the ruins.
 A negro cabin on the plantation of Capt. Wm. Stack, thirteen miles north of Columbia, was burned. Two men, @ woman and six children perished ln the flames.
 -Adolph E. Borie, ex.Secretary of the Navy, died Thursday morning at Philadelphia. He had been in ill-health for long time and his death is attribu- ted by the physicians to general break ing down of the system.
 In the Pennsylvania Republican Convention Wednesday the Cameron programme instructlng the delegates to Chicago to vote for Grant and to vote as unit was carried out. An amend ment to strike out Grant and insert Blaine in the resolution was lost by vote of 95 to 154. The resolution in favor of Grant was carried only by a vote of 133 to 113.
 The schooner Kate Newman was sunk on Tuesday off Long Branch in a collision with the schooner Stephen Harding, which afterwards went ashore. All but. one of the formers crew were drowned. A number of bodies and oth- CT indications of wrccks have foated ashore on the New Jersey coast.
 -SSamuel A. Holbrook has filed bis bond as Treasurer of Maine and &C., cepted the office. Governor Davis has issued his message.
 The National debt was reduced dur ing the month of January $I1, ,014,- 263 95.
 At Lucan, Ontario, there have been number of inoendiary fires. A mob of 30 or 40 neighbors disguised went to the house of James Donnelly, killed him, his wife and three children, and burned the cabin ill which they lived.
 By a railway collision at Argenteuil, in the Department of Seine. et- Disc, France, seven persons were killed and twenty-five persons seriously injured.
 The House Banking and Currency Committee has authorized Representa- tive Davis to report favorably on Rep- resentative O'Connor's bill authorizing National banks to make loans upon the mortgage of real estate to the amount of one efourth of their capital and sur plus.
 The new witness in the Billings murder case is George W. Frazer. He has told the District Attorney of Saratoga County, N. Y., that on the night of the murder of Mrs. Billings he was passing the house, and at the time of the firing of the shot saw Billings run toward the well in which the gun was afterward found. He sffirms that Billings fur nished him with money, and bribed him to go away. He has been in Vermont, is mason by trade, but has not very good reputation.
 A billiard tournament has been ar ranged to take place at St. Louis on the 21st, 22d and 23d of Feb. The partici- pants will be Messrs. Sexton, Schaefer, Daly and Gallagher. The first prize will be a billiard table and $250 in money, the second $50 and the third $1OO.
 -Tuesday's storm was generally dis astrous both on land and sea. Trains were delayed on nearly all the Eastern roads and the reports of wrecks along the sea-coast though numerous were in but few cases accompanied by loss of life. Four vessels went ashore on the New Jersey Coast yesterday. Their crews were rescued with the aid of the mortar and the brooches buoy. The captain of one of them shot himself as the vessel struck. Much damage and annoyance ashore caused by the gale and snow storm aIeTeported.
 The Lordon Times dispatch from Candahar, Afghanistan, says |: "Terri- ble accounts reach here from without the British lines. It is reported that nearly 2.000 families have been exter- minated by the Ghilzars, and that seven of the villages of the latter were after ward captured by the Hazaras and every soul in them slain."
 An official telegram announces the recent occurrence of terrible hurricane at the Philippine Islands which caused great damage both on the islands and to shipping. Several merchant ships and Spanish gunboat were wrecked. The latter is reported to have been 8 total loss with all her crew.
 During the year 1879 there were no less than forty nine ocean steamships lost. In addition to these, the, follow ing vessels bound to or from the United States were also reported as lost 45 ships, 146 barks, 4S brigs and 277 schooners, involving total money loss of nearly $15,000,00O. The loss, as compared with the previous six years, of vessels sailing to or from the United States, is as follows 1878, 536 vessels, &9 462, eco; 1877, 496 vessels, SIC, ,037, 700; 1876, 449 vessels, $7, ,s90, ,000; 1875, 573 vessels. $7, 7,6l2, GOO; 1874. 351 yes. sells, S8 786, ,000; 1878, 459 vessels $11, ,7s3 ,0OO.
 Tn New York city, the Rev. Edward Cowley of the late " Shepherds Fold, was arrested and locked up in the Tombt on trial.
 The Gibraltar Guardian says the Moors at Fez, Morocco, have attacked the Jews, wounding several. They GOV cred an old man, over seventy years O. age, with petroleum and burned hin alive amid shouts of joy. Two of the wounded Jews are French subjects,
 A rich land owner near Barcelona Spain, his wife, three daughters, a sol ma two women servants have all beer murdered in their beds. The deed wa apparently done with a hatchet. Th house was ransacked. A swineherde and his two sons have been arrested charged with the crime.
 --AtJersey city, Jennie R. Smith an, Covert D. Bennett were acquitted 0 the murder of the formers husband The jury were unanimous for acquitta from the start. Mrs. Smith ha promised her friends to have nothin whatever to do with Bennett hereafter.
 In Maine, MT. P.\A. Sawyer, tn Fusionist Secretary of State, who ha established an office and retained DOS session of valuable State papers, has a last yielded, and, nnder protest. give,