THE GLOBE. TUESDAY, MARCH 16, 1880. OUR LONDON LETTER.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1891, 16 March 1880, Page 2

THE GLOBE. TUESDAY, MARCH 16, 1880. OUR LONDON LETTER.

[SPECIALLY WBITTBN FOB THE " GLOBE." LONDON, January 29. The first month of the new year has been one of great severity, and we consequently hear of the prevalence of much distress in London. Indeed, very many years have gone by since I heard an equal amount of complaining in public, and I do not remember a previous winter where there have been so many public meetings of the unemployed to bemoan their hard fate. We expect January J n this country to be severe, but this year it is beyond description. For the paßt two day, we have had fogs as thick as that which I described in my last letter as having visited us on Christmas Day, while for three successive nights the frost has fallen on us like a thin cloud of snow. Of course this has much interfered with business of all kinds, but out door labour has been entirely at a standstill. For three months now such people as gardeners and all descriptions of building operatives have been at a total standstill. I do not hear many complaints from the gardeners, except the sham ones who went about the streets bawling that they were frozen out, until the police, by order of the magistrates, put a stop to what was becoming a system of terror and extortion, but the workmen in the building trade, who as a class have always been improvident, are in great straits. Things have now come to such a pass in London that the unemployed have flocked to the Mansion House by hundreds in the endeavour to obtain some of the relief which the Lord Mayor has been enabled to distribute, owing to the generosity of some private people and firms in the city. For one or two days the traffic in the oentre of London was greatly impeded by the crowds of applicants, who filled Wallbrook and overflowed into Cheapside and the adjacent streets. During one afternoon alone three hundred orders were distributed, each of which entitled the recipient to a two-pound tin of compressed meat, the gift of Mossrs Hudson Brothers, a very old established firm of provision merchant*. During the same day five hundred

tins of meat, given by the St. Louis Beef Canning Company, were distributed by the superintendents of the oity police, who made very judicious almoners. Even this did not suffice to afford some relief to every applicant, and a severe drain has had to be made on the poor box of the Justice room. The bulk of these distressed people were married men, and really artisans who would work if employment could be found them.

But, to pass to matters of a more cheering description, I may mention that there has been a good deal of business done in the recently issued New Zealand five-millions loan, which still commands a premium in the market. The smaller loan, that has since been required for the city of Wellington waterworks, has alao done exceedingly well, and shows what great faith the investing public at home have now in colonial securities. Another alteration has been made in the postal service to New Zealand, which has not given universal satisfaction here on account of the increased charges for the postage of newspapers. The temporary arrangement as regards letters for the next two month* is that there will be a fortnightly mail via Brindiu as well as the regular monthly mail by way of San Francisco.

At the meeting of the proprietors of the Now Zealand Trust and Loan Company which has just been held, Bir Charles Clifford, the chairman, had the pleasure of stating that not only would the same dividend as before (of 14 per cent.) be paid, but that the reserve fund would be increased. He eulogieed the services of the colonial staff, by whose exertions this state of things was being maintained. There was some conversation about the projected property tax in your colony, but it was generally agreed that it would be better to wait for further information as to the progress of the Bill before there was any discussion as to how the interests of this and similar companies would be affected thereby. Two other companies connected with New Zealand are not progressing so happily, and have had to appeal to some of our highest judges to settle their differences Sometime ago the Australian Mortgage, Land, and Finance Company applied to Vice-chancellor Malins for an injunction against the Australian and New Zealand Mortgage Company to restrain them from carrying on business under their present name, or under any other name only colourably different from the name of the plaintiffs' company. The latter have carried on business for some years, and their principal office is at 123 Bishopsgate street within. The defendants' company was only established on the 14th of November last, and their office is at 79 G-racechurch street, within a stone's throw of the other. It was contended before the Vice-Chancellor that the two names were so similar that the public might be misled, and that it was unfair for the defendants to assume a name calculated to induce persons to go to their company when they might have intended to deal with the company of the plaintiffs. The Vice-Ohancell >r, however, was of opinion that the defendants' name did not so closely resemble that of the plaintiffs as tc be calculated to deceive or to call for the interference of the Court, and he therefore refused an injunction. The plaintiffs appealed, but in vain, for the Lords Justices James, Baggallay, and Cotton upheld the decision of the other Court and dismissed the appeal. Vice - Chancellor Malins has just been engaged for several days in hearing a case which will give a great impetus to the long agitated demand for a repeal of the modern law which prevents a man from marrying his deceased wife's sister. Without expressing any opinion on the matter from a social point of view, I admit, there is a good deal to be said on two, if not on three sides. I may remark that the upholders of the present prohibitory law have always stoutly maintained the argument that the deceased wife's sister could now take charge of her bereaved brother in law's house and ohildren free from any suspicion as to her relations with him. Well, how did this operate in the case of Mr Lister." He is a farmer living near Worcester, and has one little girl, who being entitled to about two hundred poundsv per annum in her own right, has been made a ward in ohanoery. Her mother was obliged to be sent to a lunatic asylum about four years ago, and when she returned home she complained of_ Mr Lister's conduct towards her sister. Divorce proceedings were taken, but these were quietly set aside, and soon after—«rrt» M"-- T 2t*V "" »gn.lu oullb to nuHjlum, where_ she died a twelvemonth ago. His sister-in-law, Miss Surman, has continued to manage his domestic affairs, and it is admitted that she has behaved with the utmost kindness towards the ohild, who is very fond of her. But then there were these rumours about the conduct of Mr Lister and Miss Surman, the only woman in England whom he cannot marry if he desired to do so, and the Court was required to arbitrate on the matter. At the outset the Vice Chancellor took it into his head that Mr Lister must part with one or the other—either his sister-in-law or his child—and, as no argument or entreaty from oounsel could shake his determination, Miss Surman at length consented to leave her brother-in-law's house.

