Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 19, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 February 1898 — FOREIGN. [ARTICLE]

FOREIGN.

Britisli troops were calight in a gorge liy Afridis near Skinknmur and suffered serious losses. Twenty men were killed, including a number of officers. . t According to a Nagasaki dispatch to the London Daily Mail, “the far eastern situation is very serious, and it .is believed thut Japan Is actively preparing for war." The Prussian minister of finance, Dr. Miguel, issued a decree which goes into effect immediately prohibiting the importation of every kiud of American fresh fruit. Australian reports tell of n terrible heat wave In which many persons are prostrated and houses set on fire by spontaneous combustion. Thermometers in the shade register 124, and in the sun 100 degrees. Emperor William, it is reported, has pardoned IJerr Trojan, editor of the Kindderndats',h, who was sentenced k few days ago to two months' imprisonment in a fortress for leic mnjestc in cartooning the enipcnr. Great Britain is reported to have been outwitted by Russia in the far East, and has resolved not to force n conflict by opposing Russin's claims at Port Arthur, Russia, it is said, will at ouco send 10,000 troops to CJulna. It is reported thnt the mail steamer Channel Queen hns been totally wrecked off the Island of Guernsey. The owners ot the Channel Queen announced that

out of 65 persons on board of her when she struck 44 are known to have been drowned. Julian Ralph, in a dispatch from St. I Petersburg to the London Telegraph, gives an interview' with a Russian admiral in w hich the latter says Russia will oppose the opening of new ports in China even if she has to fight Great Britain to prevent. He also gives a Russian diplomat as authority for the statement that the proposed British loan to China will be opposed by the czar’s government.