Page:The Annual Register 1899.djvu/475

 1899.] CHEONICLE. 51

16. An American force in the Philippines attacked and routed a force of 2,500 insurgents entrenched near Angeles, and then occupied the town.

— A treaty concluded between Brazil, Argentina and Chili, agreeing to refer all international difficulties to arbitration, and also providing for a reduction of the naval and military expenditure of the three republics.

— The severest storm on record destroyed a vast amount of pro- perty in Valparaiso, Santiago, and the south. On the same day a violent cyclone burst over Monte Video, doing much damage.

17. In the Prussian Diet the second reading of the Rhine-Elbe Canal produced three successive defeats of the Government by the Con- servatives and Clericals.

— The German Emperor was present at the unveiling of a monu- ment to the First Regiment of Prussian Guards at St. Privat (where in the words of the old Emperor "it had found its grave"). In his speech Emperor William II. said that the monument commemorated the brave soldiers — French as well as Germans — who had died for their respective countries.

— The Wellman Arctic expedition arrived at Tromio from Franz; Josef Land, having reached 82° parallel of north latitude. Their progress over the ice, commenced in February, was finally stopped by an earth- quake which occurred in the middle of March, killing a number of dogs,. and destroying their sledges.

18. A colliery explosion at Llest coalpit, Pontyrhyl, near Bridgend,, occasioned the death from afterdamp of twenty-one miners and seriously injured five others.

- Sir T. Lipton's yacht Shamrock, the challenger of the American Cup, reached Sandy Hook, New York (fourteen days from Southampton ) r in company with the steam-yacht Erin, by which she had been occasion- ally taken in tow.

— At Aarhuus, Jutland, a fire, originating in a timber-yard, spread through the town, destroying upwards of twenty large buildings besides smaller houses.

— The Delagoa Bay authorities, acting on instructions from Lisbon, prohibited the landing and transit of munitions of war consigned to the Transvaal Government.

19. Stonehenge, with 1,300 acres surrounding it, offered to the Government by the owner, Sir E. Antrobus, for 125,0001.

— The Prussian Diet, by 235 to 147 votes, rejected the Rhine-Elbe Canal Bill, notwithstanding the warnings of the Prussian Prime Minister and Imperial Chancellor Prince Hohenlohe.

20. Serious rioting took place in the Belleville quarter of Paris, where the anarchists wrecked a church and did other damage. A collision with the police led to nearly three hundred persons being injured, but order was at length restored. (^ r\r\n\t>

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