OUR LONDON LETTER.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 1050, 8 November 1877, Page 3

OUR LONDON LETTER.

[Specially Wbitten foe the Globe.] London, September 20 [The first portion of our correspondent's letter is occupied with an account of the loss of the Avalanche, but we omit it, as a detailed report of the disaster has already been published by us.] Another matter arising out of a shipwreck will have some interest in Christchurch. I must premise that some time in 1875 a vessel called the Cora Linn capsized near Calderness, in the river Humber. As the wreck could not be floated, it was blown up by order of the Conservators of the Stream. What is believed to be a relic of that unfor. tunate vessel was washed ashore at Goole a few mornings ago. This was a leather case which, besides some fragments of letters that are undecipherable by reason of their long immersion, contained seven photographs. I have not seen these, but I have a description of them. Three are evidently of the same person —a young woman. A fourth, which was taken in Christchurch, New Zealand, is that of a man about thirty years of age. If any one now in the colony should desire further information concerning this, it could doubtless be obtained by writing to the Mayor of Goole, where these photographs, &c, will probably be preserved until some inquiry has been made about them. All classes of people in this country are much concerned about tho recurrence o f famine in India, and one of the largest sub. scriptions ever made iu England has been obtained at the Mansion House through appeals in the newspapers. This very day a meeting is being held at Aylesbury, at which our veteran Premier, Lord Beacons field, is to speak to those who were his constituents, and through the newspapers to the world. Indeed this matter is now one of

the leading features in the daily papers, and a good deal ia written on how to prevent these appalling famines in the future. One of the contributors to this class of literature is Sir Julius Vogel, who, in a letter to the " Times," urges the necessity of public aid, and tells the British Ministry that it is their duty to instruct the Government of India that no expense is to be allowed to stand in the way of saving life. The investigation of the charge against the detectives is still occupying a very large share of the attention of Sir J. Ingham, the chief Metropolitan police magistrate, and the revelations which have been made are simuly astounding. So conclusive has ben the evidence already adduced thit the magistrate has intimated his intention to send for trial three of the four persons originally charged before him. But a fifth person has been added to those in the dock. This is no less a person than Mr Clarke, the chief inspector of the detective force, one < f the best known men at head quarters, :t man who has been in the public service for thirtyseven years, and in the course ef that time has had private missions entrusted to him even on behalf of members of the Royal family, including the Queen herself (who by the way frequently employs detectives to trace out the real history of people who make appeals to her for help). During the evidence against the other detectives a good deal was said about Clarke, and at length he was arrested as an accomplice with the others in their efforts to defeat justice and screen those who had not only concocted the gigantic fraud for which they are now suffering penal servitude, but had lived a good part of their lives on the prooeeds of roguery and dishonesty. Of course, long as this preliminary inquiry has occnpic.d, it cannot be final, for all the men implicated must be tried before one of the judges. The result before that tribunal is, to my mind, very doubtful. Legal loopholes are still abundant, and the culprits may escape. Even in that event their fate is certain. They will no longer be in the public service. If anyone of them should again present himself in Scotland Yard the Commissioner will, in the words of Othello, tell him—- " I love thee. " But never more be officer of mine." For these men have entirely shaken the public faith in this branch of the public service, and people now begin to understand how of recent years so many men who were charged with having committed gigantic frauds on the public, slipped out of eight like the phantom Flying Dutchman, just when it seemed that they were to be brought to book for their misdeeds. However, it U not so surprising after all. A go' d deal of our p dice information is obtained by bribery, and it. is not difficult to believe that by corrupting others policeman may become corrupt themselves. Even to an old public servant the secret offer of a couple of thousand pounds is an eirrmous temptation with an income of less than three hundred a year, and a man would be almost more than human to sav "No" to it.

