NEWS BY THE MAIL.

Globe, Volume IX, Issue 1306, 27 May 1878, Page 3

NEWS BY THE MAIL.

[From the “ Spectator,” March 23rd.] CHURCH PATRONAGE.

The Archbishop of York moved yesterday week, in the House of Lords, for an address to her Majesty praying her to issue a Royal Commission “to inquire into the law and existing practice as to the patronage, sale, exchange, and resignation of ecclesiastical benefices, and to recommend remedies for abuses, if any are found to existand with the omission of the word “patronage,” to which Lord Cairns objected, the motion was accepted by the Government and agreed to. The Archbishop pointed to the chief abuses, —the sale of next presentations, and those evasions of the law which so often enable the vendor to promise immediate possession, and he indicated the general nature of some of the securities which might be taken ; but Lord Houghton opposed the motion altogether, intimating that to stop the sale of next presentations would very seriously injure the value of the property in advowsons, and so strike at the principle of lay patronage itself, which ho thought of the very essence of our system. But that objection will not hold. To bring home to Englishmen that they are exercising a real trust will never, we hope, make the best of them more reluctant to accept such trust; and as for the worst of them—these are just the persons whom we do not want for ecclesiastical trustees. Lord Houghton is a little too anxious to flavor the church with the world. He would hardly like to see the trustees of a marriage settlement putting up to sale amongst the children of the marriage the exercise of the next discretion they might happen to possess under the power to charge portions. And yet surely the trust of appointing a fit incumbent for a living is not less sacred than the trust of dividing the personalty justly amongst the children of a marriage P MEDICAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN. The sum of £7OOO has recently been left to the London School of Medicine for Women by the late Mrs Oakes, of Sydney, Australia. The success of the movement for the Medical Education of Women in this country may be regarded now as practically assured, the one remaining obstacle, want of more ample funds for immediate use having been removed by this efficient and timely aid. The object to which, through years of intense and courageous suffering, the steadfast efforts of the donor—herself gifted in no small degree—were directed, was the removal of all restrictions on the higher education and practical usefulness of women. In few ways, perhaps, could that object have been more effectually promoted than by this munificent bequest to a still struggling cause. The difficulty hitherto experienced in establishing a hospital which will give the women-doctors an adequate clinical teaching, or in gaining access for them to the wards of some already established hospital of sufficient repute, will now be permanently surmounted. In negotiations of this kind the question of means is everyi I.* .1 U-.-3

were but half-subdued by argument while the women-doctors were poor, vanishing at once before the sun of their prosperity. BBPRESKNTATION OP MINORITIES. Yesterday week, also, Mr Blennerhasset made a speech in the House of Commons in favour of Mr Hare’s scheme for the representation of minorities, on behalf of which Mr Courtney and others spoke very ably; while Mr Edward Jenkins objected to it, very much for the kind of reasons which appear to influence Mr Bright in the vehement opposition ho lias always offered to such proposals. Mr Jenkins felt, he said, some difficulty in treating the proposal seriously. His objections, however, were very weak. They consisted, first, in objecting that because you could not easily define what strength would entitle a minority to representation, the minority had no just right at all, which is very like saying that because you cannot easily determine what amount of recklessness will disqualify a bankrupt for his certificate, there should bo no such amount at all. His next objection was that the measure was not necessary, because any minority of sufficient importance gets itself represented somehow—in one place, if not in another. But that begs the whole question—which is not whether minorities are represented somewhere, but whether many most important ones do or do not fail to get represented where they ought to he represented — whether, for instance, in every metropolitan constituency a vast number of the best electors are not practically disfranchised by the present mode of election, who might exercise a very great influence over the choice of a member on some other system. Even in the United States the earnest demand for some remedy of this sort shows how practical is the want, Mr Bleunerhasset’s motion fell to the ground, under the effect of a count-out. HEAT AND THOUGHT. An interesting paper was read at the last meeting of the Royal Society on “ Experimental Researches on the Temperature of the Head,” in which the writer, Dr. Lombard, showed that mental activity will at once raise the temperature of the head, and that merely to excite the attention has the same effect, in a less degree. This is a curious result, as appearing to show that anything of the nature of volition involves a waste of nervetissue which is not involved in involuntary perception and observation. There is no difference, we believe between the temperature of the sleeping body and that of the waking body, or between that of the waking body and of the head, so long as no act of effort is involved. But if even the least intellectual effort raises the temperature of the head above that which it reaches in amused and

