LONDON LETTER.

Globe, Volume II, Issue 115, 13 October 1874, Page 3

LONDON LETTER.

From, a correspondent of the Press.

August 25th, 1871. Your London correspondent remains faithfully at his post, doing his best to pick up crumbs of information wherewith to edify your readers ; but so little is going on that he fears he may have some difficulty in stringing together sufficient items of interest to form a letter. The fact is, the nation is at present bathing, shooting grouse, eating shrimps, and touring on the Continent ; and these occupations, though pleasant enough to those engaged in them, are fraught with but little interest to those who are not, especially when the diameter of the earth is between the two. The very small beer the papers chronicle this mouth of August is a dreary evidence of the dearth of news. Indeed, were it not for the civil war in Spain, Marshal MacMahon’s progress through north-west France, and the Beecher - Tiltoa scandal from America, the editors would be completely on their b-iam ends. Now is the chance for people who are fond of publishing their imbecility to the world, and, to judge from the number of absurd letters in the papers, this must be a very common complaint. The editors will refuse scarcely anything to fill up their columns in August, and anyone whose cat has had more kittens than usual, or who has found out a new cure for a gumboil, rushes into print to tell us all about it. Parliament brought its labor to a close at the commencement of the month. The session was not particularly brilliant, and the opponents of the present Government, in allusion to the Licensing Amendment Bill at the commencement, and the Public Worship Act at the end. remark with grim jocosity that the whole of the session has been taken up with public houses for the first half, and public worship for the latter. The session, it is true, has been rather a barren one ; but on the whole the nation is content and satisfied. The present Ministry have respected the liberty of the subject, and have not attacked vested rights and interests, which cannot be said of their predecessors in office, and the country feels a relief in the change. Mr Disraeli contemplates a visit to Ireland, and one of the results of it will be, it is said, the final choice of a spot for a Royal residence in that country. The newspapers for the last three weeks, in default of better material, have been filling their columns with everything that could be found out or imagined about Temple Bar. That highly obstructive and not very ancient relic—it dates no farther back than the seventeenth century—is at last doomed. For years Temple Bar has been voted a nuisance, and periodical agitations for its demolition have been raised. The ugly old fabric, however, seemed to have hedged about itself a certain divinity—mainly owing to the traitors’ heads which used to be exposed above it, and Dr Johnson, who used to walk through it—and though everyone but a few sentimental antiquarians wished it gone, no one dared to lay an axe to the root of the evil. At last, however, Temple Bar has quietly settled the question, by commencing to tumble down of its own accord, and the old nuisance now rests on crutches, previous to its removal piecemeal to some other site where it won’t be in the way. When carried out this will quicken the circulation of what has hitherto been one of the most congested of London’s great arteries, and will also save the bus drivers and cabmen a vast amount of hard swearing. On religious grounds then, if on no other, its removal should be hailed with satisfaction.

The scheme for a tunnel between England and France appears to be assuming a busi-ness-like character, and most of the energy and enterprise seems to be furnished from the other side of the Channel, So in earnest are the projectors that four millions of francs are forthcoming for making the preliminary tests, which consist of sinking two shafts and undertaking certain other works to test the driftway. Of this sum the French Northern Railway Company contributes one million francs, the two English companies running to Dover the same, the city of Paris, a portion, and the rest is furnished by private enterprise. M. Leon Say, the eminent French political economist, and M. Lavelley, the chief engineer of the Suez Canal works, endorse their opinion of the practicability of the scheme by subscribing 25,000 francs each to the preliminary investigation ; while Baron Rothschild of Paris comes forward with half a million francs. The length of the tunnel will be about nineteen and a half miles, and M. Lavelley esti mates the cost of the entire undertaking at £6,000,000 sterling; but the English engineers put it at the larger figure of £10,000.000 sterling. There are many men, sound political economists and practical engineers, who hold that the game is not worth the candle, and I am inclined to cast the infiniterimally small weight of my opinion into the same scale. In a short time the Dicey and Bessemer steamers will “ bridge ” the straits of with a celerity and comfort which there is every reason to anticipate will leave but little to be desired. For the Dicey boat, the invention or rather adaptation of Captain Dicey of the Royal Navy, we are indebted to the contemned savage islanders of the southern seas. It is merely an imitation, on a very large scale, of a double canoe—two distinct hulls joined by a bridge. The Bessemer boat is, to put it roughly, on the principle of the double action swinging lamp which may be seen in any ship’s saloon. The portion of the ship devoted to the accommodation of the passengers swings within the vessel, or rather remains stationary while the vessel outside rolls or pitches. Which of the two principles will be the better we shall soon have an opportunity of deciding by practical experience. Royalty has been crowding thick upon us of late. The Grown Prince and Princess of Germany, after a prolonged stay in the Isle of Wight, left with their family yesterday. The King of Denmark, on his return from Iceland, paid a flying visit to Edinburgh last week, and has carried off the Princess of Wales and her five children to Denmark.

