NEWS BY THE MAIL.

Evening Star, Issue 4015, 8 January 1876, Page 2 (Supplement)

NEWS BY THE MAIL.

At the Aberfeldy railway station, near Perth, was recently seen vending his drapery wares, a pedlar named Peter Feggans, who the other week attained his 105 th year. He went to reside in Scotland, from Ireland, about sixty years ago, and has since then never worn a coat. He inbibes half a glass of whiskey three or four times each day, and has done so for the past fifty years. A somewhat extraordinary gathering recently took place at Airdrie, viz., a meeting to which only Airdrieouians of 80 years of age were admitted. Seven octogenarians attended. The united ages of the company reached the large figure of 581, or an average of 83 years to each.

Mr Hodgson, a director of the Bank of England, has given some curious information about light sovereigns. “ A sovereign,” he says, “in your waiscoat pocket at eight o’clock in the morning is not the same coin that you take out of it at tivelve o’clock at night.” When sovereigns are growing “light” a very little—even a railway journey—will affect them. Not only has a French bicyclist outdone the performance of the man Carodoc, by accomplishing the distance from Paris to Vienna, on wet roads (near 700 miles), in a less time; but Mr Staunton, the English champion bicyclist, is said to have undertaken to perform the journey in seven days, and has started on this unparalleled “cruise on wheels.”

Captain Webb’s wonderful swimming feat is indirectly bearing good fruit. It has not only induced the public to take to the water like ducks, but seems to haA r e begotten a host of aquatic heroes. Such deeds do not happen every day as were done upon old Thames one Thursday. A strong ebb tide was running when a child seA’en years old fell into the river at Westminster. A boy of fifteen immediately leapt after him, but was carried away by the stream. Then a gentleman dived from the embankment, and was also swept away, for SAvimming with one’s clothes on is not easy. As the child floated by a man from a passing steamer jumped overboard, and he too Avas unable to keep his course. All these heroes were in great danger, and rescued with difficulty by boats and buoys, and still the child was hurried along, his little frock sustaining him on the surface of the water. A fourth hero was, however, still to be found on the embankment, Avho plunged in, and managed to bring the child alive to shore. It seems to me that such actions are more than creditable, and should make us proud of the nation to which we belong. A Scotch sheriff, who objects to habitual wife-beaters having the cat of ninetails, suggests an ingenious method of punishing such criminals. He would in all cases of proved and habitual brutality, grant a legal separation to the Avife, and at the same time compel the husband to support his family. It appears by recent returns that no less than twenty-three Ritualistic'clergymen of the Church of England have of late gone over to Rome, and this Avill no doubt be made the most of by those who are ready or willing to think that the country at large is going Homewards. It is in fact going in quite the other direction. The late Mr Winterbotham’s sarcasm on this subject in the House of Commons has even greater force at this time than Avheu it was littered. “ There are three classes upon Avhom Romanising influences are having effect in this country—priests, Avomen, and peers (it Avas just after Lord Bute’s conversion), and these are just the three classes in this country whose political influence is growing less and less.”

