ENGLISH NOTES.

Westport Times, Volume V, Issue 884, 7 November 1871, Page 3

ENGLISH NOTES.

Tho Committee on Baby-farming report that tho best method of preventing infanticide, and more especially infanticide by neglect, would bo to compel a strict registration of every birth and death, of every private lyingin establishment, aud every nursery where two or moro babies are taken in for hire. They believe that these procautions would, enable tho police to trace each child, and thus render baby-murder as a trade a much more dangerous occupation. The difficulty is to enforce registration, but the police say that it is possible, at least so far as to compel any nurse to account for the number of children in her charge. M. Dufaures has introduced a Bill into the French Assembly making it a penal offence, punishable with fine and imprisonment up to two years, to be a member of tho International. This Bill, it is expected, will pass, but its only result will be that of many similar Bills, to drive the members into secrecy, to give to chiefs a new and powerful hold over them (in the punishment of informers), and to relieve the Society of public observation and criticism. It will only be hoard of when it acts. Trades Unions were most formidable when it was an offence to belongs to them, and so was the Society of Jesus. Persecution never succeeds, unless carried, as in Spain, to tho point of extirpation. Mr Justice Mellor is assailing the wisdom of our ancestors as embodied in proverbs in a very reckless manner. A good-humoured witness in a nisi prius case told a jury recently that he was *• as sober as a"—judge, he was going to say, but stopped short and begged pardon. The judge, instead of accepting the compliment contained in the proverb which, considering its age, is really a high one, said it might as well bo varied into as "sober as a bishop." Why not suggest at once "as sober as a lord," and so reverse the old saying once for all by a formal judicial decision. It is in our day no more true than the corresponding ono, which was always false, " as drunk as a beast."

Lord Houghton, in a well-turned speech at the Scott centenary, in honour of Miss Hope Scott, the sole survivor of the line, mentioned the kind of loneliness in which the names of all the great litterateurs stand. They have rarely left descendants. We have no Shakespeare, no Milton, no Bacon, no Newton, no Pope, no Byron, Italy has no Dante, no Petrarch, no Ariosto, nor Alfieri; Germany has no Goethe, no Schiller, no Heine ; France has no Montaigne, no Descartes, no Voltaire, no Lamartine. There is no descendant known of Luther. Calviu, nor John Knox. The fact is remarkable, and not favourable to the theory of an indefinite progress of humanity. The race of the very great does not multiply, while the race of the very little, say any hodman, is as the sands of the sea.

The earth is either solid, or has an exceedingly thick crust, becoming harder as we descend, harder than any known rock. At least, that is the conclusion printed at in a paper presented to the British Association by the Tidal Committee for the year. They have ascertained that if the earth had only a shell of solid rock—say 50 miles in thickness, enclosing melted matter—it would yield under the tide almost as freely as a liquid. A globe of glass of the same size as the earth would yield like indiarubber ; and it is probable, from a series of experiments, that the earth, as a whole, is vastly more rigid than rock upon her surface —a fact which, it is suggested, may be due to the excessive pressure in the interior. "Well, but volcanoes and geysers 1 If there is not fire down there, not many miles deep, how do they come ?

The sympathies of English juries are absolutely inexplicable. Mrs Mary Sadler quitted her husband, and lived with Captain Sills, of the Argyll and Bute Militia, as his mistress. His family endeavoured to induce him to quit her, and he promised to do so ; but was deterred, as Mr Justice Smith, who tried the case, thought, by her repeated threats. At last he carried out his resolution, and Mrs Sadler, sitting by his side on a bed at a farewell interview, stabbed him. She was tried for wounding with intent to murder; but the jury found her guilty of unlawfully wounding, and added a strong recommendation to mercy, their notion apparently being that if people will form such connections they deserve all they get. That may be quite true, but then they do not deserve it from their equally guilty partners. Tho judge sentenced her to 15 months' hard labour.

Mr W. Taylor, F.S.S. read to the British Association a paper containing some very suggestive facts. The total number of labourers in England and Wales of all classes living on weekly wages and working with their hands is, including their families, 8,144,000, less than half the population. Of these 1,178,000 are skilled artizans, or say 200,000 grown men: 4,009,000 are half-skilled artizians, or say 800,000 grown men; and 2,957.000 agricultural and unskilled labourers, or say 600,000 grown men, The average earnings of a skilled man range from £6O to £73 a year ; of a half-skilled man from £46 to £52 ; apd of an unskilled man or agricultural labourer from £2O to £4l. These averages would show prosperity in the working class, the lower agricultural labourers excepted, and their total earnings are £276,000,000 a year, but they throw away £58,000,000 a

