OUR LONDON LETTER.

Press, Volume XXVII, Issue 3644, 14 March 1877, Page 5

OUR LONDON LETTER.

(FBOM OUB OTVH COBBB8PONDBUT.)

lohdoh, January 19. The miserably barren result of the European Conference at Constantinople, the news of which we have received thie day, is in everyone's month here. The whole proceeding after having raised eneh great expectations, has turned out an utter failure. The Turks, after playing fast and loose with the Powers, and reducing the thing to a farce, have rejected the proposition of the Plenipotentiaries as being injurious to the integrity, independence, and dignity of the Empire. All the representatives of the Powers are now leaving Constantinople. It is out of ray province here to hazard any conjectures as to whether Buesia will accept the diplomatic defeat and march her army, which is impatiently fretting on the Turkish frontier, back again into winter quarters. The question is, what shall we do now ? The correct reply to that is, I believe, nothing. I do not hear now nearly so much of preparations by land and sea as I did ' some time back, and I think that oar statesmen are agreed that, though we have done our utmost to patch up the quarrel, we have really nothing to do with the fighting—for the present, that is to cay. It ie quite on the cards that there will be no fighting at all. Neither Russia nor Turkey is prepared ; the season is unfavorable to campaigning, and fighting is one of those things which people like less the more they look at it. At all events, as I said before, I think we shall keep out of it. Parliament re-assembles on the Bth prox. The coming session will bring some important changes in the ranke of the Opposition. The Liberal house is divided against itself, and split up into two parties. It ie said that Mc Gladstone will aaenme command of the more advanced section, and that Lord Hartington will continue to lead the main body of the Liberal party. The latter hare determined, it is said on good authority, to back up the Government in their action regarding the Eastern Question. Since the year 1852, memorable in our annals for floods and the Duke of Wellington's death, there have not been such inundations throughout the country as are now making the opening of 1877 a period of most eerionß disaster. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that daring the last fortnight half the country has been nnder water. Of late years we have suffered more from these watery visitations than formerly, and the evil seems to be on the increase. The reason liea in the superior system of drainage. Formerly the rain soaked into the eartb pretty nearly where it fell, but now it xuns off the land quicker than it did, and then swells the adjacent rivers, which oveiflow their banks and inundate the low-lying districts near. The localities in the neighborhood of the Thames have in this way suffered most severely, and the waters, which are now no greater respecters of crowned heads than they were in the days of Canute, have assailed the very walls of Windsor Castle, where her Majesty is now residing. For milee round the royal borough nothing ie to be seen of the country but the hedges and trees rising above a vast expanse of water. In the provinces, Lincolnshire, Nottingham, Leicester, Derby, and Somersetshire seem to be most seriously afflicted by this plague of waters. In Lincoln the floods reached a point 14in higher than the memorable inundation of 1852. On many lines railway traffic has been suspended for days, the water rising so high as to extinguish the engine fires. men were drowned two or three nights ago while rowing home to Bridgwater over the turnpike road, which was submerged for several miles to a depth of six feet. The boat was swamped by the waves ! In London the damage to property is calamitous. Thousands of poor families are houseless and mined. Subscriptions are being raised under the management of a committee at the Mansion House. The sum subscribed up tq this day amounts to about £7000. Handsome as this Bounds I feat it will be a mere drop of assistance in this ocean of distress. Simultaneously with this visitation inland, our seaboard, especially on the Southern coast, has been furiously assailed by the winds and the waves. The Admiralty Pier, at Dover, recently completed at an enormous cost, and built in the strongest fashion engineering skill could devise and execute, has been regularly crumpled up by the fary of the waves on New Fear's Day. The cost of repairing it is estimated at* at least £30,000. At Brighton, where the winter season is in full swing, at Folkestone, at Eastbourne, the damage iDflicted by the violence of the gales is unparalleled. At the last mentioned place the pier has been completely swept away. The old saying that when Christmas Day falls on a Monday a disastrous season ensues has been most unpleasantly verified.

Bellgion has just been defiled by a most unseemly scandal in our Church. The Vicar of St James', Hatcham, has for some time surpassed all, bis High Church reverend brethren in Ritualistic practices. In 8t James , the service was conducted with all the Romanian accessories of incense, gorgeous vestments, acolytes, &c In his parish the vicar bad many admirers, aDd at the same time many who strongly disapproved of hie practice?. At last Mr Tooth's diocesan, he Bishop of Rochester, forbade these services, but Sir Tooth openly defied bis Bisbop and held the service with, if anything, a nearer approach to the Bcmish ritual. This led to a most disgraceful riot, in which the Church was besieged by a mob while the eervice was proceeding. A free fight— ensued, amidst cries of *'No Popery," until the arrival of a sufficient body of police to disperse the rioters. Mr Tooth was then summoned to appear before the Ecclesiastical Coutt, over which Lord Penzance presides, bat he treated this court, as he had treated bis bishop, with defiance. He now stands committed to prison for contempt. The reverend and contumacione gentleman, I hear, made some money in Australia as a sheep-farmer before taking orders. Unfortunately, this case does not remain eimply as th« revolt of a single clergyman. It is a fire-brand which has eet the animosity between the two parties of our church once more fiercely blazing, and it has also stirred afresh the old alarm about the increase of Roman Catholicism in the country. Apropos of this last feeling, the following Btatisucs are certainly not without some significance. On the Ist January ,'1875, the number of public Roman Catholic churches and chapels in England, Scotland, and Wales was 1268 and the sumber of priests 1966. On the Ist of January, 1876, the number of churches was 1291, and of priests 2024. On the Ist of January, there were 1315 churches, and 2088 priests. In the latter, are included one archbishop and thirteen bishops.

