LONDON LETTER.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1559, 17 February 1879, Page 2

LONDON LETTER.

[from our own correspondent.]

London, January 2. “ A Happy New Year.” That is what everybody is wishing one another at home. “ And a prosperous one,” is added in most cases with an unusual heartiness and seriousness, for truly wc never seemed further from prosperity than at tho beginning of 1879. Two days ago saw the end of the most distressing month I over recollect, at.d I can remember very nearly the whole of the reign of Queen Victoria. Tho Court has been plunged in mourning, and nearly all London has outwardly shown some mark of respect;; trade lias ho much declined that w T e hear of an increasing amount of distress in most manufacturing centres, but particularly in Lancashire and Yorkshire, while for a wholefortnight before Christmas there prevailed over the whole country the severest frost,, accompanied by the heaviest snowstorms, vt e have experienced for very many years. Since then we have had throe days of spring like weather, but last night the wind suddenlychanged, and this morning London is again deeply covered with snow.

The telegraph wire will have briefly told the people of New Zealand of the death of the Princess Alice, Grand Duchess of Hesse, from diphtheria, which had attacked every member of the Royal household at Darmstadt. Next to the Princess Royal (now the Crown Princess of Germany) Alice was the most popular of the Queen’s daughters, and she lived in England at a time when the Court was better known to the people than it has been for the past eighteen years. Her being attacked with a severe illness at what has proved a critical time of the year for all the English Royal Family, caused much alarm at Windsor, and the Queen at once despatched her favorite and most trusted physician, Sir W. Jenner, to Darmstadt, to send her reports of the progress of the Princess. These of course were sent in cypher, but on the morning of the very day when all the London newspapers said the Princess was likely to recover, an accidental circumstance showed that tho true state of the case was the very reverse. It had happened that a few days before the Queen had presented new colors to the 4th King’s Own Regiment, and two officers were directed to attend at the Castle on this particular morning to give up tho old ones, which are preserved in St. George’s Chapel. Just before their arrival, the Queen received a telegram from Sir W. Jenner stating that .the Princess could not possibly survive (and in point of fact within twenty hours she was dead). This news so severely affected the Queen that she could not compose herself sufficiently to see the officers, to whom an apologetic excuse was offered. The death of the Princess also led to the postponement of an interview which a deputation, principally from California, but including some others, amongst whom I noticed Sir Julius Vogel, wished to have with the Premier. However, this event took place a few days later when Lord Beaconsfield was presented with a beautiful address enclosed in a casket made of Californian gold and silver. Of course speeches on the death of tho Princess were made in both Houses of Parliament, which were sitting for a short winter session on account of the war in Afghanistan, butj pretty as these little oratiors were, they were as nothing compared with the depth of feeling which was displayed by the public in general. The funeral of the Princess was celebrated with every pomp, but it has given rise to a little scandal regarding the conduct of the Prince of Wales and his brother Leopold who were sent from London to bo present at the obsequies, but did not attend in the chapel where the greater part of the service took place. It is said that they did this by special desire of the Queen who was alarmed lest her youngest son should catch the disease from which the Grand Duke’s family were still suffering, and it is certain that Her Majesty recalled another son., the Duke of Connaught, by telegrah from Berlin, where'ho’has been courting the-Princess Louise Marguerite, Their marriage has been postponed on account of this death until next month. I am told by one who was in Darmstadt at tho funeral that the Grand Duke was by no means well pleased at the conduct of his-brothers-in-law, but I dare say he will soon make it up with them, for he is going to bring his children again to England in the spring. They were here a good part of last summer. Parliament, I have observed above, was sitting at the timethis sad event occurred, and one of the most startling questions addressed to the Ministry was whether there was any truth in the assertion of an influential morning paper that there was an unusual amount of distress prevailing in tho country. The Home Secretary gave what was in point of fact a denial to the newspaper statement. Trade, he said, was bad, and many people were out of work, but there was not an extraordinary amount of distress. The next day this newspaper procured by telegraph from its correspondents in about a dozen of the principal manufacturing and industrial towns, reports which showed that there was only too much truth in its original remarks. Then the Home Office and Poor Law Board were obliged to admit that some extra measures of relief might become necessary, while the Queen herself, in a letter to her people, thanking her subjects for the expressions of condolence! and sympathy which had poured in to her, took occasion to make a pointed allusion to the prevailing distress, which, said her Majesty, nobody regretted more than she did. Even agriculture is suffering, as well as commerce, but this is likely to be of some benefit to the farmers of New Zealand. The competition for farms in England has been increasing for many years, and of course rents rose in proportion to the demand. Owing to the ravages of the cattle*plague, what meat was left in the country fetched an enormous price ; all dairy produce vastly increased in value, and wheat could be sold at a remunerative figure. But within this last twelvemonth the whole condition of affairs has been changed. Even if there was as largo a consumption of animal food, which there is not, the enormous importations of fresh meat from America, would, as they have, lower tho price in England. With the cessation of war in Europe, and the opening up again of tho vast grain producing countries, came an unusually bountiful harvest at home, and this combination of circumstances, though fortunate to tho consumer, was disastrous to tho producer. In many cases small farmers have proved unequal to the payment of their debts, while most of the large landowners have been obliged to allow their old tenants a reduction of ten or fifteen per cent, off their rents, rather than part with them. For the landowning class, which lives for the most part from the rental of farms, became alarmed at the notices to quit which begun to be given by vfholesale. On tho other hand the great fall in values had its effect on the wages of tho labourers, and this is the point which is of vital interest to all the colonies, but to New Zealand in particular, since that is the colony which seems likely to reap the first advantage. Only two years ago agitation amongst the agricultural labourers had been successful in procuring for them a rise in wages, which in many cases, I believe, looked greater at first than it proved in the long run. But the experience of tho markets since last autumn has led the farmers to insist on a reduction of wages which would leave the men worn) off than they were two years ago. This revived the agitators, who promised to make a great demonstration. It was intended that a large number of Kentish labourers should march to London, holding meetings on the road, sending with a monster demonstration at Exeter Hall while |Parliament was sitting. Tho meeting in London took place, but it proved a very mild affair. Then it occured to tho leaders of the movement that emigration would be the proper remedy. _ Mr Alfred Siuimons, the Secretary to the Agricul-

