Current Affairs

A great national bench show of dogs is to begin at Gilinore's Garden, New York, April 8 and continue three days. ïhere are nearly 1,000 entries, including the most celebrated dogs in the country. The exhibition is under the direction of the Westminster Kennel Club. The following is the public debt statement f or Maren : Increase of debt f or March 9 892,724 Oash in Treasury 120,787,458 Legal tendera outstanding 346,681,016 Fractional currency outstanding . . 15,925,662 United States notes held for redemption of fractional currency 8,458,991 Callea bonds not matured, for which 4per cent bonds have been issued. . 208,447,700 The great breach of promise suit of Mis. Oliver against Simon Oameron of Pennsylvania, which has furnished Washington letter writers with scandal for several weeks, came to an end Wednesday in a verdict for the defendant It is said the ex-Senator will now begin suit against the woman and her accomplices for blackmail. The case will be in the hands of Gen. Ier Astonishing as the statement seems to be, yet Mr. Oliver Garrison, vice president of the Missouri Pacific Railroad, and brother of Commodore C. K. Garrison, stated a few days ago that 12,000 miles of new railroad are to be built next summer in the United States, all to be laid with steel rails, and that 8,000 rails in one year will exhaust the supply. Most of these additional roads will be constructed in the West and Northwest. Postoffice changes in Michigan, during the week ending Mareta 29 : Established - Galt, Missaukee county, Mary Ann Backer, postmistress ; Glen Lord, Berrien county, Monroe N. Lord, postmaster; Lodi, Kalkaska county, Orange A. Kow, Postmaster; Maltón, Delta county, Mrs. Ilenrietta Crawford, postmistress ; Norwich, Missaukee county, Orlando C. Gorthy, postmaster. Discontinued- East Bay, Grand Traverse county. News has just been received that the Haytian war steamer St. Michel, six guns, Commander Nadal, having on board part of the Twenty-seventh Regiment of the line of "Grande Riviere," with Gen. Montpoint, Military Governor of Cape Haytian, on her way f rom Port au Prince tothe last named port, came into collision with the British steamer Bolivar of the "West India and Pacific Steamship Company of Liverpool, near Gonaives, in the bay of the same name. Of the 150 persons on board, of whom oniy iour were civilians, 72 were saved by the boats of the English steamer. Among the lost are Dr. Lahens and Mr. Albert Francois Joseph, brother of the late Minister of Public Instruction.The St.Michel was about 600 tons burthen, and was built in 1875 by Neafle & Levy of Philadelphia, under contract with the Haytian agents. The whole country seems to be afflicted with a mania for walking matches. Some of those in Detroit and Michigan have been mentioned elsewhere. Weston's challenge to Rowell to walk for the belt in London, May 5, has been set aside in favor of the challenge from Ennis given verbally on the track. It was agreed that the match should open Monday, June 16, in a buildingto be selected in London. If only one man covers 450 miles he will take the belt and all the gatemoney ; if two men cover 450 miles the flrst will get two-thirds and the second one-third of the money, with other arKiiiKements In the e vent of luuic than covering the required distance. üe agreement was signed and attested Thursday, and Ennis handed in a draf t on the Union Bank of London for L100 ashisstake. Mr. Atkinson says:"If Rowell is successful he will fix the place of the next match either in New York or in Chicago." Harriman talks of getting ready for June. A letter from Upper Egypt to the London Times, dated Arment February 24, gives a heartrending account of the famine prevailing in that country. In some of the villages the people are past help, sitting nakedlike wild beasts eating roots, and suffering with the endurance of despair. In one tovvn women and children f ought over scraps of bread like wild animáis. The case is believed to be still werse in the inland hamlets, where the villagers are said to be starving like dogs. The Times, in commenting on the letter, says: "This state of affairs is immediately ascribed to last year's inundations and the failure of the flrst wheat erop; but the real cause lies in the permanent helplessness of the fellahs condition. He is so meroilessly taxed that he is forced to live from hand to mouth.andit is impossible for him to make any preparation against the diy of temporary need ; while he is so oppressed with work, and so reduced by insufficient food :is to lose all hope and energy, and all power of physical or moral resistance." lleading, Pa., has had a first-class sensation in a shower of something resembling brimstone. The shower extended over an area of about two hundred miles, including the Counties of Berks, Lehigh, Carbon, Schuylkill and Luzerne, and quantities of the yellow snow could be seen sticking to the stones and bricks along the principal streets, for several days. Many theories were advanced as to what the substance really was. Many persons still claim that it is genuine sulphur, while others aver that ït is the pollen of the pine trees, wafted on the wind f rom the pine forests of the Southern country. Dr. Traill Green, Professor of Chemistry in Lafayette College, Bethelehem, writes as follows in reference to the shower of sulphur : "Those who had never observed it bofore, and had never read a description of it, may be surprised when tliey are informed that the yellow which they saw was made up of the beautiful little plants well known to naturalists, belonging to a great class of the vegetable kmgdom Algce, some of which exceed in length our tallest trees, while others are so small as to be invisible to the naked eye except when collected in masses, as in the case with the nttie plant which came to us in our late snow storm." President Andrew D. White of Cornell University has been nominated by the President and conflrmed by the Senate United States Minister to Germany in place of the late Bayard Taylor. Mr. White will be 47 years old in next November, and is not in rugged health, being predisposed to weakness of the lungs. His father was Horace White, banker and railroad magnate in Syracuse, N. Y.,and his birthplace was in Homer, N. Y. Graduating from Yale College at the head of his class in 1853, at the age of 1.9, he pursued his studies in Berlin University for three years longer. One of his classmates was the present Crown Piïnce, Prince Frederick Charles of Prussia, called by the Prussians the Red Prince. When Gov. Seward was connected with the United States Legation at St. Petersburg. Mr. White was one of the attaches. On returning from üurope, Mr. White was elected to the cliair of history in Michigan University, at Ann Arbor, where he remained until 1862. 111-health compelled him to resign the professorship and to travel in Europe for nearly a year. On returning he was elected tb the New York State Senate for two terms. In 1871 he was commissioned by President Grant to investígate San Domingo. Last year he was appointed Commissioner to the Paris Exposition.