SCOTCH NOTES.

Grey River Argus, Volume IX, Issue 673, 12 May 1870, Page 4

SCOTCH NOTES.

The royal burgh, of Wick cannot get a provost. The office is said to be going a-begging, and nobody will touch it. There are said to be symptoms in Lanarkshire that a general strike of the coal and ironstone miners is imminent. To a very alarming extent vagrancy and begging are on the increase in Fife. "Sturdy beggars" have lately entered houses and demanded both money and food. All over the north the severe frost his much retarded agricultural work, which is now so much in arrears as to cause considerable uneasiness. A fire broke out in Ayr Episcopal Church while the Bishop was preaching to a congregation of soldiers. No serious consequences ensued. A club has been formed in Glasgow for the revival of golf playing. The Links will be in the neighborhood of the Southside Park. An Aberdeen shoemaker has died in a soup-kitchen, choked by the unwonted phenomenon of a piece of meat in a basin of charity-soup ! The Clydesdale Banking Company has declared a dividend of 11 per cent., and carried L7OOO to the reserve fund, which now amouuts to L 275,000. The Church of ,Scotland contributed last year L 153,000 to philanthropic objects, and the year before L 165,000. Its endowment is L 190,000 annually. A case of churchyard desecration has occurred in Strathmore. The sexton emptied a coffin, throwing the remains loose into the grave, and took the coffin home for firewood. The Globe public house, Dumfries, which use! to be the favorite drinking howff of the poet Burns, when residing there and in the neighborhood, is advertised for sale. The average fall of snow over Scotland duriug the three,. first days of the week ending Feb. 19 was between eight and ten inches. In some places the snowplough had to be used to clear the ways. Her Majesty has been graciously pleased to signify to Mr Crauford, M.P., for Ayr Burghs, her acceptance of a glovebox and jewel-case made from the original rafters of Bnrns's cottage A steam velocipede, intended to run on ordinary roads, has been built by Mr Thompson, enghieer, Glasgow. The inventor is Mr Alexander Burns, draper, Carluke, who was in early life a miner. The work of demolition of the late ancient Cross Steeple, Glasgow, is now near its completion, and all that remains is a pile of stone and debris enclosed within the barricades which have so long remained around the structure. The Helmsdale correspondent of the Northern Ensign says : — " It is now that the richness of the Kildonan Gold Fields is coming out. I saw a man the other day who for the last five months never earned less than lpa a day !" Road steam-engines are about to be introduced into Caithness. Mr Sinclair, of Fores, and Mr D. Shearer, Thurso, have entered into contracts for two, to be employed in conveying pavement from their quarries to the port of shipment. A " public meeting of the citizens" of Glasgow was held recently in support of the Permissive Bill. Resolutions were passed in its favor, and it was resolved to form an electoral association "for protecting the rights of the citizens." The Mordaunt case has apparently attracted the attention even of the clergy in Scotland, for on a recent Sunday the minister of one of 'the most frequented of west-end churches in Glasgow was moved to improve the occasion by praying for Her Majesty in her " affliction." Old " Tarnity" Church in Aberdeen is now used as a music hall on week nights, under the new name of the Alhambra, and on Sundays there is preaching in it. The contrast between a sermon and the Bpectacle of a man swallowing a red hot poker is said to be startling. An attempt has been made to blow up an Edinburgh policeman. Two men accosted him, and, after some conversation, one of them proffered him a sugarball (a local sweetmeet). The policeman took the sugarball, which exploded in his hand, burning his arm and hand, and setting fire to his clothes. The men ran off. The works in connection with the new railway from Coatbridge to Glasgow^ and the North British extensions in that district, have been going on of late with great rapidity. It is expected that the whole of the operations will be completed, and the north British Railway from Coatbridge to Glasgow ready for opening, on May Ist. At the last meeting of the committee in charge of the movemeifo for providing a free dinner to the street Arabs of Edinburgh, it was stated that the average number of 917 children had, by this agency, been furnished with a daily meal. The movement thus set on foot in Edinburgh is calling forth inquiry from other quarters. On Feb. 12, from about six o'clock till nearly nine, the large moss known by the name of Dargavel, and situated a little below the railway station at Hoiiston, on the Greenock (Caledonian) line, was in full blaze. It is supposed that a spark from a passing locomotive had ignited the heather. The entire surface of the moss, which is nearly i,a mile in length, was destroyed. The prospecting for gold in different parts of Inverness-shire is still proceeding, notwithstanding the unfavorable weather. The hands employed by Mr P. G. Wilson jeweller, are continuing their labors, but only with moderate success, and nowhere has the precious metal been discovered in situ. Operations are now extended to Strathdeam, and we learn that one of the prospectors has found gold among the drift on the burn of Kyllachie, the pro-

iperty of Angus Mackintosh, Esq., of Holme. The quartz is understood to be abundant, and promising in appearance even to the judges of Australian experience. ! The heavy rains which fell on February 6 brought down all the rivers near Dumfries in flood on the following day. The Nith, the Annan, and the M were all roaring "from bark to brae," and large tracts of land were completely submerged. At Dumfries, the Green Sands and White Sands were covered with water to the depth of a few feet, and the lower portions of the houses situated there were inundated. The spate on the Nith was the highest which has been known for several years. On a recent Sunday, in one of the Established Churches in Dundee, there was a great deal of coughing. After bearing the infliction quietly for jome time, the clergyman stopped his discourse, and told the congregation that he would allow them five minuteß to cough, it out. The coughing ceased at once ; but the moment the rev. gentleman resumed, the congregation commenced with renewed vigour. This was more than he could bear, and, closing the book, he informed his flock that it was quite impossible for him to proceed further. Perhaps, he remarked, they would be better by next Sunday. With this rather abrupt termination, the sermon ceased, and he dismissed the congregation with the usual devotional exercises. There is a story told of a gentleman who always kept a bad shilling in reserve to meet a cabman's overcharge, but the Brechin people seem to keep all their bad coppers for the "brod." The Apostle Paul complained long ago that Alexander the coppersmith did him much injury, and the church treasurers of Brechin reiterate the plaint, with trifling variation. The old copper currency has been called in, and is no longer legal. But some of it is still drifting about, and it seems that there are folks in Brechin who, when one of the obselete coins comes into their possession, dispose of it in the church plate on the Sunday. As much as 2s worth of bad coppers have been thus given in " charity " at a certain church on one Sunday. The nuisance has attained so great a height that the local newspaper has been requested to denounce this peculiar form of almsgiving. Scotland is suffering from a severe attack of " Penny Reading;" A town is now no town, a village no village, which does not boast of its weekly "Penny Reading." It becomes a mystery how people managed to get along in the days before these interesting gatherings had been invented. But we live fast now, and the past is quickly forgotten. From Caithness to Wigton the papers teem with paragraphs headed "Penny Reading." The entertainments seem everywhere closely to resemble each other. An extract from Macaulay's " Lays of Ancient Rome " is preceded by three songs, a spell of "Mrs Brown" follows three more songs, and after another course of songs comes an extract from Dickens or Scott, leaving the programme to be finished by more songs. It is all very interesting, and as a rule the applause is hearty and ' impartial. The audience pay their pennies willingly, and the performers are proud to see their names in print. These readings must effect a great good, spreading, as they are calculated to do, a taste for reading and for effective elocution. In England there are few good readers ; in Scotland, proportionately, there are fewer still. Schoolmasters seem rarely to study the art of elocution, and as a rule are very bad readers. Drawling and monotony are characteristics rarely wanting in the reading of Scottish boys. If "Penny Readings" will incite dominies to abolish these two bad habits, " Penny Readings" will not have been in vain.