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Hawke's Bay Times, Issue 1635, 8 December 1874, Page 454

A public meeting to celebrate the sixth anniversary of the introduction of the order of Good Templars into the United Kingdom has been held in the Town Hall, Birmingham. Mr Joseph Malins, Grand Worthy Chief Templar of England, presided. The chairman said that six years ago that night some twenty-one persons met in a small chapel in a bye-street in Birmingham for the purpose of hearing an explanation of the order whose advent they were met to celebrate. After that meeting a lodge of eighteen members was formed. Though they met with great difficulties, in about two years they had initiated 2,500 members, and had formed 83 lodges; now there were 3,743 lodges, and the members had increased to 210,555. That was the number of faithful subscribing members at the present time. They had held during the past year more than 20,000 public meetings-—an average of 66 per day all the year round. Brother Sutherland, of Scotland, said that in that country they had some 810 lodges and some 62,000 members. Brother Thomas, of the Welsh Grand Lodge, claimed that though the English Grand Lodge was the biggest in the world, the Welsh was the greatest; for while Ireland only had one Good Templar per thousand inhabitants, England ten or eleven, and Scotland fifteen, they had forty-five per thousand. A traveller writing from London in July last to the Sydney Morning Herald tells the following not very satisfactory story;—" I learn from an intelligent gentleman (German) who has spent thirty years in New York, a most woeful picture of its state, socially and politically. He employs fifty men, but is more their servant than master ; they, through their ' Trades Union,' dictate all the terms, price of the labor, who shall do it, make him retain and dismiss hands; also insist on his enforcing their rules upon an objecting member who is disobedient to them, not subscribing to or attending their meetings. They ( strike ' and shut up his business; they assault brutally, beat, and murder at their sweet wills, and the police wink at their misdeeds because Mr Policeman is elected by the mob. He says there is no law or right in the Uuitod States but mob law ; taxation ruinous. He is a merchant tailor; he pays 35 per cent, ad valorem duty, and on the same piece of goods 50 cents per lb., paper-wrappage, rollingboard, &c, included ; no tare, and if the said piece be a silk mixture, however small, he is obliged to pay another full duty per ft, as if it were all silk ; prices so inflated that no one is the better. He indicates a terrific smash, everything being for show in the States, extravagance and bad times gradually snapping away the fortunes and simple truer life of its people." In the fulness of years and earthly blessings a venerable clergyman departed this life on September 26, who will be much missed, especially at the office of the Paymaster-General. The Kev. Thomas Thurlow was a nephew of the great Chancellor. His father held the princely Bishopric of Durham, and it was only natural that the appointments of the son should be splendid. They were constructed, however, in rather a composite manner, and obtained from strange sources. As a clergyman, it mig'it have been supposed that he would be provided for out of the Church. He did, in fact, obtain a Suffolk rectory, but his chief source of supply was furnished by the law. In what year he was made Prothonotary of the Court of Common Pleas of the County of Durham is unknown, but the office was abolished io. 1825, at which time Mr Thurlow was thirty seven years of age and as compensation for loss of its fees he received an annual allowance of £398. In the year 1831, when it was resolved to abolish the office of Patentee of Bankruptcy, it was found that Mr Thurlow was also the incumbent of that; and as compensation for losing it there was awarded him the astounding sum of £7,352 14s Gd per annum. In 1852 another office—that of Clerk of the Hamper in the Court of Chancery—was abolished, and the compensation paid to Mr Thurlow for the loss of that was £4,038 per annum. Thus at the time of his lamented death this venerable clergyman was receiving on account of abolished legal appointments no less than £11,779 year by year. Mr Thurlow lived through periods of strong political excitement and reforming administrative zeal, but his allowances were at all times as safe as an inherited landed estate. His country will not regret him the less for knowing that so splendid a pensioner will never be seen again.

THE CHANNEL TUNNEL. The line of the main tunnel under the Channel, the preliminary surveys for which are now taking place, is to be large enough for a double line of railway. It is drawn straight from St. Margaret's Bay, South Foreland, to a point very nearly midway between Calais and Sandgate. On the English side the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway will turn off between the suburb Charlton and the town of Dover, whilst the South-Eastern Railway will branch off from about Shakespeare's Cliff and join the Hue to St. Margaret's. On the French side the connecting line bends diagonally to the westward, and joins by a fork the Boulogne and Calais Railway. In longitudinal section the proposed tunnel presents a fall of 1 in 2,640, from the centre towards either extremity, and the vertical depth of the highest point of its floor is 436 ft. from Trinity highwater mark, and 200 ft. beneath the sea bottom itself. From the land levels of the existing railways the two approaches make long descents of over four miles each, with gradient of 1 in 80 into the tunnel ends, over two miles being under the sea, the total of the whole amount of tunnelling amounting to 30 miles. The geological section given by the engineers is made to show white or upper chalk above the grey chalk, unbroken and horizontal for the whole distance, and the tunnel boring rather above the medium line of the grey chalk beds. The greatest depth of water over the sea bed above the tunnel is stated to be 187 ft. The shaft will be 19ft. in diameter, built round with 24in. of brick laid in cement, and the headings, which will be driven by machine, will be lined with 14in. of brickwork, and have internal diameters of 7ft. Their form will be horseshoe, with straight sides and a flat inverted arch below the floor. The estimate for the entire preliminary works—which, to satisfy the amour propre of both nations, will be carried on simultaneously in both countries—is, with all expenses contingent on their execution, something less than £160,000. The total cost of the whole tunnel and its accessories is for the present put at £10,000,000; but there are those among the engineers who think the preliminary works will afford data for a much lower estimate.