The same Judge has also just been called upon to deal with one of those romances in which a young man elopes with a ward of Court, only the ward in this case was a. girl of seventeen. While she was at school at Southgate, near London, she became acquainted with a Mr James Snowies, who iB twenty-two years of age, and bears a very high character for steadiness and business qualities. They resolved to marry " under the rose." He took lodgings in a quiet street in London, so as to get a qualification for the publication of the banns, which might as well have been read in Ohristchurch, New Zealand, as at Ohrißt Church, Blackfriars, for anything that the young lady's friends were likely to hear of them. He was aided in his plot by his sister, who really was the party with whom the young lady eloped, seeing that it was Miss Enowles who took to the school the cab which enabled the expeotant bride to make her flight. The next morning they were married, but long before the honeymoon was over, Justice seized the bridegroom, and bore him off to Hollowuy prison for the remarkably unpalpable offence which is technically called "contempt of Court." There he had to remain nearly a fortnight, while his bride, " like Niobe, all tears," was beseeching her friends to ask the ViceChancellor to restore her husband to her. Sir Richard Malins has a kind heart, though he has a very obstinate head, and though he was told that both a Lord Chancellor and an Archbishop of Canterbury had done pretty much the same thing as young Snowies, he persisted in his declaration that the conduct, of a man who eloped with a girl was baaer than that of the burglar who stole the family jewels. However, at length he consented to release young Knowles, who is this week enj:ying a bliss which is probably all the sweeter for its temporary interruption. '• AU that glitters is not gold," is a maxim which has long been enforced upon u», but in this new year we have a practical illustration of what might be regarded as a sister truth—that everything which glistens and sparkles is not a diamond. Some few weeks ago the whole scientific world of England was startled by the statement of a gentlemen who declared that by means of a powerful elactrio battery he had succeeded in producing some grains of diamond dust. The same thing had been asserted long ago but was found to be as untrue, as it proved in this latest instance. Experiments were made—they are costly, for it is not everybody who can afford to burn even a small diamond for the sake of scientific discovery and it was found that the product of the battery bore no resemblance to the true stone. However, another inventer, and one a very great d eal more practical, has succeeded in producing the very nearest counterfeit to a diamond that h is yet been invented. A large display of these " Diamante" diamonds may now be seen in a shop window in that choren home of all that is superb in art—Bond street. They are not at present intended for the million, as the inventor only mounts them in eighteen carat gold, and a pair of fashionable single stone earrings costs a couple of guineas. These imitation diamonds come, I believe, from Paris ; at all events, one manufacturer of them sent last week to the editor of a London daily paprr what he calls "an improved imitation diamond," the value of which he modestly said was less than a sovereign, while a real stone of equal size would be worth at least three hundred pounds. It takes a very good judge indeed to tell the real from the sham, and when placed in a gold mounting of high quality the deception is far too clever for the majority of mankind to detect. While that" unfortunate nobleman " whom the bulk of the world persists in oalliug Thomas Castro, is still " languishing in D-irt-moor,' awaiting the arguments on the writ of error which the Attorney- General has kindly granted to his friends, so that they may ask the judges to determine whether his two sentence! ought not to have been ono—another

very remarkable case which is likely to involve some extraordinary questions as to the proper heir to some large estates is ripening for trial. Almost the whole of that large riverside metropolitan parish called Deptford belongs to a Mr. William John Evelyn, a lineal descendant of the man who wrote the famous diary. He has other considerable estates, but this Deptford property was managed for him by a Mr Liardet, who, as the property is within the Parliamentary borough of Greenwich, once set himself np as a candidate in opposition to Mr Gladstone, when that right hon. gentleman was elected six or seven years ago. Some disputes took place between the owner and the agent, which resulted in Mr Liardet being discharged from his office about fifteen months ago. Then for the first time Mr Liardet said that the present Mr Evelyn was wrongfully in possession of the property, as his father met an illegitimate child, and this he publicly repeated on many occasions. So Mr Evelyn now seeks the aid of the Court of Chancery to do two things—first to silence Mr Liardet, and next to enable him to prove his own legitimate birth and rightful possession of the property. Mr Justice Fry, however, who is dealing with the suit, is of opinion that Mr Evelyn wants to go too fast. He has restrained Mr Liardet, but has ordered that the other question shall be postponed until it is seen whether any action is takes by the Lady Evelyn whom Mr Liardet had sought to make out was entitled to the property. Some of the theatres are feeling the combined effects of the depression in trade and the very severe weather that has now prevailed throughout one of their best seasons, but for the most part they are doing exceedingly well. In one case indeed there has been an amusing controversy as to whether a house was crowded on a particular night. Mr Alfred Austin, a gentleman well known in political and literary circles in London, who is a poet of no mean ability, but a much better politician, and one who hopes to become some day a member of the House of Commons, wrote a very bilious letter to one of the daily papers respecting what struck him as the dismal condition of the Court Theatre, where a very pretty piece, called "The Old Love and the New," is having an astonishing success. This brought from the manager a crushing reply as to the number of the audience, and I can testify from personal observation that a few nights afterwards the Court was packed from floor to ceiling. Poor Buckstone being dead and buried his charming theatre in the Haymarket has passed into other hands. The favorite home, of old comedy is to become a new home for modern comedy, and Mr Bancroft and his wife (who may be recollected by some as Miss Marie Wilton) have spent several thousands of pounds in altering it to their taste and embellishing it. Of late we have heard a good deal about the establishing of a dramatic college or academy for the training of actors and actresses. I grant that a good many people who now fill respectable positions on the stage are sadly deficient in training and technique, but no college in the world would give them that verve of which they are naturally deficient.