CLIPPINGS OF THE MONTH.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XXI, Issue 1241, 26 May 1864, Page 2

CLIPPINGS OF THE MONTH.

(From the Spectator for March.') Dr. Pusey has evidently got a profound convictloh; that true unity of ipirlt is engendered by common repulsion rather than common attraction. " Jiny one " he confldcs to the Record, " who knows anything of human nature, knows in what countless cases the fear of Hell first drove wen to tyewr for* gotten God and Saviour," and, therefore, he calls the Lord Chancellor's recent judgment in the case ot 'Essays and Reviews' "soul-destroying," and, oil exactly the same principle, he offers to ally lnmseli witli the Record, on the ground of a strong common repulsion to that judgment,—an offer which the Record* recognizing in the most cordial spirit that common hatreds imply a truly Christian unity Of spirit, gladly accepts, calls Dr. Pusey's letter "admirable and faithful," and sounds the call to com-: mon action on the part of all who-think with the new Puseyite and the old Evangelical party that, as Br. Pusey naively reminds us, " God when he revealed Hell, knew the creatures which he had made better than these people." This, theii, is to be the: basis of the new coalition between the dregs of the Puseyite and the dregs of the Evangelical party,— for common belief, the assertion of the verbal inspiration of the Bible, and the Gospel of Hell everlasting; for common action the subversion of the Privy Council's judgment. Dr. Pusey writes, arid the Record receives what he says, exactly as if our Lord had come preaching and revealing, not Himself and the Kingdom of God, but the Devil and the Kingdom of Hell, in order that the sacred human race might walk backwards from the bottomless pit, and so recoil into their Saviour's arms. It is a curious example of a great spiritual engine with the wheels reversed. ■ i Lord Clarence Paget tried to explain away the re-; duction of the number of sailors and boys in the Navy. He said our force was really increasing, because every iron-plated ship, substituted for the old line of battle ships, required fewer men in proportion to work it, though adding infinitely to the . power of the fleet, in place of eleven line-of-battle ships last year, we had only ten this year ; but in place of four armour ships last year we-had seven this. Last year we had 41 frigates, corvettes, &c.; this year, 42. Last year we had 98 gunboats, sloops, &c.; this year, 99—making a total of sea-going ships of 154 last year against 158 this, but a much greater increase in power. He explained the reduction in the number of boys by the wish of the naval officers for grown-up servants in place of the secondclass boys, and in regard to the reduction in the Coastguard service said little more than that there were 1500. vacancies in the coastguard ships, and that this branch of the service admitted of reduction. Lord Clarence made some very remarkable statements as'to the growing popularity of the Navy. Whereas in 1859 it took on an average of six months to get the proper complement of men for a line-of-hattle ships, it is now easily done in three weeks or a month.

There is a pleasant state of affairs existing in Rosshire. There has hitherto been no police there, there is a good deal of poverty in winter, the sheriffs look upon sheep-stealing as London magistrates do upon maiming, viz., as an amusement practised by certain classes, and not very blameable, and the crime has increased till it seriously afi'ects the value of the farms. The, breeders lose frequently in a year more than their rent, one man losing 568 sheep worth 30s a piece in two years. The proprietors are so moved that they have at last introduced the new police; but the Scotsman points out that this is insufficient, and calls on the sheriffs to do their duty, and the landowners to evict, all crofters found guilty of stealing. If ever much of England falls into the hands of little proprietors they will carry very different laws about agricultural theft than at present exist. The farmers bear them now because they have a margin; but the loss from incessant larceny must be a very appreciable addition to rent, and is scarcely ever puuished. Who is to prove that John /Nokes took those heaps of firewood out of a hedge, or that Jane Stokes could not have dfirried, let alone collected, the heaps of corn called " gleanings?" Mr. Rawlinson, C.E., has reported to the Poor Law Board on the working of the Public Works Act passed for the relief of Lancashire. It seems that, the cotton towns have either taken, or are taking the whole sum of £1,500,000, the actual amount already granted being £883,700 ; that of the latter amount 65 per . cent is being spent on roads and sewers, another large per centage on waterworks, and the rest on private enterprise ; thpt the works I are.yery beneficial and very well done, but that they lmve employed fewer cottpn hands than - was expected. Those workmen who have, been employed have benefited. greatly in health, and one excellent effect of the scheme has been to popularise outdoor labour. ; The following epitaph on Lord Westbury has been circulated through the Inns :— " Richard Baron Westbury, : Lord High Chancellor of England, He was an eminent Christian, An energetic and successful Statesman, And a still more eminent and successful Judge. During his three years' tenure of office . ' He abolished The time-honored Institution of the Insolvents' Coiirt, The ancient mode of conveying land, And, The Eternity of Punishment. Towards the close of his earthly career, - -In the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, He dismissed Hell with costs, And took away from orthodox, members of the Church of ~ , England Their last hope of everlasting damnation." The New York Tribune gives a very curious story of a man for whom the hospital surgeons provided an artificial face on the disappearance of his own. He had been so: thoroughly salivated by "mercury that a sort of cancerous formation made its appearance in his throat, which afterwards ate away the upper jaw, lip, and eye, and a large part of the nose. Dr. Buck, one of the oldest surgeons in the New York Hospital,,set to work to remedy the evil. " Incisions were made in one cheek, and a piece of flesh drawn over, from which a lip was formed. A piece of the frontal scalp was drawn down to make a new nose," an artificial jaw was formed, and a glass eye put in, and the whole face so changed that though the man completely recovered, his face was a new one to all his friends. It is a ctjse, in fact, in which the identity of Mr. Bergen—that is the man's name —is to all his friends simply a question of historical evidence.

