OUR LONDON LETTER.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 9875, 21 October 1893, Page 5 (Supplement)

OUR LONDON LETTER.

(Feom Our Special Coubkspondent.) 30 and 31 Fleet street, London, September 9. LONDON CHAT. By degrees the constant disappearance c? small articles from shopn began to be associated with the visits of these charmiug guests. Suspicion at length was aroused and a watch was kept. The result was that in several instance s the fair damea were detected carryu-g out to the confederates in the carriage various articles which had been surreptitiously appropriated. So soon as abundant evidence had been accumulated an arrest was made. The testimony was overwhelming, and sentences of " two months' hard " were passed in all the cases. It was shown that all three were well off, and had not the slightest temptation, to dishonesty so far as poverty can be admitted as one. They had an insatiable hankering to steal, and steal they did. The. distress of their husbands, all gentlemen of unquestioned probity and occupying good positions, may be imagined. Xhe affair has naturally caused much talk.

Perhaps the sensation of the week has been what is now known as the " Ardlamont Mystery." Mr Monson, the tenant of the Ardlamont estate in Scotland, had a friend Lieutenant Hambrough, visiting him. One morning these two and a third named Scott were all upset from a boat, and Hambrough's life was narrowly saved by hi* host. The same afternoon the three were, out shooting, and while Borne distance apart a report waa heard, and. a little later Hambrough was found Bhob dead. Suicide was suspected, but soon suspicion fell on .the host, who was arrested and charged with murder. .

Meanwhile Hambrough's body, which had been interred in the Isle of Wight, was exhumed, .in very dramatic circumstances of horror, and a careful autopsy demonstrated the great improbability that the fatal wounds could have been self-inflicted. Further, it turned out that two heavy policies on Hambrough's life had been assigned to Mrs Monson in the event of his death, and that Moueon was in very embarrassed circumstances. At this stage the case remains for the present, but it is excitedly argued in nearly every household throughout the land.

In one case fatal results ensued; A disputant was so anxious to prove that the injuries might have been self-inflicted that he tried the experiment with a loaded gun, and completely proved his case,' for the gun went off and he was killed instantly. This recalls the " muffin gentleman " in " Pickwick." % ' THE COAL STRIKE. Most serious of all the week's events have been the deplorable riots and scenes of destructive lawlessness arising out of the great colliery strike. This- 6trike, as was expected when last I referred to it, is steadily and hopelessly fizzling out. Men are returning to work by hundreds and thousands in all parts of the coal districts, and some places have refused, all along to join the strike. But the very impotence and failure of the movement seems all the more to have enraged and maddened the strikers, who, in a large number of instances, hare behaved with disgraceful lawlessness and brutality, and have committed numerous outrages against persons and property of a most atrocious and infamous character.

Property has been destroyed in Yorkshire and Derbj shire ; with reckless malignity. Hamanlife has been wilfully risked or sacrificed by wanton damage to railways and mining machinery. Shameful personal injuries have been inflicted wholesale, not only on m'en but also even on women, and in short the strikers generally have given conclusive proof of their utter imperviousness to reason, and equally strong, presumptive proof of the wrongness of the deraands thus attempted to be enforced. Tbe colliery-owners have given proof of their hona fides by consenting to refer the matter to arbitration-^their case being that they cannot, without direct loss, carry on feeir work even at existing wages,, which* moreover, are considerably higher than a few years back. The men refuse arbitration, and bo have given prima facie proof of their mala fides. Meanwhile all interests and industries are beginning to suffer, and even you in New Zealand will feel some of the pinch in the shape of a lessened demand for wool. Factories are closing in all directions for lack of fuel, and unless work be speedily resumed iv the collieries this state of .affairs will be gravely aggravated. The position is very serious, but, as I hslve said, there are grounds for hope that the end is near.

Military assistance has had to be called in at several points, and once or twice it has been necessary to fire on the mob, with fatal results. Strong measures are urgently demanded by the majority of the newspapers, and the lack of due preparation and firmness on the part of the local authorities in some of the menaced places ..has 'been severely and deservedly censuredr I fear that in some instances their supineness was due to political considerations. Whatever the Labour agitators may choOse to say or believe, they are steadily cutting their own throats by the attitude they persist in assuming towards employers. I had a long chat a few days ago with the head of one of the greatest English iron and engineering works. Hs said (and he showed me conclusive proofs ot His accuracy): "I am simply carrying on Ihtse works because I am reluctant to close them, and because I do not wish to turn adrift my large army of workmen and their families. lam not making a farthing's profit, and have not made any for a long time past—often rather a loss. Labour is so much cheaper and hours so much longer on the Continent that the Continental manufacturers' can easily beat ua and undersell us on our own ground. We can only compete by doiog without a penny of profit, or even by making a loss. lam not alone in this. We are all in the same boat."

Another eminent ironmaster said : " Before I take any contract I call all my men together and ask if they are satisfied with their present wages. They tell me they are, and so I take the contract on that basts. But so goon as I am pinned.to that contract and bound under heavy penalties to carry it out, then the men turn round on ma and threaten to strike unless I increase their wages, which of course I have to do, and so lose.instead of gaining by my contract. This has occurred- over and over again."

. These are grave difficulties and form the chief obstacles in the way of auy permanent or widespread revival in the British manufacturing trade. The workmen are persistently killing the goose that laid the golden eggs. Another grim item of news has to be chronicled.: We have the cholera in England now beyond a doubt. At Gfrimsby, at Hull, arid at CleethcJrp'e the fell disease Continues to make slow but deadly advance. Its. Asiatic character has been emphatically declared by the most emineat bacteriologists, and its lethal virulence has unhappily been but too clearly proved. : But now it has appeared in the heart of London itself, and, strange to say, at the Houses of Parliament of all places in the world.

One of the cleaners employed in that huge pile of buildings died yesterday under what were described as " very suspicious circumstances" —the "suspicion " being of course that the cause was cholera. It turned, out, how,ever, that she was a. woman constitutionally subject to attacks of. severe diarrhoasi, and that she had eaten a hearty but indigestible dinner of "pickled pork and Ostend rabbit" on Sunday, this being followed by slight indisposition on Monday and Tuesday, confinement to bed on Wednesday, and death yesterday. Rapid change of colour took place after death, and this seems first to have suggested the suspicion of cholera. Bacteriological examination by Dr Klein is stated to have definitely proved the disease to be Asiatic cholera. How the unfortunate woman contracted it no one at present can say. It is alleged to be certain that it originated outside the parliamentary precincts, but I am not aware of the grounds for this assertion.

The fact remains that the cholera is among us once more. Stringent measures of disinfection have been resorted to in the caee of the building in which the woman died, and also in that of the Houses of Parliament. The authorities do not believe the disease will spread. Heaven grant they may be right!