iural Laborers Union, sntd Sir Julius Vogel had concluded arrangements with him to send out, free of cost, six hundred Kentish and Sussex laborers, and he will himself go out with them to see that they can procure employment. In selecting these men Mr Simmons will be assisted by Mr Holloway, a representative af the Colonial Government, who has been sent back to this country with the especial duty of looking up suituable men to send out to you. Probably some of these men will arrive in New Zealand soon after the publication of this letter, but I warn intending employers not to expect too much from them. Farm laborers in the southern countries of England are a very easy going class, and you are not likely to get the best of them, because to those best men our own farmers can afford to pay very good wages. The second eiass men t hat will come out will no doubt do a great deal better under the new conditions of life than they have done while working with a discontented spirit at home, and I hope that their new field of labor will enable them to hem -fit themselves, and be of benefit to those who will give them work. We used to look upon iron and coal as two of the safest forms of investment and employment in this country, but both are at the very ebb of stagnation. Of late there have been increasing complaints about the hours and wages of English workmen as compared with those of the Continent, and long arguments as to how competition was affected thereby. Eight years ago there was a terrific struggle between masters and workmen in the iron trade of London us to the hours of labour, which ended in the triumph of the men and the settlement of fifty-fours as the week’s work, but now that trade is so dull the employers wish to go back to fifty-seven and a half hours, and their association has called a meeting to consider this proposal. The workmen, in this case forming the Amalgamated Engineers Union have at once taken up arms, and as the society has at present a large capita], they are resolved to fight out this question to their last penny. We seem to be ■on the eve of another great industrial contest. The failure of the City of Glasgow Bank, though the greatest, is not the only commercial disaster —I don’t speak of mere failures of traders—that the last year has witnessed. In its fall it has brought down another Scotch bank, the Caledonian, which was unfortunate enough to hold four shares in trust, and was liable to pay the whole of the six millions that the City Bank was deficient. The Caledonian offered to pay a very handsome sum by way of compromise of its liability, but in vain, and therefore there was no resource but voluntary liquidation. The first instalment of the call of £250 per share on the City Bank shareholder* was aue three days before Christmas, and for a week the liquidators steadily refused to give any information as to the result, but yesterday it leaked out that instead of the two millions •of money which ought to have been paid to 'them, they have only received less than seven hundred thousand pounds, so dire has been the collapse of many of the proprietors. The directors are still in prison awaiting their trial, and this week they are to be served with a copy of the indictment containing all the actual charges against them. When they come to trial towards the end of the month they will no doubt be astonished to find that one of the principal witnesses against them is Mr Leresche, who was their secretary. He was arrested at the same time as the directors, and has since remained in prison, but a few days ago the Lord Advocate, who will conduct the prosecution on behalf of the Crown, had an interview with him in his cell, iond the result was that Leresche has agreed to give evidence against his former employers. Another singular incident of this remarkable ■cose is that one of the directors has been examined in his cell by the lawyers concerned in the bankruptcy proceedings against the firm of which ho was a partner, and this gentleman made an extraordinary statement as to the confiding easiness with which his brother directors allowed him to have large advances of money on blank acceptances, which were printed by the score. _ I must also mention that in the West of England great distress has been caused by the failure of a bank bearing that name, and having branches in all the principal towns from Bristol to Exeter. This will involve a heavy call on the shareholders, five hundred of whom I am told are widows and single women, who lived on the dividends, and now that their income has been swept away are in great destitution. Nor must I fail to chronicle the failure of a private bank in Lancashire, the Messrs Eenton of Rochdale, a firm that in several manufacturing towns had been regarded as of unimpeachable solvency. Another lunatic is in custody on a charge of threatening to disturb the retirement of the Queen while she was in her Scotch residence. This prisoner is