CURRENT TOPICS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXXX, Issue 10217, 11 December 1893, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

The Chaplain of Dartmoor, where some five hundred prisoners have been received during the patt year, calls attention to the lamentable percentage among them of reconvicted persons, and expresses the opinion that if Rome plan were adopted, each as ia iried ia Siberia, of res toring men gradually to their fall liberty, it would give the men s. better chance of reform. They are described as unable to stand alone, bat with very slight control ho is of opinion that they may be guided and kept straight. The majority of the habitual prisoners, it is stated, make e.scebeat prisoners; they give little tiouc-k 1 , do & f,;ir amount of work, and are cheerful and contented with

prison life. It is only when restored to fall liberty that they fail.

Postage stamps have served many useful purposes, but hot often have they been utilised as in, the case of the State of Liberia. The Government wished to be represented at the Chicago Exhibition, but it had no fuads wherewith, to pay fcho expenses of its commissioner, Professor Alfred King. So Parliament voted him .£IOOO worth of unissued postage stamps, and with these he had to tramp to the shops in the principal cities in America. All he oouid get for the whole was MOO. Just now Liberian issues arete be had at a considerable discount.

A correspondent of the Do% News writer The circular in which Londoners are informed of a rise of 25 per cent in tho price of their milk, in consequence of tbs advance in the price of foodstuffs, is signed by a hundred and eleven cowkeepjrs and dairymen in all parts of Loudon. Some of these names represent firms or companies having a large number of shops. This is probably the first time in tho history of London's milk supply in which a combination of this kind has been attempted.

The woman competitor, it appears, has invaded the province of the London street artist, A favourite, because profitable, pitch for men artists was (the Daily Telegraph says) a strip of pavement in Gray’s lan road, beside the old workhouse. The artists liked it because it gave them the chance of making friends with the officials, in view of possible contingencies. One morning two of them arrived to take possession of the pavement, and stood thunderstruck on finding that it was already occupied by a young lady, who had ornamented it with tho usual representations of trees and waterfalls, ships on tho sea, salmon on plates—dear to the eye of street decorators—and intimated beneath, in a large, bold handwriting, “This is the work of a woman of really no importance.” The two male artists looked at the pictures, and one said to the other, " Well, I'm blest! It’s come to this at last, ’as it ?” “ Yes,” said the other, ”it ’ave. They’re drivin’ us out of the academy, and now they’re drivin’ ns off the street as well WeTI have to join the unemployed.” “Or go to the work’us,” added the first. Aud they went away, leaving the lady to collect the coppers.

Another London Guild puls forth signs of vitality. The Parish Clerks, ranking as fifty-fourth in order of. precedence, are about to prepare and print, but not, it is stated, for public circulation, a full chronicle of their own company. They •were incorporated, or rathe? licensed, by Henry 111., in 1233, as the' Brotherhood of St Nicholas, despoiled by Henry VIIL, and again incorporated by James I. They had their first ball in Bishcpsgate street. After a migration to Broad lane. Upper Thames street, the Clerks are now settled at their hall, No. 2-1, Silver street, Wood street, Cheapside. Their earlier annala recall a time when the parish clerk was commonly chorea for his educational attainments in advance of his co-parishioners at large; their performance of Scriptural plays or interludes near the • Skinners’ Well, and that cf St Mary’s Convent — whence “ Clerkenwcll -are matters of ordinary record. For a long while the Clerks used to compile and print, under a license from the Star Chamber, the Sills of Mortality for the parishes and liberties of London, Westminster, and Southwark, and the fifteen outlying parishes within their jurisdiction.

So many of the historical monuments in. Faria have been swallowed up in public improvements that a Society has been formed there called the “Society of Friends of Parisian Monument;.” These worthy archteologisls are much concerned at the project of the Western of France Bailway to construct a great terminus on the Esplanade of the luvalides, close to the Bifid Tower and the river. Tho Western Railway has two great stations—the St Lezare etation, not very far from the Madeleine, whence travellers leave for Normandy, and the Montparnasse station, for tho Brittany lines. The latter is in a very inconvenient position, a long way away on the left bank or unfashionable side of tbs river. It is to bring the Brittany line nearer the centre of affairs that the new railway station has been projected. The Friends of Parisian Monuments, who have some distinguished members among them, protest against tho station as removing historic landmarks, disfiguring tho Seine, and running counter to the terms on which the land was ceded to the Paris, Municipality by the Act of 1852.

We frequently hear of "The Latin Union,” but how many people have a definite idea of what the phrase implies ? The Latin Union is composed of five States, viz., France, Belgium, Italy, Switzerland and Greece. One of the conditions of the agreement is that tho silver of one State may circulate in another (tho franc, the lira and the drachma being of the esmo value), but that iu the event of the Union being dissolved, each State is to take back its own silver within six years. France, as by far the wealthiest of the five countries, has been the receptacle of their spare silver, and in July last it was estimated that £32,320,000 had been introduced in this way. Of this amount of foreign diver circulating in France it was estimated that Belgium coins amounted to £15,440,000, Italian to £15.720,000, Swiss to £440,000, and Greek to £720,000, Oae of the officials of tho Credit; Lyonnais, lately writing upon the question," Shall Franco denounce the Latin Union ? ” answers, “ The Latin Union is a Society in which four associates have passed on to the fifth their deteriorated products. Surely it would not be a bad thing for the fifth party to at once promote the liquidation of so unfortunate a partnership. We must terminate the Latin Union.” The adoption of such a resolution by France—-and political motives may call tor its adoption would be awkward for Bslgium and Italy, especially the latter country. Apart' from the ficancial disturbance which would bo caused, a great deal of silver would probably be thrown upon the market.