CLIPPINGS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XXX, Issue 2406, 8 September 1868, Page 3

CLIPPINGS.

(horn the Spectator.)

The House of Lords has referred Mr Torrens' Bill for improving artizans' and labourers' dwelling-houses to a select committee, but appears willing to accept it. The second reading was proposed by Lord Chelmsford, who gave a frightful picture of the overcrowding in our great cities, and more especially in London, where scores of families have been found in which mothers and sons, brothers and sisters, husbands, their wives, and strangers have all been found huddled, not only in the same room, but the same bed—and was strongly supported by Lord Shaftesbury. Lord Portman, however, observed, that the Bill would in no degree prevent this evil, as it does not prohibit overcrowding, but over-crowdiug in places unfit for human habitation. The real merit of the measure is, that it will compel landlords to make repairs, lay on water, and construct water-closets,—that is, to do their part of the worlr. If they do not do it, their houses are to.be closed, or purchased by the Board of Health, or other local authority. The evils of overcrowding must be dealt with separately, and will not be abolished till the State goes to the improvement of London, as it would go to war,— with a clear determination to win, and a contempt for the cost of winning. M. Jules Simon, one of the Deputies for Paris in the Legislative Body, has just published his discourses in the Chamber, which contain what is believed to be the programme of the French Eadicals. Its items are liberty of the Press in its absolute form, liberty of meeting, liberty of teaching, the voluntary system in religion, universal suffrage, an elective judiciary, the collection of revenue through a single tax on property, the suppression of octrois, the suppression of patents,

the responsibility of Ministers, the freedom of municipalities, free trade, 'the abolition of secrecy in foreign affairs, the substitution of the armed nation for the army, and the restriction of Government within the narrowest functions compatible with order. That is as nearly as possible the programme of those American Democrats whom our Tories, in their? love of slavery, have accepted as allies, and has at (least three patent defects. It destroys the highest function of Government, that of acting as agent for the whole people in construction as well as in repression; it places the judiciary under the will of the people, and it releases the priesthood from the control of the laity. A report Reems to. be current in Athens that Greece and Turkey are on the verge of war. The Greeks wish certain deputies from Crete to be admitted to the Assambly, thereby declaring Crete, as they think, annexed, The Turkish. Envoy says his master will regard Buck admission as. a declaration of wa*v and the Greek Government, though it has not admitted the deputies, has called out the reserve. The- Turks have plenty of reasons for declaring war on Greece if they like to- win. the risk, but this particular one seems a little puerile. The Sultan had- much better admit deputies from Athens to the Grand and then, everybody's honour would be satisfied,, and things be just as they were before, He is not the less master in Jerusalem because a Bourbon pensions of'Eome calls himself king of the city.

A week or two since we asked the Lancet to state once more,, for the benefit of the public, the evik known to arise from tight-lacing. The Lancet complies, and gives a formidable list of the evils arising from the practice. It impairs the respiratory movement of the diaphragm, throwing the work oh the intercostal muscles and those of the neck, and so diminishes the aeration of the blood, aud produces general languor. It drives down the stomach, thus causing painful forms of dyspepsia, impairs uterine health, and injures, often very seriously, the glands of the breast, an injury operative on the next generation as well as this. These facts, says the Lancet, have been known for years; but there are classes of women into whose heads, it would seem, they cannot be driven, even by experience.

The Marquis of Hastings in Hermit's year lost;, and paid, £IOO,OOO in bets upon the Derby. The facts were mentioned in most English papers, were indeed notorious to the world, and the Marquis was received.when he neit appeared with immense cheering. Thomas Eussell, a bookmaker, this year did in a small way the same thing, was accused of keeping a bettinghouse, and was on Monday fined £IOOO, with the alternative of six months' imprisonment. Moreover, all persons found were arrested, and owed their discharge to the lenity of the the papers which record the trial recording also the vastmeeting at Tattersall's to settle bets, the big bookmakers sitting quite openly at special desks, with their books and piles of bank-notes before them. Has no one of the men fined pluck enough or humour enough to lay an information against.Tattersall's, •and try, once for all, whether there are two systems of law in England ? We are happy to say that we have a letter from an English clergyman denying entirely that that majority of his brethren are, so far as he knows, likely to change their votes where they have hitherto been given on the Liberal side, in consequence of the Irish Church question. He believes that most Liberal clergymen, even though differing from Mr Gladstone on the Irish Church question, will yet prefer the Liberal to the, Conservative cause. We hope that it may prove so. We never made a grave mistake of which we should be so glad to be convicted.

Drßaleigh, an able London Conaregatioualist minister, has been in trouble For asserting that there are errors in the Bible. In a letter defending himself against the attack of the English Independent, he points out that if the Bible meals all that God wishes to reveal of Himself—as he believes—it is not adding to the certainty of .this, but combining it with a very needless and incredible marvel, to suppose that all who have recorded His revelation have been miraculously preserved from other error. Dr. Raleigh only says what ninety out of every hundred thinking men know to be true. But how much is there not of modern religion which consists in fighting shy of what it knows to be true, and trying to half believe falsehood?