The lady who won the ploughing match is outdone by the young person who has established a new industry in connection with that highly extolled insect—though only in fable—the aut. She collects ants near Paris, by the sackful, in order to sell their eggs to the feeders of pheasants, and pursues her trade notwithstanding that her little clients’ bites have rendered her face “ of the color and consistency of parchment.” We are not informed whether there was much to spoil, but it is probable that she had her own opinion upon that point, and that it was favorable. At all events, here is a woman-worker with a vengeance. Again, in London, there is a lady who drives a cab. She has to contend, of course, with the envy and jealousy of such of the opposite sex as pursue the same occupation, and the other day she summoned some of them before a magistrate for “impeding her lawful calling.” She had secured a lady fare, when a cabman exclaimed, “Don’t get in there, mann ,* the horse can’t draw you, and she can’t drive,” whereupon her fare got out again. The magistrate punished her libellers, and administered a very just reproof for their cowardly conduct. Some curious literary disclosures have been recently made in connection with ‘ Punch. It seems that Hood’s “ Song of the Shirt ” was accepted by Mark Lemon for that paper, after it had been refused by three other periodicals ! Nothing like this has come to light since Thackery revealed how “Vanity Fail’”—in embryo—was treated by the publishers. The immediate effect of Hood’s famous song was to treble the circulation of the paper for the week in which it appeared. To give an idea of the small beginnings and future greatness of this popular periodical, Mark Lemon had only 30s a-week for coediting it (with Mayhew), whereas at his death he was receiving L 1,500 a-year for his editorial services. In accepting the “Song of the Shirt,” of course Lemon did well—though he would have been a fool to refuse it—but it is whispered that he decliued Gilbert’s “Song of the Nancy Bell,” the wittiest poem in the “Bab Ballads,” on the ground of its cannibalism being too shocking. The Home correspondent of the ‘ Timaru Herald’ says that, at St. Leonards, a Catholic priest has inveigled the son of a Church of England clergyman into the Church of Home. There has been much stir about it, and the Catholic pleads his excuse that all those who are not in the fold of his Church will have to suffer for all eternity. The Protestant clergyman, on the other hand, retorts that, come what may, no man ought to teach a child treachery and disobedience to parents. A second Catholic priest writes from vSt. Leonards to repudiate the sentiments of his brother. The world looks on in awe and disgust, and so the matter stands. THE PRUSSIAN' SCHOOL SYSTEM. The directors of the Glasgow Academy have, says a contemporary, published a highly suggestive and instructive report upon the school system of Berlin. From it we learn that, at the present moment, Berlin, with a population only half as large again as that of Glasgow, already possesses twenty first-class academies, and in a short time will possess twenty-four, each with a staff of masters and professors, averaging from twenty to twenty-five, and each attended by five or six hundred pupils. Besides these higher schools, there are in that city eightyfour common schools, with free education, which every child must attend till the age of fourteen, and in which he is taught not only reading, writing, and arithmetic, but also drawing, natural history, singing, and gymnastics. “Writing,” says the report, *‘which with us occupies so much of the pupil’s time, even to the end of his School course, receives no special attention, and no place in the time table in a German school after Quinta or Quarta, jihat is, after our second or third year. They commence writing, however, immediately on entering school, and first in small