idle observation, it would seem to show that there is a waste involved in volition which belongs to no so-called “automatic” action of the mind. And that is itself a fact of no slight significance. THE HOUSE OF OTHMAN. The curious report about the conduct of the chief Moollah or priest at Koniah is, in part, confirmed. It was stated in some telegrams that this personage, who gives to each Sultan a sort of consecration by girding on his sword, and who is the object among Mussulmans of much veneration, has declared the House of Othman unworthy of the Khaliphate, and has deposed it. The story seems incredible, but it is repeated in serious letters from Constantinople ; and if it is true, it means that the house is shaking in Asia as well as in Europe. It has many enemies there, the Arabs and Greeks hating the Turks about equally, while the Syrians, whether Arab, Druse, Maronite, or Levantine, would prefer almost any other dominion. As the Turks have been drawn away for the war, and have perished in unknown numbers, till we are told that in whole districts there are no Turks under sixty, it is not impossible that Asiatic Turkey may be the scene of a universal revolt. That is the natural consequence in Asia of a defeat, and would in all probability finally upset the Ottoman dominion. The chance of the Turks is that they have still an army, and nobody else has, but they certainly will not be able to use it either in Bosnia or in the Greek provinces. JUDGE-SHOOTING AT HOME. The Rev. Henry John Dodwell was acquitted yesterday week of the attempt to murder the Master of the Rolls, the evidence going to prove that there was only powder, and no bullet, in the pistol with which he fired—that only a bit of paper, on which the prisoner had inscribed the sentence, “ Unfaithful to the true interests of the Crown of England,” was discharged from it—and that Mr Dodwell’s motive was simply to manufacture an occasion for a new public statement of his wrongs, and one in which he might got the opportunity of cross-examining the Master of the Rolls as to his dealing with his (Mr Dodwell’s) case. Mr Dodwell, after being acquitted of the attempt to murder, was charged with a common assault, which the jury found to have taken place; but on this charge also they acquitted the prisoner, on the ground of insanity. The strikingly incoherent character of his defence proved unquestionably a thoroughly unsettled mind. Mr Dodwell, for instance, proproducing to the Court a writing-desk, said, “ There was other evidence in Greek, from the ‘ Medea,’ showing that he was taking his severe trials in submission to the will of God.” And it was quite evident that, though he knew what ho had or had not done, he had not the slightest notion of the nature of evidence, or the kind of tl ing that would produce an effect on an English jury. In that respect, however, probably most uneducated people resemble him. But then Mr Dodwell did not deviate from the right way into the usual ruts of fallacy, but into wild and incoherent excursions. He brought the Marquis of Lome into Court—would have produced an Ex-Chancellor, if he could—and all to prove that he had written certain letters which did not bear on his ease. It was evidently, too, a deep satisfaction to him to have fired off that strip of accusing paper at Sir Gearge Jessel. [From the “Pall Mall Budget.”] RESPONSIBILITY IN MADNESS. It is satisfactory to find that the dangerous theories of criminal irresponsibility which find favor with many medical experts are not shared by some among them who are most familiar with the characteristics of insanity and the capacities of the insane. “ An Asylum Physician ” writes to Thursday’s “ Times ” to protest against the tendency of his brethren to “ lean towards the protection of murderers.” “ Many an insane man,” he continues, “ knows well enough the difference between right and wrong, and can calculate the consequences of his acts.” Not only so, but, what is even more important, he sometimes also knows that others believe him incapable of recognizing the difference and calculating the consequences in question, and fully sees the advantage which ho derives from this delusion. Thus the writer instances the case of an insane woman under his care who had homicidal inclinations, and who “ used to argue deliberately that she could commit murder with impunity, being insane and under certificate. Had she committed murder a jury would undoubtedly have acquitted her on the ground of insanity. Yet this patient had as keen a knowledge of the difference between right and wrong as any one I have ever met; but she preferred the wrong. She wmuld have committed murder under uncontrollable impulse, it will be said ; but cannot the same be said for sane murderers, if indeed such beings exist ? THE EXTENSION OF BULGARIA. -The extension of the frontier of Bulgaria into Albania would (a Vienna paper remarks) nob only be very prejudicial to Austrian interests, but would bring into the new Bulgarian State territories the great majority of whose inhabitants do not belong to the Bulgarian nationality. The south-western highlands of the Illyrian peninsula are inhabited by the Albanians, who, like the Bosnians, may be divided into three groups, each profesnng a different religion; about 900,000 of (hem are Mahomraedans, 500,000 Greek Catholics, and 100,000 Roman Catholics. The rest of the population consist of 100,000 Servians and Bulgarians, 500,000 Greeks and Turks, 15,000 gipsies and Wallachians, and 2000 Jews. The territory occupied by the Albanians extends over an area of about 1600 German square miles. The people of the different religions are constantly at feud with each other, and the Roman Catholic Albanians, belonging chiefly to the clan of the Mirdites, form a

somewhat similar to that of Montenegro. The principality is undertw > rulers, the Abbot of Ozocher and Prince Prenk, a noble of the family or the Lechi. It was formerly under the protection of Spain, but the strongest i influence now prevalent among the Minifies is I that of Italy. There is also a small republic i in Albania, that of Ochrida, comprising the lake of that name, and nominally under the rule of the Sultana Yalide ; and there are numbers of other petty oligarchical Governments scattered all over the country. The mountainous districts iu the centre are chiefly inhabited by Mahommedans; those in the south (Epirus) by members of the Greek Church, and those round Lake Scutari by Roman Catholics. The latter are completely isolated, while the Mahommcdau Albanians stretch far into Old Servia, and those professing the Greek religion extend to the frontier of the kingdom of Greece. BTJSSIA AND BESSAKABIA. With regard to the Russian demand for Bessarabia and the proposal to compensate Roumania by the cession of the Dobrudsha, we read in a private letter which has been placed in our hands: —Depend upon this, Roumania will never give up Bessarabia nor accept the Dobrudscha, It is an infamous calumny of Russian agents that the px'olests of the Roumanian Government are only a sham and that the Prince has promised the Emperor Alexander to make this exchange. Nothing will induce the Prince to yield. If Europe abandons us in the desire to make the East Russian she has hut one thing to do ; let her authorise Russia to seize Bessarabia, then the thing is done ; but we will never accept the Dobrudscha nor the mouths of the Danube that Russia will offer us in order to take them back again in a few years. Europe (that is, England and Austria) has never been in a more advantageous position as against Russia than at this very moment; but never has Russia been in so advantageous a position as against the whole world as she will be in whenever, by means of the acquisition of Bessarabia, she shall have established herself on the Danube, and shall have firmly constituted Bulgaria according to the fashion for which the treaty gives her the opportunity. Should there be war, be well assured that the 40,000 Roumanians who have fought against the Turks will fight with fury against the Russians, and that Prince Charles will lead them on.