From time to time, in my letters to yon. I have animadverted in terms of virtuous indignation on the moral laxity of London society. Here is an instance of how the minds of our young women—l allude to those moving in what is termed by penny-a-liners " the highest circles " —are poisoned by their familiarity with the spectacle of gilded vice. A yonng married lady, of good and iDflaential family, possessed of striking pereonat attractions,and brought apin the tiow abominable school of London eociety, baa JQSt done credit to her education by running away from the husband to whom ehe had been married bat very recently. The following is her letter to the man to whom a short time previously she had most solemnly vowed lojet honor and obedience (I repress the names) : — " Dear ———, Yon havn't enough money to keep mc. I am off to Paris to be the queen of the demi tqonde. Good bye, old chap. Youn, ." Do not these coarse shameless words, written by a yonng woman, gently born and gently nurtured, speak volumes against the heartless, slangy, vicious condition of the upper stratum of Boglieh eociety nowadays ? O t&mpora I O more* 1 I am happy to hear on good authority that her Majesty intends next season to resume in some measure her former position as the actual leader of English eociety. It is a pity this duty had not been recognised and performed sooner. Society is certainly the worse for the vicarious leadership of the illustaioos personage who in hex Majesty , * absence naturally takes her place at its head. DiekeM little thought, wfceo he depicted

the old soldier who christened ten children after ihe places of their nativity, that the example of his homely old character fin " Bleak House, ,, I think) wouW be followed by royalty. On this principle this old soldier bad a child called " Malta," and now the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh have been graciously pleased to call their infant daughter who was born at Valetta last month after the island of her birth. " Malts," however, when applied to royalty, becomes " Melita." Some of the papere say that the Maltese are delighted with the compliment. How easily pleased they must be. They used not to be, I recollect, when I eojonrned amongst them for many weary months about ten years ago.

The Duke of Marlborough made his public entry into Dublin as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in succession to the Duke of Abercorn on the 10th instant. His Grace occupies the rather trying position of immediately following ia the footsteps of an exceedingly pqpular man, bat he gives promise of being equal to the occasion, and I think on the whole " Pat" has been fortunate in the selec tion of his viceroy. The rank and file of the British army becomes aristocratic In my last I told you of young Viecoanl fllaidstone, the eldest son of the Earl of Wincheleea and Nottingham, who would enlist into the "gunners," and now it transpires that for eorne time the Second Life Guards have boasted of another vissount in the ranks. The young nobleman in question is Lord Berebaven, a member of an Irish noble family. He has just been promoted to the rank of corporal. An officer of the corps told mc yesterday that he was one of the smartest young non-com-missioned officers they bad. From the telegrams we have received it appears that our cricketing team are not exactly covering themselves with glory wherever they go. The news that they have been beaten by more than one eleven in the Antipodes has created much surprise among't our sporting classes. Several enthusiastic cricketers to whom I have spoken insist that there must be some mistake in the telegrams regarding the numbers of the Australian sides, which have been reported as only eleven strong. Some of th° sporting papers I see adopt this line also. [This conjecture, as our read ere know, is correct. New South Wales and Victoria played Fifteen against the Eleven ] Talking of cricket, a movement has been started by the Duke of Beaufort, Lord Fitzhardinge, and the committee of the Marylebone Club, for the purpose of presenting a testimonial to Mr W. G. Grace, the great " leviathan" of English cricket. Richard Daft, the veteran Nottingham captain, has been presented with a service of plate and a purse of 500 sovereigns by his numeroue admirers. Daf t'e name has been closely associated with English cricket for about half a century. We have at last found an antagonist for the redoubtable American pedestrian Weeton, who has been walking away from all our athletes with such ridiculous ease. An Irishman named O'Leary has been mqfcched to walk against him for six consecutive days, for £500 a side. The match is to come off in April, and will donbtless enrpass in interest any previoue event of the kind.

Subscriptions are invited by the Bank of New Zealand for £100,000 6 per cent debentures of the City of Christchurch Drainage Loan, being the first moiety of an authorised issue for £200,000 raised for the purpose of the drainage of Ohristchurch city and district. Bir Julius Vogel is, I hear, busily engaged in the duties of his newly entered upon office. The first nnmber of a new weekly penny journal, entitled "The Colonies," has just been issued by Messrs Bilver and Co, emigration agents of Cornbill. It contains a great deal of information concerning colonial affairs, and deserves as well as promises to be a success. It will be especially useful to intending emigrants from this country to our colonies.

When the Stobm Cloud Threatens, mariners hasten to close-reef the sails of the ship. Those who are approaching danger by the preliminary symptome of disease, may well profit by the example of the sailor and take measures to avert it. Bodily weakness and trifling irregularities in the discharge of the physical functions are the forerunners of disease. Be warned in time and use that sovereign protective, Udolpho Wolfe's Schiedam AboMATIO FCHNAPPS —{ADVT.]