GENERAL NEWS.

Gen. Butler is now out of office.

A verdict of not guilty was rendered in the Emma Bond case.

St. Petersburg, Russia, is in a panic over recent acts of the Nihilists.

Two wolves have lately been killed in the vicinity of Douglas Park, Chicago.

Another effort is soon to be made in Congress to reinstate Fitz John Porter.

Brokers in Dubuque have offered $330,000 cash for the B.F. Allen Homestead.

At Winnipeg on Thursday of last week the mercury was 45 degrees below zero.

Albert E. Kent, of San Francisco, gives $25,000 for a chemical laboratory at Yale College.

Judge McCrary, of the Supreme Court, has resigned, and accepted a position as a railway attorney.

The Government of China has ordered the construction of two more torpedo boats at the German port of Stettin.

St. Louis had many fires last week. There were nine outbreaks within forty-eight hours. The firemen were completely worn out.

There were 319 failures in the United States last week—the largest number yet recorded within the same number of days.

There was strong talk at Hillsboro of lynching the discharged prisoners in the Emma Bond case, but better counsel prevailed.

Governor Stoneman presided at a meeting in San Francisco, where arrangements were made to hold a world's exposition in 1887.

The mercury at Charleston, S.C., was 13 degrees below zero January 4th. Through New England the weather was extremely cold.

Mary, the seventeenth wife of the late Brigham Young, died at Salt Lake City Saturday from blood poisoning. She has fourteen survivors.

A pie made of tainted meat caused the poisoning of sixteen boarders and three Sisters at a convent in Montreal. Two of the former are dangerously ill.

It is announced from Paris that the French government is intending to sell the railways owned by the Republic. The Rothschilds stand ready to purchase them.

By a railroad accident near Fort Dodge, on Wednesday last, three persons were killed and several wounded. Among the killed was Mrs. J.H. South, of Bureau Co., Ills.

Mrs. Holcomb, daughter of the murdered millionaire Crouch, of Michigan, has committed suicide. There is some suspicion that she knew something about the murder.

A nihilist proclamation has been issued threatening the Czar. There is much anxiety at Gatschina palace. It is now said the Czar's injury in the shoulder the other day was caused by a bullet.

The United States Consul General at Cairo reports the deaths by the cholera epidemic at from 65,000 to 70,000. A member of the international tribunal says there are still from one to three fatal cases each day.

The Gould system of railroads is about to establish a telegraph school at St. Louis, with a view not only to educating operators, but of selecting pupils from the acclimated people along the Southwestern lines.

The Catholic convent at Belleville, Ill., took fire from the furnace Saturday evening, and in an hour was reduced to ashes. Sixty pupils made desperate efforts to escape, some of them leaping from the windows. Twenty-seven lives were lost.

The Secretary of State at Springfield has issued papers of incorporation to Col. Wood's museum, at Chicago, with a capital stock of $100,000. The Colonel is said to have secured a lease of his old stand on Randolph street, and the Olympic Theatre.

Henry Villard closed his business career by handing over to assignees his mansion on Madison square and other property, with instructions to dispose of the same, pay a mortgage of $200,000, and discharge any indebtedness to the Oregon Railway Company, the residue to be given to his wife.

The directors of the Northern Pacific road held a meeting in New York, on Friday, of last week. A letter was read from Henry Villard, resigning the presidency of the company because of nervous prostration and in deference to the interests of the stockholders. The resignation was accepted, and a special election was ordered to choose a successor. The directors voted Mr. Villard $10,000 per annum for his services. Vice President Oakes reported the line in first-class order except one hundred miles near the junction west of Helena. It is understood that the Oregon Navigation company will reduce its dividends to 8 per cent. The Oregon Transcontinental has raised $3,000,000 in Boston with which to lift its floating debt.