MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS.

Dunstan Times, Issue 351, 15 January 1869, Page 1 (Supplement)

MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS.

The “Morning Advertiser” publishes the following report of a speech on total abstinence by Mr. Spurgeon at a recent conference of .baptist ministers on tbe subject:— “ 1 do not know what brethren may think of some of us, but somehow we do think ourselves, that it it was apurematter of self sacrifice, wo would not wait to be asked by brotffren to go iu any direction, whatever mignt be the consequence. 1 may be allowed torn moment to be slightly egotistical, and say what is my position iiere. It may be the position of one or two others. I may illustrate it from my brother’s case. Some time ago he wasauavowed teetotaller; some nine months he was consistent to his pledge, but again and again be found be was lite rally tailing, and one day, so close was he to the verge of the grave, that I said, ‘Youu" man, there was one man that went to heaven iu a chariot of fire, but that is no reason why you should go to heaven in one of water,” and I went myself and fetched a glass of wine, which enabled him to finish ais day’s work. He said, “what more is to ne done?” I said “ I will give you my own experience. I tried couscienciously to be a teetotaller for some nine months myself, ant 1 found I was obliged to give it up—at least, 1 thought so—and determined to take what I did in secret. I bought some wine and some medicine glasses, ami I thiuk for a year 1 urauk no wine hut out of a medicine glass, and with a locked door. But, of course, it leaked out, and I fouud I was uding more harm than by open drinking. I fouud some had got a habit of secret drinking who were confirming themselves in what

Lavas doing; so I put the medicine glass on one aide, that no one should say I was ashamed of doing publicly what 1 did in private. In the neighborhood of Beer, we are informed, two brothers have married'a mother and daughter. The mother must say to her daughter, “Good morning, sister,"and “vice versh.” The husband of the mother has become father-in-law of his own brother, who, on his own side, can call his brother papa, and his sister-in law mamma. As yet there are only four members of both families There are, therefore, a mother and daughter, two brothers, a father-in-law, two brothers-in-law, and two sisters-iu-law ■ and if the mother should have a son he would be halfbrother to his aunt.

A poor old woman named Mrs. Lemin, in the oue-hundred-and-lifth year of her age, is living at Tuckingmill, Cornwall. Her health is good.

jßurgeses, freemen, householders, ‘scot and lot, and ‘pot wallers’ are the terms which most frequently greet us in the history of the old boroughs. Tue word hnrghess has passed through several different meanings in municipal history. Originally it was the same as burgher, or dweller in a burgh or walled town, hut at a later period it came, in some towns, to be restricted to the holders of burgage tenures, the tenure of a messuage within a borough. Tuirdly, we find the title monopolized by select bodies of citizens who contrived to get the whole power into their hands; sometimes called the common council, sometimes capital burgesses, and sometimes select burgesses, Freeman seems at one time to have been an interchangeable term with tmrghess; that is to say, almost all the freeman living in any given town would be burgesses. In the subsequent use of the word, its older meaning was lost sight of. The corporation assumed tlie right of making freemen—that is to say, of admitting any one they chose to participation in such privileges and immunities as the borough possessed. But they also claimed the right of creating honorary freemen, having no connexion with the town. Of course, in boroughs where freemen were entitled to vote, tue corporation iiad it in their power by these means to swamp die resident constituents at will. Payment of scot and lot meant only payment of local burdens a>'d liability to discharge local duties. Tue resident householder levying scot and lot was the ancient counterpart of the modern ratepayer now once more enfranchised by the last .Reform Bill, The pot-walloper was any man who “boiled a pot”—in other words, who maintained himself without aims, whether householder or not. It seems tuac this franchise aamitted of the most ludicrous abuses, it having been held, sufficient in some cases that the voter had boiled uis pot in a pigstye. There were, however, but turee towns iniluglauu where this franchise was established, Houitou, Taunton, and Tregouy. Tregouy was disfranchised, and the other two ivere purged of their pot- wallopers, in 18112.

“Punch and Judy,” hitherto unknown in America, trace made their appearance on Poston Common, attended by vast crowds. in spite of his fearless speaking and contradictory moods, Mentschikolf was a great favorite wifcn .Nicholas whose iougiriendsiiip witu him dated from a whimsical occurrence lie had been reviewing the prince’s regiment, and observing several peculiarities in the accoutrements of the men, he said, angrily, ‘ 1 would rather see your men with no eioches at all than dressed in such a ridiculous way.’ ‘soldiers, attention! lay down your uniforms!’immediately criediMentschifcolf; and in the twinkling of an eye the lamporor, to his amazement, saw the whole regiment standing divested oi every vestige ot raiment, under a temperature of hlteau degrees. ‘.Now, oire,’ said the prince, coolly, ‘my men are at your majesty’s orders.

A most extraordinary display of feeling toon puce at tue waxwork exhibition iu tne Ilotunda, Dublin, on iUouday evening. Tne principal attraction was an automatical representation of the execution of the Manchester i' emans, Allen, Larkin, and O’Brien. A iigure representing Gaierait had just atlixea the fatal nooses round the ueehs ot the oxligies, and was about to draw tne bolt of the drop, whenseveralpeoplerusnedforward at a signal given by one man near tbe platform, and with heavy sticits in a lew minutes Uomo.ishedthe effigies and the wnoie ghastly apparatus. .No arrests were made.

Gus tom may blind the eyes and deafen the ears of Englishmen to the signts and sounds of vice among women that startle tne foreigner at every turn; but tnis monster, Guotom, is a part ut the ill-treatment of Enghsnwuineu. No man has a right to accustom himse-f to crime. Custom permits women to drink gia at public houses m the must frequented streets. Custom admits women, unattended, to the upper galleries in all tne theatres. Custom permits prostitutes to take entire possession of the Ji aymarket and its vicinity after ten o’clock at night. Custom opens dance-houses and promenade concerts for the express accommodation of prostitutes, although the authorities who license them know that they are simply places of assignation. Custom sets apart certain districts for the residence of lewd women. Custom keeps open nighthouses, in order that prostitutes may be able to get drunk after the regular taverns have closed at midnight. Custom is responsible for all this; but Englishmen arc responsible for tbe custom. In America the drinking saloons are countless; but iu none of them would a female be permitted to enter and call for a drink. There is no express law against the admittance of women, but there is tbe unwritten law of public opinion that would punish, not only the woman who infringed it, but the proprietor of the barroom inwhieh such an outrage upon decency occurred. A drunken woman is a rarity in every other country; but in England this woeful spectacle is as common as the rain, and the police and the magistrates are powerless to suppress many acknowledgded haunts of vice in England, because there is no public opinon to sustain them.