The Birkenhead News and Wirral General Advertiser. — 1885-06-06 (Birkenhead, Merseyside, England)

PUBLISHED EVERY WIDE-ROUT ADD SATURDAY.  SATURDAY, JUICE 6, 1885.  It is the intention of Government to shortly disembody several of the militia battalions recently called up and now serving at Chatham, Porthsmouth, and other garrison towns. This is a clear indication of there being now but a small probability of England becoming embroiled in war with Russia. The Tories, assisted by an influential section of the Loudon press, did their best to convince the Czar that our military position was wofully weak, that Mr. Gladstone's high-sounding phrases meant nothing, and that under no circumstances would the Government be induced to unsheathe the sword. Therefore, it has been in spite of them, not through them, that peace has been preserved and the Afghan difficulty settled in a manner on the whole fairly satisfactory to this country. _  Mr. Edmund Yates was entertained at the Criterion, London, on Saturday, at dinner by about two hundred friends to welcome his return to the sphere of his literary labours after an enforced absence in what he himself termed "northern latitudes," and his subsequent visit to France. Lord Brabourne presided. Lord Houghton, Lord Greville, many members of Parliament, and others were present. The Chairman said Mr. Yates had led a manly, brave, and upright life, and had done what he could to knit closer the bonds which united us to our Transatlantic brethren. Mr. Yates, in responding, said he regarded all the circumstances of his visit to "northern latitudes" as a series of regrettable incidents. Thus, it is obvious that Mr. Yates's incarceration has done him no harm and that the virulent terms in which his outrageous punishment was emphasised by the Lord Chief Justice, whose objections to " Society " journalism are easily understandable, find but a feeble echo among those who may fairly be regarded as the true leaders and founders lof intelligent public opinion. If he had been fined for the libel on Lord Lonsdale, which was a bad one, nobody would have grumbled. But when he was sent to Holloway Gaol he became a martyr, and an aversion was created towards the law nnder which he was so wrongfully punished.  The following are the Exchequer returns from April to May 31st :1885. 1884. Receipts £14,743,696 .. £14,058,540 Expenditure 14,222,859 .. 11,108,012 Balance  Aberystwith was, on Friday night, the scene of a terrible murder, in which the victim was the wife of a man named Price, who is a sergeant in the militia, and had just completed his annual period of training. He and his wife quarrelled about the custody of a child, and in the course of the evening there was so much fear of violence that the police paid two or three visits to the house. There was, however, no need for their further interference,and matters remained unchanged until about half-past eleven at night, when the report of firearms was heard, and on the neighbours rushing to see what had happened they were confronted by Price, who placed a pistol to his throat and fired, wounding himself in the neck. He was at once seized, and then it was found that his wife had been shot dead. He has since been committed by the magistrates to stand his trial on the capital charge. He declared to the bench that his wife aggravated him to such an extent that he did not know what he did, and that he remembered nothing of what happened.