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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIV, Issue 93, 19 April 1879, Page 4

Of Colonel Percy Wyndhara, who fought in the civil war, and who was killed recently by a fall from a balloon in India, the Albany Argus gives some entertaining stories. At the close of hia military service, it eaye, some one questioned his title in the New York Herald In a reply be showed that Victor Emaouel gave it to him for bis gallantry at Solferino, and fee left a challenge for the writer of the Herald letter. On being told that be would lead the Grand Jury to indict him, he expressed his willingness to challenge the Grand Jury in detail, and could not get it through hia head that law bad any right to interfere with " the private pursuits and differences of gentlemen." Hia favorite method of dealing with refractory servants was throwing them out of the window, and in a Justices' Court he made an able defence of the practice by showing that he always roomed on the ground floor, and that his oourae of discipline did not injure those who were subJ3cts of it. No officer below bim could complain of the respect and formality be exaoted, because be was just as careful to conduct himself with punctilio to his official superiors. A BrigadierGenera), who sent an aide to him in action, with a request for " a pinch of tobacco," was a person whom he always regarded with suspicion and astoniehment. He was a splendid specimen of manhood in appearance, was six feet high, of a commanding mien, and could tie his moustache in a double bow knot behind his ears. Writing on the subject of sermons and sermon-makers, the Sydney Echo says :—" The charge against do small section of the pulpit of the day is, that it has lost its influence, and that it has lossed it because it has ceased to be healthy and strong. The insipidity <of sermons has passed into a proverb, and for years past all sorts of suggestions

have been advanced with a view to the finding of the cause of this, and to the eupplyiug of the cure. 'What the pulpit wants, 1 says one of the foremost of English ecclesiastical critics, 'ie more freshness and less convention, more character and less formula, more freedom and lees fear.' At a meeting of au Edinburgh presbytery, a few weeks ago, a speaker referring to the necessity of insisting on the study of elocution as a preparation for clerical duty, maintained that there could be no doubt as to the necessity for so mo such teaching. ' Some sermons,' he said, 'as they wore now delivered, acted like doses of chloroform, and reminded them of the saying that if some of their preachers were condemned to listen to their own sermons for six months they would soon be crying out that their punishment was greater than they could bear.' Exaggerated as criticisms of this kind may be, ihe convey the sentiment of large clashes of church-goers respecting the tenJoncy of much that they are condemneJ to listen to." An English resident at St. Petersburg, whose testimony is unimpeachable, writes, under date of 3rd February as follows : — •' As the Russian journal's are forbidden to publish intelligence of the repressive character of the authorities, I hasten to communicate to you What has just occurred under my own personal observation. Last week a strike took place at the new Russian cotton mill, in the principal manufacturing district of the capital, A large number of strikes have occurred there of late years, and the police have sometimes sided with the weavers. On this occasion the workpeople struck for shorter hours at the same rate of pay, the existing period of labor — 13^ hours a day— being not unnaturally regarded as excessive. In the morning, the weavers and spinners assembled in a crowd outside the mill, and the district police-master hearicg of the disturbance sent some mounted police to reason with them. The gendarmes, however, produced no effect, and the strikers set off en masse from the New Canal to lay their case before the Czarevitch. Intelligence of this was at once sent on to the nearest fcchast (the district building containing the police, military, and other barracks), and as the mob passed the place they were surrounded by a number of Cossacks, who drove them into the tchast yard, using their sabres and whips freely among them. Many of the strikers were cut about dreadfully. After the mob were locked up in the barracks a police commission was instituted to try them, the verdict being as follows : — * All the men above the age of nineteen (seventy in number) are to be exiled to the Province of Archangel, after receiving sixty lashes apiece ; all under that age are to be sent back to the village whence they came, and are to be kept there the remainder of their livesfj all thej women employed in the mill, and men who did

not actively join in the demonstration, are to be discharged, and fined three roubles a head all round.' In a word, the entire working staff of the new cotton mill — about 800 hands — ia cleared away at the stroke of a pen, and a fresh set of people, to work from five in the morning till eight at night, is to be engaged to take their places."