year on alcohol, so paying to the publicans a fifth of all their receipts, that is a four-shilling income tax and a total sum nearly double the whole of the taxes they pay the State. Teetotalism has not the moral merits its advocates proclaim, or Mussulmans would bo better men but it certainly would make us the richest people on earth. The Select Committee of the Commons on Pawnbrdking have reported that the time has not yet arrived for free trade in pledges, and have advised that up to £2 interest should still be fixed by statute ata halfpenny a month for every 2s or fraction of 2s. Above £2 the trade is to be free. Under 10s, moreover, the article pawned, if not redeemed within six months, is to be absolutely the property of the pawnbroker, but above that figure he must restore any surplus over debt and interest. The interest is very high, the lowest minimum being 25 per cent., and we are by no means certain that if all pawubroking laws were abolished, the trade would not pass into much better hands. We always underrate the shrewdness of the poor. Would it not be possible to try a compromise, and leave tho trade alone, provided the pawnbroker published his rate of charges clearly in his shopwindow ? If he departed from them as against the customer, he could bo punished summarily, like a cabman. The " Times' remarks that the returns of British trade for the past month show an extraordinary increase, particularly in our exports, which reached £19,817,000, the largest total ever attained. We are told also that there is a distinct increase of profits in almost all branches of business, au assertion strongly confirmed by the steady but determined rise in the value of all the favourite investments. This rise is visible not only in railway shares, in which it is due, in part at least to the increase of their dividends, arising from better management, but in almost all foreign stocks, and in all Indian securities, which have reached a preposterous price. Indian Fours are at 104, so that India has now the second best credit in the world. That is pleasant for Anglo-Indians; but there is nothing in tho circumstances of the Empire or the condition of her finances to raise her credit beyond that of every European State except Great Britain. A rebellion would knock down all these stocks ten per cent, at a blow.

The report of the Royal Commission on the Supply of Coal is out, and comes pretty much to this: Professor Stanley Jevons was right, and we are burning our coalfields up. If everything goes on as at present our supply will he done by the year 2000. If we get down to 4000 feet, which is possible, but will be costly and dangerous, and if the population increases in a decreasing ratio, it may last till 2230. Long before either time the price of coal will rise very sensibly indeed. There is a limit to the rise of course, for at a certain price per ton foreign coal could be brought in, but, still, all manufactures would bo very severely affected. The best, hope is in a new motor not requiring such a conmsumption of bottled sunlight to feed it, but that seems far off; aud we fear we must look forward to a time when England will again be an agricultural country vory much burdened with debt, and with a population, organised on Swiss principles, of about ten millions. The debt, as Mr Gladstone advised, should be paid before that. Great alarm appears to be felt in London about the cholera—an alarm very useful in niany ways —but the few facts known do not justify it. Cholera, after being endemic in Russia for two, or as some say, for five years, ha 3 reached Kouigsberg on the East Prussian frontier, but there is no proof that it is marching. No evidence of its progress is given, and the deaths, which were originally two iu three, are now one in two. It is worth while in time of panic to remember that as far as evidence can prove anything it is certain that cholera is not communicated by touch, that the cause of contagion is an effluvium from the faeces, and that diarrhoea, apart from the poison, can no more develope into the Asiatic disease than gout can develope into paralysis. The statement made this week that cholera had appeared in London is unfounded, and there is little probability that it will appear till next year —when it may be terrible. Meanwhile the best precautions are the suppression of cesspools and expenditure on pure water. The only drug palliative worth a straw is opium. Mr Scudamore has scut in a report upon the financial result of the purchase of ths telegraphs. The broad results at present attained are that tho telegraphs cost 1\ millions sterling, that tho receipts are now 10 per cent, on that sum, that tho expenses are under 5£ per cent., aud that the purchase therefore returns some profit to the State. This profit, moreover, increases as the system extends itself. and becomes more thoroughly appreciated, but the true financial result of the undertaking will never bo known till the department is able to introduce the uniform sixpence. The middle-class is learning to telegraph to save itself the trouble of writing, but the millions do not use the wires except on exceptional occasions. It was supposed in the beginning of the week that the telegraph was overworking its employes, a boy named "Wkitaker having died from over-work; but it appears that the boy, who received 25s a week, over-worked himself to obtain money from other clerks. The boy's greediness is, of course, Mr Gladstone's fault, like everything else,

cholera included —vide " Pall Mall Gazette" every day—but still his death was not tho result of Mr Scudamore'a meanness.

An International Opera House is to be erected in Oxford street London.

A monument to Count Moltke is to bo erected at Parchini, his birth place. Arrangements aro already being made in Brussels for an International Exhibition, to be held there in 1876. Mokrani, the leader of tho Algerian insurrection, is described as " a man of noble and seductive appearance." At tho banquet given to the French deputation in Dublin, the toast of "the Queen" was received with hisses. A Unitarian minister at Mossley has died of hydrophobia resulting from the bito of a cat three months previous. A thorough exploration of Palestine is about to be undertaken in concert by England and the United States. Great damage has been done by a tornado near Holnest Park, Dorsetshire. The Pope lias refused to accept during his lifetime, tho title of '■ The Great." Mr Hugh Allan, of tho well-known Allan line of steamers, has been knighted. The Earl of Dunmore has sold his fine estate in the Hebrides for £155,000. Thirty persons have been injured by a railway accident at Wolverhampton. The Duke of Sutherland now owns 00 per cent, of the land in Sutherlandshire. At Sheffield a brute named Bradshaw, a grinder, has kicked his wife to death. Secessions from the Romish Church are becoming numerous in South Germany. Two men have been arrested for breaking into Liberton and Duddingston churches. The horse show at Birmingham is described as one of the best held there for many years. There is an Architects' Benevolent Society in London. Wood revolving shutters for shops can now be supplied in English houses from Is 6d per foot. A complete improved kitchen range, containing hot plate, ironing stove, 17-inch oven, and roaster, with shelves and ventilator, boiler and brass tap, flue pipe and register, can now be bought in England for £2 10.S During the Crimean war in Eussia, there were only two lines of railway, the one from St. Petersburg to Moscow, 400 miles, the other only 17 miles. Now 6,997 miles are open for traffic.