a Belgian by birth, but possesses the peculiarly English name of Joseph Edward Madden—the makers of small jokes says his surname shows he’s a mad’uH—and he is upwards, of fifty years of age. Eor the greater part of his life he seems to have been quiet and honest enough, hut a little misunderstanding about a matter of a hundred francs with his late employer led him to come to London. Here he amused himself with writing to the Home Secretary, and other official personages, demanding that a sum of one thousand pounds should be paid to him by Lord Lyons, our ambassador at Paris, or otherwise he would go down to Balmoral to see the Queen to get her Majesty to change the Government. (En parenthese I may observe that many very cleverer people than Madden have been trying io do that for some lime past, but all to no purpose, as the result of the recent divisions in the House of Commons will show you.) Tn one of his letters this Bslgian madman styled himself a “modern prophet,” and said he would proclaim the abdication of Queen Victoria in favour of the Prince of Wales. His letters are full of idiotic noneeose, and almost every paragraph shows his foreign education, though he writes English very fairly for a man of his station. Of course the Queen was in no personal danger from such a man, but looking to so many recent events on the Continent —and Brussels, I may remark, where Madden had mostly lived, is one of the principal centres of Socialism and Internationalism—it was felt to be prudent to have him arrested with a view to his detention ia an asylum. But, in order to get this object effected, it was necessary to take him twice to a police court, where he behaved quietly enough, and there still remain* the form of a public trial for him to go through. I think I may allow myself to revert to the subject of the electric light, as that is evidently going to be the mode of street illumination in the not very distant future, even if Mr Edison and the other kindred inventors are not clever enough to effect a revolution in domestic lighting, and so ruin the gas companies, a fear which has not yet been allayed. Several parts of London are now ligh'ed up by means of the Jablockhoff process, or “ candle,” as it is termed, from the resemblance of the burning parts to twin rush lights, and other places are about to be experimented upon by other processes. The most satisfactory trial is now being made upon the Holborn Viaduct, one of the best pieces of road in the metropolis. It Hus a graceful curve, and in the centre a bridge of large span crosses an older roadway beneath. Each of the parapets, or girders, of this bridge is surmounted by an electric lamp, which can be seen some hundreds of yards off, being much larger and whiter than any of the gaa-lamps which surround it. The most striking feature of this mode of street lighting, to my mind, is the singular fact that the higher the lamp is elevated above the footpaths or roads the better the light which ia given below, and it might sound a little odd, but it is nevertheless a fact of which I speak from personal experience, that thirty feet below a lamp you seem to read more easily and clearly than at eight or ter. Another trial on a large scale is being made on the Thames embankment, and I am told that the result has given great pleasure to those whose business it is to navigate the water by night. Both these trials arc being made by the engineers of the two great public bodies which control our municipal affairs, and after they have continued for several we-ks a ca elul account will bo made of the cos 1 . I hear that it lias proved more expensive than was thought, but the system will become much cheaper, for the matter is yet only in its earliest stages.

The charge against Lady Gooch of having attempted to palm off on her husband. Sir Francis Gooch, a child that was not his own, has unexpectedly broken down, and thus the husband has obtained Ins wish not to ho compelled to prosecute his wife further, although he was the first to institute procee d igs against her. I told you in my last letter that Lady Gooch had gone to an hotel with a nurse and pretended to be confined, and that both the women w«rs committed for trial < n a charge of conspiracy, the magistrate having refused to listen to Sir Francis’s appeal for leave to withdraw from the proceedings. Since then a bill of indictment has eone before the Grand Jury at the C. n*ral Criminal Court, but their dichion w»s almost, a foregone conclusion, after what they were told in his charge by the Ilf carder of London, who advised them to consider in the first place whether the nurse was any real party to a fraud, or whether she only told a few lies without regard to the real result. They came to the conclusion that she was only lying, and therefore threw out, the bill as against, her, and as one person cannot, be indicted for conspiracy, the charge against Lady Gooch at once fell to the ground a’»o.