The Empress of Austria is still with us, and the Emperor is on his way to join her. The Prince of Asturias, the son of the ex-Queen Isabella of Spain, is also in this country. He is a youngster in his teens, and, like the Prince Imperial of France, is destined, it is said, to receive a military education at Woolwich. Prince Charles of Roumania, whose principality was once disrespectfully termed by a statesman the “ Cremorne Gardens of Europe,” is likewise in London. A visit from the Sultan of Zanzibar is on the tapis. I wonder when we shall have the Emperor of China, or, rarer bird still, the Mikado of Japan, dropping in upon us? These Royal visits do not seem to disturb the even tenor of Her Majesty the Queen’s existence at Osborne or Balmoral to any great extent, and on the Prince of Wales devolves the duty of doing the polite. Pilgrimages are becoming quite fashionable, It is not very long ago since a large and very fashionable one was organised and carried out successfully, and now a number holy pilgrims are about to start for the shrine of St Edmond of Canterbury at Pontigny. St Edmond of Canterbury lived six hundred years ago, and I am sorry I cannot tell you anything more about him except that he left England in disgust because the authorities of his day disapproved of his cursing everyone who incurred his displeasure, and died at Pontigny. To intercede at his tomb for the Holy Father, who is rather in difficulties, is the object of the pilgrimage. There is a queer jumble of the mediaeval and the modern about the whole thing. It sounds strange to read of “pilgrimages” and “return tickets by rail and water at reduced fares,’ and stranger still is it to see a trimly-shaved gentleman in a suit of dittoes, and patent side-spring boots, and to be told that he is a “ holy pilgrim.” The “ latest novelty ” in connection with the subject is a stick which looks like an ordinary walking cane, but which, on having a spring pressed, shoots forth a small figure of a saint holding a taper, which is warranted to remain lighted for a procession of ordinary duration. The British Association opened its fortyfourth annual meeting on the 19th instant, and daily up to this date the “ feast of reason ” has been spread. Belfast is the scene of the present meeting, and this is, I believe, the third time the manufacturing capital of of Ulster has been thus honored. Numerous papers have been read and addresses delivered on nearly every conceivable scientific subject ; but the inaugural address of Professor Tyndall has attracted most attention. It put forth the boldest claims on behalf of science, which, he said, must be in no way interfered with by theology. Hedeclared that men of science must oppose to the death, if necessary, any attempt to form upon the natural inclination of man to religious sentiment, a system which should in any way control his intellect. The Professor demands that all “religious theories, schemes, and systems which embrace notions of cosmogony, or which otherwise reach {into its domain, must in so far as they do this submit to the control of science, and relinquish all thought of controlling it.” The ladies have been well to the fore during the sitting of the association, the proceedings of which are now being rapidly brought to a close. The American Base Ball players, whose arrival in this country with the intention of familiarising the “ Britisher” with their national game I informed you of in my last letter, are now in Dublin. They have been well received throughout the country, and; I fancy, have no occasion to complain of British hospitality, but there is not much chance of cricket through their efforts being superseded by Base Ball. It is nothing more nor less than the old friend of our boyhood, “ rounders,” under another name, and a few new rules.

Emigration from the agricultural districts continues in a steady stream, and I fancy that your flourishing colony, notwithstanding its labor-absorbent-powers, will soon have to cry “ enough.” A batch of emigrants, who went out to Canada early in the season have returned, and this may do a great deal to check the current in this direction. With the prospect of New Zealand and Canada being closed to the emigrant, the question of what to do with our surplus labour looms more hideous than ever.