Two young men, v/ho were employed a<* ! bakers at Portsmouth, have been having some holiday amusement, the end of which is likely to he very unpleasant for them. They spent some weeks in the neighbourhood of London during the winter months, when much consternation was caused by repeated reports of attacks and robberies by highwaymen on Blackheath, a large open common, only a few miles from town, and close to Greenwich. In some cases, carriages were stopped and the people inside them frigh'ened out of their money ; in others, the drivers having beeu persuaded that the "highwaymen" were only schoolboys bent on fun, put the whip to their horses and were soon out of reach. But it has turned out that they were not so harmless, for the young meu now in custody were found in possession of very decent revolvers. One of the persons they robbed was Mr Hodgson, a gentleman employed in the solicitors' department of the Admiralty, and that valiant lawyer handed over to his assailants the sum of £l7, including three Bank of England notes for £5 each, the numbers of which he knew. The matter laid perdu for some months, until the thieves were found trying to pass one of the notes in Portsmouth, and they speedily found themselves in the clutches of the police. But these are not the only depredators that have been suddenly, and as it were almost accidentally, discovered. Of late there has been quite a scare among the farmers with respect to the importation of the greatly dreaded Colorado beetle, which it was feared would exterminate the potato from these islands. Parliament became agitated on the subject; the Privy Council distributed throughout the country coloured drawings of the little insect in all its stages ; from its birth ; one enterprising jeweller imitated these in gold ornaments, which he thought the ladies would buy for earrings, and it seemed that the beetle was about to rival a kindred insect which is supposed to infest seaside lodgings. Latterly it has been discovered that naturalists, who certainly oudit to have known much better, have been sending these insects from the United States, in boxes, through the Post. The Post-office sorters in several of our large towns have discovered them, and a speedy end was put to their existence. They were Rummarily immersed in bottles of methylated spirits, which quickly killed them and then notes were sent to the consignees informing them that they might have their valueless property on personal application at the Post-office. It is almost needless to say that very few of them took any further trouble in the matter. Speaking of the Post office reminds me that one would hardly expect to find a literary curiosity beneath the uniniviting covers of the annual report which the Post master-General submits to Parliament resi pecting the working of the great institution that is nominally under his care. Yet such it has turned out to be this year, though Lord John Manners has not had much to do with its production. It is mainly owing to a clever secretary, who has some humour in him, and has the ability to display it fffectively. He tells us of the extraordinary letters which silly people write to the authorities. One man had heard that there was a Dead Letter Office, and wrote enquiring about three friends who had been drowned. Two young lovers wrote to know whether they could have a special licence for marriage without coming personally to the Post-offic, but although the Department now issues a good many minor licences, it has not yet supplanted Doctors' Commons. One correspondent wrote from Massachusetts io know the date of the death of the London

tradesman who made a clock in 1700, and a Kentish mother asked the noble lord whether there was to be a baby show this year at Woolwich. But the best le ter, in its simplicity, is from a little girl at school in the United States, who wanted information about a fortune of half a million which she expected to be left her by somebody in the mother country. As regards business, to a dull summer has succeeded a still duller autumn, and trade may be paid to be generally in a stagnant condition. A goo I many shopkeepers have of late " gone to the wall," and in some of our principal thoroughfares, where shops and business places used to be eagerly sought for, they may now be seen standing empty for months. 1 rather think the tradesmen are being weeded out, especially by the co-operative societies, which are daily increasing in magnitude. They are nothing but wholesale establishments doing a very large retail trade, and they have cut very largely into the retailers in some branches. At the same time, while trade is bad the demand for private houses in the outskirts of London is greater than ever, and the rents are rising considerably. This is not wholly due to the demand, but partly to the fact that house property has become the favourite investment with numbers of people who used to speculate in more remunerative ways when times were more stir'ing. There is no getting eight or ten per cent out of foreign bonds now, so people look out for something that pays four or five per cent, at present, having in view a speedy putting on of the screw, in order to get six or seven per cent, until the existing cloudiness of commerce has passed away.