The Liverpool and London Fire and Life Assurance Company have issued their report for the year, and propose to declare a dividend of 40 per cent, after adding slightly to their capital, and considerably to their reserved fund. In the fire department the annual premiums have exceeded this year half a million sterling.

The Bishop of London has presided at a public meeting called by himself to relieve the spiritual destitution of London. He considers, and proveshis opinion by statistics,gthat there are 211 parishes deficient either in clergy of church accommodation, reckoning one clergyman to every 2,000 people. There are 11 parishes with only one clergyman for 8,000 people, 14 more with one to 6,000, 59 with one for 4,000, and 110 with one for numbers above 2,000. He took £3,000,000 as the sum required within the next ten years, of which the Ecclesiastical Commission might provide one. His speech was brave and sensible, but not clear upon one point. How much of the money raised fs to bg gpent.pn brick and mortar, and how much on the decent payment of forking men? We are not of those who think a briqk chapel equal to a stone church in civilizing effect, but neither is of any use without a teacher inside it, and a teacher to be effective must not be povertystricken, nor must he be everywhere a man just beginning his career.' The classes to be civilized are very sick of boy curates, yet clergymen with private meiuis do not select Bethnal Green, and a man cannot be restricted'fl.ll hjs life to £15p a year. Sir Bowlarid Hill has resigned, officially on account of ill health, really, it is said, because his Chief thinks that being responsible he ought to direct his depart* ment. His retirement is, perhaps, well timed, for there is no mind which stereotypes so rapidly as that of an inventor; but if ever public servant deserved a formal Parliamentary acknowledgement it is Sir liovvland Hill. He has done as much for the transmission of intelligence as Stephenson did for locomotion, and it must be remembered that his reward has been a salary, not a fortune. Objectors still deny that he invented the Penny Post, but it is quite certain that lie carried it in the teeth .of a most angry and resolute Opposition. To this hour one economist, Mr. McCuiloch, protests in his dictionaries against the single reform, except the abolition of the tinder box, which has directly benefited the poor, aud doubts if a twopenny rate would, not have been more advisable. We now want a man who will give us ocean penny postage—a penny a half-ounce is nearly £300 a ton, or fifteen times liidian steam freight—and abolish the rpail subsidies.. Suppose the PostmasterGeneral carries that, and so proves his intellectual right to dispense with Sir Rowland Hill. The Joint Committee of the two Houses on Metropolitan Railways has presented its report—a very modest, sensible document, which , amounts to tjtis. The outer circle round London ought to be completed, and the inner circle proceeded with, and the Committee support all projects tending towards that result, but recommend that all such projects be grouped together, go aii to avoiddifferences of level.

or other engineering evils. Tliey also recommend that the intercommunication within these lines Be Compulsory, and not dependent on the temper of different Boards. For the rest, the wild schemes by which it is proposed to cut up tendon aflre poi% uoned. Mr. Milner Gibson lias also a bill before the House for a radical alteration in railway legislation. It is a courageous bill, sweeping away niffljt existing impediments to railway making. Out it 19 just a little too autocratic. If a company ton only obtain the consent of the owners of the land through which the line is to pass, the Board of 1 ratio, i.e., Mr. Milner Gibson, is to give thein a" certificate which will have the force of a private Act of parliament. That is a little too much to ask. Ihe public want to simplify the proceedings preliminary to railway building, but not to annul their own right to object to any particular speculation. A railway might be driven in this way through London if only the owners would sell the soil. The Liberal Irish Peers complaiu that?'they are almost ignored in the representation of the order. There are 150 such peers, of whom 90 are Tories and Liberals, and they elect 28 representatives. The majority having it all their own way, leave the matter with Lord Derby, who practically nominates to every vacancy. That is not a bad arrangement, but instead of fairly electing every three peers in every Ave from among Conservatives, Lord Derby selects a conservative for the other two also, and so the Liberal peers are not represented at all. The evil is one incident to all very small representative bodies, but the Tories must not wonder if when the balance turns, as it may turn, they are treated with a similar unfairness. It is curious, by the way, to remark, as the value of a title on the hustings becomes understood, how the public appreciation of an Irish peerage rises. It will soon, at the present rate, be worth an English one, and fifty years hence may be worth more. A society has been formed to continue the publication of Early English Texts, which the Philological Society lately commenced,'but has now for a time discontinued. " Notwithstanding," says the promo-: ters, " the efforts of the Percy, Camden, and societies and printing clubs, more than half our early, printed literature—including the romances relating to our national hero Arthur—is : still inaccessible to the student of moderate means. The society aims at putting forth an octavo series of early English texts, now printed for tlu: first time frotn manuscript, and others re-edited from manuscripts, and the whole of the Arthur romances in English will, if possible, be produced. Subscriptions to the series a (guinea per annum) are to be sent to H. B. Wheatley, Esq;, 53 Berners-street,

A story is going about Paris that is creditable to the Emperor. It is said'that riding one day in the streets, lie nearly rode over a little boy, and pulling up suddenly, and ascertaining that he was not hurt, asked him good-naturedly if he would like to see the Emperor. " No," replied the child, "for my father says he is a scoundrel (gredin). " Indeed," said the Emperor, " I am sorry to hear that, but I think your father cannot be niuch of a judge." " Oh yes!" said the boy, "heis a Senator upon which one of the Emperor's train asked his name, but was peremptorily interrupted by his master, who declined to ask or hear it, and rode on.