GOSSIP FROM HOME.

Grey River Argus, Volume XIV, Issue 1737, 27 February 1874, Page 3

GOSSIP FROM HOME.

The following extracts from a letter we have received by the last mail from an old resident of Greymouth will not be uninteresting to our readers. The writer . dates his letter from Huddersfield, 6th December : — I am much obliged to you for sending me your paper so regularly, as I do not fj cease to take an interest in the progress ; of your thriving little townj although I ■am very unlikely ever to leave England again, that is, to stay out of it any length of time. Some of the telegraphic summaries cause me much amusement, they are so intensely absurd, as I dare say yon find out yourselves when you get the files of papers afterwards. In the last lot of September papers yon sent me, among other strange European news was an account of a dangerous accident to the Prince of "Wales, while bathing in France, but it so happens the Prince was not there at the time. Telegraphic news is notoriously untrustworthy ; the news we get from Spain, and even France, to-day, is pretty sure to be varied, or flatly contradicted to-morrow. At your distance from events here, you catch the flown " canards." The season is wonderfully mild ; we have but slight frosts and very little rain, even this far north, and the possibility of Christmas without snow, is, I think, not improbable. In this great centre of the woollen manufactures times are rather flat ; wool has ruled so high, and stocks of cloth and other woollen goods are so large, that mills are standing or running half time, through a district peopled by about two millions inhabitants ; within thirty miles of this place there are no less than 1,700,000 persons in the large towns alone, including Manchester, six miles off, and the densely peopled valleys and small towns must make up nearly as many more, so you can fancy the effect of any slackness in trade, such as has now set in. America t kes no goods now, nor Germany, but lately both were immense consumers of woollen goods from this district. Everything one has to pay A for has risen at least 25 per cent, of late,, many things in daily consumption are 50 per cent, dearer than six or seven years aeo, wages rising every year, luxury increasing, and greater difficulty to live, for those who lack the silver spoon. Among the working-class drinking, not, perhaps, drunkenness, and general waste increase daily. People can no longer go abroad to retrench, for it is as dear living abroad as at home. The weary Tichborne trial draws to a close, no more evidence will be called, and Kennealy disgusts the Bench of Judges, the Bar, the Jury, and the respectable public by his impertinent, low, and uncalled for conduct ; if the verdict goes against the defendant, Kennealy has done all he could to induce it, by his blackguard conduct ; but I expect a disagreement of the jury, the case is too complicated for one opinion to be held by twelve men upon it. I know one of the jurymen, a country gentleman from my native County, Suffolk, who, having a London house, was "potted" for the jury, being a man of independent means, some LBOOO a year, he was supposed to afford his time willingly ; he told me in November last that the jury were sure to disagree ; he did not tell me what his own opinion is, but 1 know it is against the Claimant. Kennealy is cheered and followed daily by his admirers among the oipolloi, the "great unwashed," and that is sufficient to show what class side with the Claimant, and you know they are ever against constituted authority in any form, especially on the Bench. Kennealy, like his countryman Butt, a Borne Ruler, seeks success by bearding the Bench, knowing that they are too much the gentlemen to care to punish or repress him as they might do. That is but a mean and disreputable line of conduct for a barrister, and must reap its own reward in private. I do not think your local Solon would stand much bearding from the " barred " brethren of the Greymouth bar, to judge by the reports I have just read in your paper. Parliament is not in session, so that the papers are full of letters on all conceivable topics. Electors of all sorts now go by religious bias, owing to the importance attached to the Schoolßoard arrangements; even for municipal honors it turns on Church and Dissent, and it is often ludicrous to see men doing violence to their feelings, otherwise Conservative, by voting on the Radical Bide for sake of their chapel. Ido not think the High Church spirit is quite so rampant as it was, I though hundreds would sooner turn ' Catholic than countenance Low Church principles. One may with nearly as much reason tell Low Churchmen to turn Dissenters as High Churchmen to turn Catholics. I believe the great majority of Churchmen are Broad Church, the much to be desired justi milieu. Every extravagant charge here is laid to the price of coal, but there is no reason why coals should be dear, colliers should not he paid at the rate of LI a day of eight hours, nor Bhould the great coalsellers make such enormous profits. I cannot make out whether your quartz reefs are remunerative or not. I suppose that in no part of Great Britain is there such competition and striving for the main chance as in this densely populated West Riding, and in the neighboring part of Lancashire. I fancy if the factory hands should have to u c3em" again they will not find such ready help, they are too greedy when they get a chance of coercing their employers. It is a common thing here to meet a man employing 500 to 1000 hands, and posBessed of from one to three hundred thousand pounds, who in his youth was a common weaver or mill-hand of some sort. Their sons are rich and brought up in luxury, but breeding is left out. (For remainder of News see 4th page.)