stroke is performed by the whole class at the same moment, the master or one of the boys uttering in a clear voice, ‘ Up, down ; up, down.’ Their writing is not confined to the writing lesson. The greater part of their work is written in the class room, and generally in a clear, well-formed hand. Dictation, too, is commenced almost simultaneously with the first attempt at reading. Boys who could read only words of single syllables, and who had been only four months at school, were required, when the master repeated the same syllables, to reproduce them in writing. The walls of the rooms in which these junior classes met were hung round with prints and pictures of various kinds. The master would point to some object in one of these and the boy had to express in correct grammatical language, and in a loud, clear voice, something connected with that object. This seemed to give them facility in the right use of language, arid to accustom them from an early age to clothe ideas in words.” A MUCHLY MARRIED SINGER. Singer, a millionaire and the sewingmachine patentee, recently deceased in England, left behind him three wives, two mistresses, twenty-five children, and thirteen millions of dollars. There is a very interesting legal squabble now going on in New York in consequence. Of late years Singer lived at Torquay, in England. His first purchase of land there was thirty acres, for L 60,000; his stables were superb, and surround a circus of large diameter, in which he drove to exercise horses and his hands. His drawing-room was 83ft long, and he had a charming theatre. He has twenty-five children, who are christened New York, Paris, Washington, Philadelphia, Chicago, &c. His first order for carriages was L 1,600, including a vast omnibus for L4(io, capable of carrying twenty-four people (for the nursery). The late Mr Singer seems to have had some points in common with the Sultan of Turkey. His domestic arrangements were on a liberal scale. There was just this difference—one had thirteen million dollars, the other owes 180 million pounds. CURIOUS CASE OF STEALING AND NOT STEALING. In the year 1872, one George Middleton was a depositor in a post-office savings bank in which a sum of eleven shillings stood at his credit. He duly gave notice to withdraw ten shillings, and a letter of advice was sept to the post-office at Netting Hill, London, to pay Mr Middleton that sum. He presented himself for payment, when the clerk in charge referred by mistake to another letter of advice for eight pounds sixteen shillings and teupence, and placed the latter sum upon the counter. He entered the amount in the depositor’s passbook, and stamped it, and Mr Middleton walked away with eight pounds six shillings and tenpence which did not belong to him. There is no doubt Mr Middleton was perfectly aware of what he was doing, and of the clerk’s mistake, but probably he little thought that it would require the combined intellect and learning of no less than fifteen judges to decide whether or not he stole that money. To an unlearned mind the case presents no difficulty, but it has divided the judicial bench. Middleton was tried at the Central Criminal Court on the 23rd of September, 1872, and was found guilty, the learned common sergeant reserving, for the opinion of the Court for Crown Cases Reserved, the question whether the circumstances amounted in law to a larceny. The latter Court met on the 23rd of November following, and was composed of five of the judges, under the presidency of Lord Chief Baron Kelly. The Court could not agree, and the case was again reserved, this time for the opinion of all the judges. On the 25th January, 1873, it was argued by the then Attorney-Gene-ral, Sir John Coleridge (now the Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas) before the Lord Chief Justice of England, the then Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas (Sir William Bovill), the Lord Chief Baron, Barons Martin, Brain well, Pigott, and Cleasby, and Justice Blackburn, Keating, Mellor, Brett, Lush, Grove, Denman, and Archibald—Mr Baron Pollock and Mr Justice Qualn being unavoidably absent. In effect, it was argued before the whole judicial bench of England. On the 7th of June following, judgment was delivered: Lord Chief Justice Cockbum, and Justices Blackburn, Mellor, Lush, Grove, Denman, and Archibald deciding that Mr Middleton was a thief, upon one ground ; Lord Chief Justice Bovill, Lord Chief Baron Kelly, and Mr Justice Keating, being of the same opinion, on another ground; Mr Baron Pigott coming to the same conclusion, on a third ground ; and Barons Martin, Bramwell, and Cleasby, and Mr Justice Brett, being all four clearly and empeaticallo of opinion an one and the same ground, that no larceny had been committed. Stripped of its technicalities and its allusions to previously decided cases, the judgment of the majority of the judges may be paraphrased as follows : Granted that, if the property in the eight pounds six shillings and tenpence had passed to the prisoner, his offence would not amount to larceny ; as a matter of law, the property in that balance did not pass to him, and never vested in him for an instant. True, the possession of it was given to him, but that was only by mistake, and the property in it remained all the time in the Post-master-General. The money was always some one else’s ; the prisoner, in taking it, took what did not belong to him, and the guilty intention having been found by the Jury as a matter of fact, it is a case of larceny, and the conviction is affirmed. But the arguments of Mr Baron Bramwell, Mr Justice Brett, and Mr Baron Cleasby make tremendous breaches in the position taken up by the majority ; whilst old Baron Martin—-brought up in a tough old school, in the days when law was law—had hardly patience to argue a point against which his veteran instincts obviously revolt. The reasoning of the minority is, says he, ‘ unanswerable ;’ and that of the majority appears to the old baron ‘ worthy of an ancient causist;’ Mr Baron Bramwell is not so outspoken, but is quite as solid. ‘ Though those whose opinion I share may be, and probably are, in the wrong,’ says the polite baron, ‘considering the numerous and ■weighty opinions the other way, there is more doubt in the case than has appeared to some who seem to me to reason thus : The prisoner was as bad as a thief (which I deny), and being as bad, ought to be treated as one (which 1 deny also).’ Mr Justice Brett thinks that the judgment of the majority ‘is founded upon a wrong proposition of law,’ and is of opinion that the prisoner ‘ could not be convicted according to law.’ Mr Baron Cleasby thinks ‘the conviction was against law, and ought to be quashed. ’ Theyare all four agreed upon the reason why, and argue irresistibly that the payment was a voluntary payment, and its fraudulent acceptance not a theft. Upon these grounds the minority of the judges thought that the conviction should be quashed, but the majority being of the contrary opinion, it was affirmed. It mattered little to George Middleton what any of them thought, for he had long before served out his sentence and been set at large. The following anomaly has thus been added to our law. If Middleton had deliberately concocted a false tale, on the faith of which he had obtained the money, he would have been guilty of the misdemeanor of obtaining it by false pretences; but because it was accidentally given to him, and he simply walked off with it, he is a felon. The leaser offence