THROUGH OUR EXCHANGES.

Bruce Herald, Volume XVII, Issue 1759, 18 June 1886, Page 4

THROUGH OUR EXCHANGES.

- The 'European Mail,' commenting on the subject, points out that Canada will presently be able to supply her wool needs from local sources, so that, if Australian growers anticipated relief from the facilities which the Canadian and Pacific Railway would offer in the shape of a. new market foe wool, they are likely to be disappointed, since Calgary is fast becoming the great wool market of the Dominion, and since, as respects the staple, its resources are regarded as all-sufficient for the needs of the country. It is to be feared (says a writer in Truth) that a considerable number of " the unemployed" are not exactly yearning for work. I recently gave an account of some transactions in Bristol which were eminently calculated to impress one with this view ; and now I hear of a farmer in Kent who fiinds it impossible to proceed with threshing operations because the labourers refuse to wor/k for 3s. a day a rate of wages which most agriculturists would consider extravagantly liberal. Two officers, observing a fine girl in a milliner's shop, the one, an Irishman, proposed to go in and buy a watchribbon in order to get a nearer view of her. " Hoot, nion," says his northern friend, "nae occasion to waste siller ; let us gang in and speer if she can give us twa sixpences for a shilling." The Governor of Victoria has declined to interfere with the sentences passed on the members of the Salvation Army, who persisted in breaking the by-law passed by the Benalla Shire Council to regulate processions. The defendants had repeatedly defied the provisions of the by-law, and ultimately were fined £b each, or one month's imprisonment, and chose the alternative. Petitions were largely signed praying for their release, bufc the Governor declined to interfere with the decision of the local tribunal. A sensational incident is reported from Pesth. A few cracks in the walls of the university buildings had been , noticed for a considerble time past ; but it was assumed that they were owing to some trifling settlement or drying out of the mortar. Bufc a few days ago a suspicious crackling noise was occasionally heard, and ifc was thought advisable to have the condition of the building examined by a commission of architects. They reported that a large portion of the building wtzs in imminent danger of tumbling down at any moment, and they advised that its use should afc once be discontinued. Under this advice all the apartments occupied as residences by the officials and servants were forthwith evacuated, and the lecture halls' &c, closed. So imminent did the experts rgard the probable catastrophe that they refused to allow the books, archives, &c, to be removed, lest lives should be lost in the operation. At the ninth annual general meeting of the Orient Company, Mr Devitfc, the chairman, was able to announce a dividend — the first that had been paid for two years— of five per cent, per annum, and state that, after placing a substantial sum to the credit of the reserve ] fund, a balance of something like £12,000 would be left to be carried forward. He also sounded a note of warning which Colonial politicians and statesmen would do well to bear in mind when he alluded to the practice of foreign Powers in granting subsidies to lines of steamers whose vessels could, in time of war, be easily converted into war cruisers. In such an event their knowledge of the trade routes would enable them to inflict great damage upon English and Colonial commerce. A Bologne correspondent writes to the ' Times ' : — " Excavations in the I Chancelade quarries, where it will be remembered a landslip occurred last j October, burying a number of workmen, have been carried on ever since for I the purpose of unearthing the bodies. For many days after the slip was believed to have smothered the workers, smoke was seen to issue from the ruins. Soldiers and quarrymen, directed by a party of engineers, worked day and night in the hope of taking the men out alive. Ever since the work has proceeded, but of late the endeavours were not so vigorously plied. The diggers have now reached the actual spot where the men were engaged at the time of the accident, and on penetrating into a gallery cut in the stone the explorers discovered the body of a young man . lyiDg on the ground. Photographs of the position show that a dreadful state of affairs must have come about when the men uncrushed found themselves entombed. It appears undoubted that some of the men tried fco prolong their lives by killing and eating their companions in misfortune. A few solitary arms and limbs have been picked up in their prison, and everything points to the fact that cannibalism was resorted to. The young man whose body was unmutilated seems to have survived the others, and to have died of hunger." It is worthy of notice that March 21 was the 64<2d anniversary of the consecration of the Kirkcaldy Parish Church. The consecrating dignitary waa Bishop De Bernham, of St. Andrews. The church was dedicated to St. Brisse or Sfc. Brice, who was the immediate successor of St. Martin as Bishop of Tours. In connection with the church of " Kirkcaldie " traces are also found of Sfc. Patrick's name, to whom the older Church previous to 1244 had been in all probability dedicated. Extensive and repeated

! alterations took place during the seventeenth century on the church of St, Brisse, rendered necessary by the demands of the increasing population, and it was swept away, with the exception of the tower, in 1807, when the present church was built. The old. church seemed to have been a most substantial building, probably in the Norman style of architecture ; indeed, such was its strength that, according to the testimony of old residenters recently deceased, the supporting pillars could only be removed by being blown up wifch gunpowder. As already noticed, the massive unfinished tower of that old building still remains — fche most antique relic perhaps in the whole ancient burgh. It is wedded to the new structure, and marks in all probability the spot where long previous the "rude, wattled, reed-thatched Culdee Kirk " which gave its name to the place has stood. A correspondent, writing totbeTimes, aays :— " It has not been pointed out, I believe, that the project of adding 100 or 200 millions to th« National Debt for the purpose of getting rid of Ireland is not new. It was suggested in the ' Examiner,' April 29, 1848, by no less a man than Thomas Cat lyle. There is, however, a trifling difference in the proposed mode of procedure. Mr Carlyle's words are these : — " I venture to say, in spite of the present extenuated state of fiuanca and pressure of the income tax, and unspeakable pressures and extenuations of every kind— could any projecting Warner of the long range be found who would undertake to unanchor the island of Ireland and sail fairly away with ifc aud with all its population and possessions, to the last torn hat that stops a window pane, and anchor them safe again at a distance, say of 8000 miles from vs — funds to any amount would be subscribed here for putting into immediate activity such Warner of the long range. Funds ! Our railways have cost us 150 millions, but what were all railways for convenience of England in comparison to this unanchoring of Ireland from this side of her ? If ifc depended on funds, such Warner of the long range might have funds in sufficiency. To make fche National Debt an even milliard of pounds sterling, which gives 200 and odd millions to the Warner operation, this, heavy as ifc is, I should think one of the best of investments of capital ; and do not doubt ifc would be cheerfully raised in this country for such an object." (See ,f life of Carlyle," by Shepherd and Williamson, vol. ii., p, 375.)"