FROM OUR EXCHANGES.

Temuka Leader, Volume 2, Issue 124, 26 February 1879, Page 2

FROM OUR EXCHANGES.

The prevailing distress among tire working classes in England has been extended and aggravated by the wintry rigors. Tho frost and snow have immensely augmented the great army" of unemployed. The workhouses are overflowing, and parochial relief lias to be : supplemented by soup kitchens and other extraordinary means for feeding the destitute. Relief Committees are formed in all the principal towns throughout the country. The hookmaking fraternity in Dunedin have shown their sympathy with the sufferers by the Kaitangata catastrophe. Mr 11. Prince has already collected amongst the members of the ring at present in town, close on LIOO, and he is sanguine of increasing that amount to L2OO within a few days. The proceedings of the Kelly gang at Gerilderie were even more audacious and extraordinary than at Enroa. ‘ They were actually in possession of the township for thir y hours ; from mid-night on Saturdaj- to seven o’clock on Monday morning. They decoyed the police out of their beds under the pretence that a disturbance had taken place, and then made them prijj soners. Then having donned the police uniforms, they masqueraded about the township. They actual’y treated abqut thirty persons to drink at the hotel paid for them. They ahout the' town with loaded revolvers, and went about from place to place under the guidance of a constable, who formally introduced Ned Kelly. When they left the hole! the assembled crowd gave them a cheer. The conduct of the people has been much commented on. Nothing has since been heard of the gang. They carried off about two thousand pounds in notes and -gold, and took the precaution to destroy the book containing the numbers of the notes. The police on both sides of the Murray have been completely baffled, ns no (faces of the outlaws have been discovered. Archdeacon limes, at a Wesleyan teameeting at Hamilton, said : —People tell me they are getting “ full’'of tea-meet-ings, and I fear the reason is because ministers of religion often make such great fools of themselves on these occasions. We talk so much twaddle that one would think the tea got into our heads ! A gentleman who on a Sunday carefully prepares a sermon to deliver to Ids ordinary congregation, accepts an invitation to address double the number of people atone of these gatherings, and he begins by saying, “ Ladies and gentlemen, I have not prepared a speech !” That is surely not a compliment to the company. Moreover, some of the anecdotes related at times are simply imbecile. We must make onr tea-meeting speeches more manly, ami take more pains in their preparation, and especially have a care that our anecdotes are truthful. I daresay that you are aware that a good deal has been written lately about my criticism of the religious newspapers. Do not for a moment suppose that I stated any objection to the grand old Christian doctrines which I believe are fairly set forth in these publications. When I asserted that tho religions newspapers do not take impartial views of truth,. and that they are to be mistrusted, I was referring to politics, and politics alone. And 1 conceive it to be a highly dangerous experiment to allow the central truths of ' the faith we hold so dear to he set in a framework of such biassed political partizanship. and such weak-little ‘‘goody” stories, that the hard headed world begins to I,, ugh at ns as weak molly-coddlings fed on literary pap. As an instance of unmanly credulity, I need go no further back than to the last number but one of a Melbourne religious paper. Onr Chinese letter contains two noteworthy items. A remarkable instance is quoted of filial piety on the part of a hoy whose mother had long been sick, and had a craxing for animal food. Her children were unable from poverty to supply her with meat, and the boy in question cut off a piece of flesh from his arm, made it into soup, and effected a cure. The Chinese Emperor has Rewarded and commended the boy. Thepu appears to he a likelihood of China assisting the British forces if Russia should take up arms in aid of her Afghan allies ; because some of the Chinese provinces in Central Asia have been occupied by the Russian forces, and China would fain wrest them from her grasp. Tho British aid to the famine-stricken districts of China has done more than anything else to forward the course of missions, as the people said there must be something in a faith which led to such results.

A family named Young, cm,si -inv' - of a mother, son, daughter, and son in-low, residing in Flenung-street, Glas.’ow, were discovered starving for want of food. The mother was dead in bed, and Imr son said to the police that the family had been without food for several days. The son and son-in-law had been without employment for six weeks. The expedition sent to North America for a live whale for the Royal Aqarimn, London, retimed to Quebec with four fine specimens, which were about to be shipped for Liverpool. Lecturing on Food and its Preservation,” Dr Walhre, Glasgow, gave it as opinion that the use of very fine flour ' is a mistake, as all the constituents of wheat were essential to the body. It was greatly to be regretted that the use of oatmeal was gradually dying out in Scotland, and was likely soon simply to become a matter of history. He was convinced we would continue to be a stronger and more robust nation if we ate more oatmeal and less wheaten bread. In everything that tended to nutritiongluten, oil, and mineral salts —oatmeal was superior to flour. No nation in the world was better circumstanced in regard to cxen than Scotland, and yet in no ■country was cooking so much neglected. The Sydenham correspondent of the 1 Ballarat Star’ writes “ I know of property wh'cb the present owner paid Llob,ooo for some years ago, and since then ho has expended L 30,000 on improvements. He would now lake L 30.000 for ihe whole, Tim owner of 80 acres, securely fenced in wiih posts and three Tails, adjoining the property of a landed proprietor, rei er.tlv offered it for sale to the* ‘ big man’ at L2 10s per acre. The reply was that he would not have it at a gift. This land is near Haddon. At or near Cape Clear a farm of over 100 acres, fenced and improved, was offered to another ‘ big man’ at L2 per acre, as it was qnita bandy to his property. A 'shrug of the shoulders was the response.”