ANCHOVIES AND TOAST.

Auckland Star, Volume VI, Issue 1625, 1 May 1875, Page 2

ANCHOVIES AND TOAST.

(FROM OUR LONDON CORRESPONDGNT.)

Lrr*Dos\ March 9, THE DECEASED WIFE'S SISTER.

AGAIN,

The Deceased Wife's Sister Marriage Bill has been rejected by the Commons this time, for a change, but with this measure it is merely a matter of time, and the stupid prejudices of a small but violent class who chiefly retard its progress, will die out ere long. A few days ago the Commons threw out the Bdl admitting women to University Honours at Elinburgh, which looks as if members did not admire the poet's dream of "Sweet Girl Graduates." Still female colleges flourish, and agitations in favour of female suffrage are rife. It is rather funny, by the way, that there has been started a Men's Association against the Married Women* Property Act. I have seen one of its circulars, and in it I am told that the effect of the Act is to create '• wifely insubordination." It wrecks homes, gives the wife an independence of her husband, and sends her for sympathy to other hearts, encourages her to adultery, and then punishes her husband for her shame. It seems that man has become a poor wretched miserable henpecked creature, living in perpetual fear of his wife when she has any property. The Circular adds that in America " Free Love " is the child of a similar Act, and unless we reform ourselves and our laws, and that quickly, the old s fyle of English family bliss will foon be a thing of 'he past and '■ English society become chaotic " As a male creature and a poor weak erring husband, I calmly await the end.

ELECTION OP KRNEALY AND

MITCHELL,

But if the Session is quiet enough as regards measure 3it is agitated enough about members. The return of Dr Kenealy by the scum of Stoke upon Trent, and that of Mr John Mitchell for Tipperary, have been two events which have given ample pabulum for leader writers and correspondents for weeks. The return of the ex-Q.C. in tlie interests of the convict Orton by the pottery workers of Stoke is an admirable, though rather exaggerated example of the effects of the last Liberal extension of the franchise. It is a very disgraceful thing no doubt for Stoke, but it would be a mistake to suppose that the action of these ignorant people has any ulterior signification. Of course American papers will see in it a symptom of the near approach of the downfall of Royalty and so on, but such an interpretation would be a wresting of the arguments of the case. A certain section of the British public have seen all along, and still see in the^person of the, imprisoned butcher, the embodiment of all their real and imaginary wrong resting on one person. They see in him the oppressed one, a man of their own kidney sat upon by the Upper Ten, an innocent man crashed to niaintajin reputations and to secure money. Haying got this into their heads and continuing to be dosed weekly by Dr. Kenealy in the pages of his dreadful abortion (the 2Englis7iman) with boluses made up of all the filthy Billingsgate about everybody and everything respectable which his morbid brain can devise, they see in Dr. Kenealy the champion of their rights and the expounder of their feelings. It will, perhaps, do much to quiet their minds to have the doctor in Parliament, because they will be the better able to see, what a'black-', guard he is when he is pitted against real learning and talent. Moreover, when the doctor brings on his motion about the Tichborne trial it is probable that the answers bf the Law Officers of the Crown will be plain enough to let light in upon the dark minds even of the unlettered potters of .Stoke. The lower classes are quite incapable aa a body of receiving and understanding* the evidence in k trial such as that of the Queen, v. Castro. They are unable to weigh the niceities of evidence, and they still maintain the ancient and obsolete idea that evidence is valuable according to the number of witnesses produced on either side. The "Englishman: has. a circulation of over 90,000, I am told, and no words of mine can describe its blackguardism and lying qualities. Dri Kenealy is also editing a report of the Tichborne trial, which is being published in parts, and is said to circulate 25,000. When Dr Kenealy presented himself at the bar of the House, after his election, no member would come forward according to custom to introduce him to the Speaker to be sworn in, and had it not been for the good nature of the House, which dispensed with the custom for the occasion, the doctor could not have taken his seat. As for Mitchell and the " boys" of Tipperary, the House made very short work of them, for no sooner was the escaped convict's election telegraphed to England than the House declared him disqualified and issued a fresh writ. The Tipperaryites are going to elect him again, but as a conservative has also been put in nomination, he will of course sit for the consituency as soon as Mitchell shall again have been declared ineligible. The Tipperary affair might have been regarded as a practical joke had it not been that we are too well aware of the wretched animus that prompted the act. Mitchell was in every respect worse than any ordinary type of the Irish Agitator. He advocated fire and sword, petroleum and throwing vitriol, in fact every species of horror, as legitimate means for ridding Ireland of the English, and when in the colonies liberated on his parole, he forgot all the ties of honour when he broke that parole and fled to America.

LORD ST. LEONARD'S WILL MISSING.

The death of Lord St. Leonards had almost been forgotten, when his name is once more revived,, by the singular circumstance that his will is nowhere to be found. Two codicils are forthcoming, but no will

This is doubly singular in the case of a maa who was so great on the Bubject of wills. It is whispered that the document has been buried with him, having been placed by him,, shortly before his death, in theJ^^etofa favorite dressing-gown, in which-estQ^^ed. : to be interred. . Some people thinK s i i K ,. been stolen in the hope of reward ; il^ v must soon turn up, as £500 is offered forjp;Ha^ production. -.f^. |#