Denton and Haughton Examiner, etc. — 1881-01-15 (Denton, Greater Manchester, England)

NOTES OF THE WEEK.  TEA deputation that waited upon the Colonial Secretary to interpose on behalf of the Basutos mere informed that Sir Hercules Robinson, the new Governor of the Cape Colony, had received instructions before leaving this country to do his -best to bring the deplorable war to a speedy termination. Meanwhile it is to be noted that the Cape Government skipped by the last mail steamer from Southampton two Nordenfeldt field mitrailleuses together with 50,000 rounds of solid ease Martini-Henry cartridges. Peace looks a long way off yet.  - Warn it waa announced that the whole of the traversers who are members of Parliament had left Dublin for London to be present at the opening of the new amnion, it most have seemed to most people that the State trial now going on looked very like • farce —not a solemn farce indeed, but rather the reverse, as counsel manage to extract funny things from some of the vntnesses. Even when they were in Ireland the traversers who are members of Parliament did not condescend to attend in the Dublin Court except when it suited their fancy, and now that they are in London they will keep talking in Parliament a• if the State trial did not concern them at all. There is an awkwardness about the arrangements which denudes the proceedings in Dublin of the interest they ought to possess. The continuance of a criminal trial in the absence of the accused is certainly an anomaly and satire upon the Constitution.  TER Government must surely have received 'some secret information with regard to the existence of a Fenian omuipiracy, otherwise the precautions they are taking with respect to the protection of volunteer stores and armaments would seem quite unintelligible. Even the volunteers who keep their arms at home, and such is the ease with most of them, have received instructions to be careful that they do not allow the weapons to be larried away.  IT in announced that Sir Evelyn Wood, V.C., E.C.B. in to leave England in order to assume the emimand of a brigade under Sir George Colley. This will be Sir Evelyn's third visit to South Afriea, the other commons being when he went out with Lord Chesaleford, and when he accompealed the Empress Eugenie last summer to Zululand. It may thus fall to the lot of Sir Evelyn Wood to play a prominent part in the suppression of the There.  Is his two volumes, entitled fancifully "Coral Lands," Mr. Stonehewer Cooper furnishes much interesting information with respect to the islands in the South Pacific, especially the Fiji Islands. His account of the productive power of the soil makes it clear enough that Sir Arthur Gordon did not skraggerate when he calculated that the annual value of the agricultural exports of Fiji would proliably exceed £10,000,000 when the resources of the islands were fully developed. The soil and the ellimate are alike favourable to the production of the cocoa-nut, sugar, cotton, coffee, cocoa, tobacco, tea, and many other articles in common demand.  TRAGICAL events, sad to say, sometimes spring out of New Year festivities. Two shocking cases of the kind, in which murder is alleged, have been reported in connection with the present New Year season—one in Glasgow and the other at Gateshead, Newcastleon-Tyne. In one of the cases a deplorable feature is that two sons have been arrested for the alleged murder of their mother. Over-indulgence in drink leads to quarrels, and quarrels sometimes terminate, as we see, in deplorable deeds of bloodshed