CLIPPINGS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 2594, 29 April 1869, Page 3

CLIPPINGS.

{from the Spectator, of lehrmry.) A fireman named Grimshaw, employed in the Brigade, did a brave thing. The house of a Mr Barlee, at Netting Hill, was on fire, and Mrs Barlee had already perished, when Grimshaw and Buckland, in the effort to save the housemaid, reached the roof from an adjoining house. They found the roof too steep to walk on, and without gutter or coping. Grimshaw, however, tied a rope round h|m, which Buckland held, andcrawled down the roof to the edge, whence, guided by the screams, he flung a line to the housemaid. The woman tied it many times round her waist, and then Grimshaw, “ lying back on the roof without foothold,” drew her along in the air from her own window to the window of the next house. If that account, which we take from the Telegraph, is not the invention of a sensational reporter, Grimshaw deserves the Victoria Cross as truly as any soldier ever did, and may be complimented on his strength besides. Sheward, the self-accused Norwich murderer, was committed for ,trial — the only new evidence of the slightest importance being to the effect that he had formed a connection with some other woman within a very short time of his first wife’s disappearance in June, 1851 —and also the evidence of a nurse of one of his children by the present Mrs Sheward, who spoke to having asked Sheward, from nine to thirteen years ago, why he did not marry his present wife—as he afterwards did—his first wife having been long dead; to which Sheward replied that “ she might have been married before if she wished.” This latter speech seems inconsistent with Steward's language to the relatives of his first wife, to whom he never seems to

have admitted ,anjr knowledge of her death. A letter written by Sheward, and dated 24th March, 1853, was also put in evidence, in which be stated that he should not take part in the arrangement of the affairs of a relative of bis first wife’s, on the ground that she (his wife) was not then in Norwich. The prisoner, by the advice of his counsel, reserved bis defence for the trial itself. It appears from the quarterly report of the Registrar-General that the natural increase of the people of the United Kingdom, the births in excess of deaths, was at the rate of 1177 daily, or 410,000 a year. Emigration, however, carried off 391 daily, or 142.000 a year, leaving 268,000 as the final addition to the population. At this rate the kingdom increases by a Lancashire every ten years, or, say, a Savoy and Nice, and sends in the same time the population of a State like Massachusetts to America and the colonies. It is believed that other races are increasing as fast, but no other exerts the same centrifugal action upon its surplus, the Germans and the Chinese alone emigrating in large numbers. The total increase in America must be evengreater,and together the speakers of English multiply by more than eighty millions per century; and, be it remembered, that there does not in the world exist a community of 10.000 Englishmen not under their own laws. A deputation has waited upon the Home Secretary to urge speedy measures for securing the safety of property and life in London. It was headed by Professor Marks, who represented the district of Marylebone. Though a little behind the time in some of his notions; he wished to do away in great measure with the ticket-of-leave system —which really needs extension and elaboration, and to have some penal settlement bought for England where all the incurable and worst convicts should be sent. Mr Bruce pointed out in reply the frightful horrors of a pure convict settlement, with no respectable external population to absorb the criminals when their time expires, and intimated his disapproval of the idea. He wished to extend the ticket-of-leave system, and render it much safer and more efficient than it is, by a complete system of registration. He denied the great increase of crime alleged. Going back forty years, he said, crime was then precisely as frequent as it is at present; and as the population has greatly increased since then, the proportion is much diminished. But comparing more recent periods, 1867 showed a certain increase of crime on 1866; but 1866 showed a decrease on 1865, and the recent increase was due, no doubt, in great measure to the commercial distress and want of employment. Mr Bruce repudiated heartily tor the Government any feeling of false sentimentality towards crime.