(London Review.)

Otago Witness, Issue 905, 3 April 1869, Page 19

(London Review.)

Lunatic asylum cases are becoming too frequent. When a man, however, saws off the head of a beer- jug with a sword, fires a i>un at his childreD, puts by his clothes when he takes a walk, speaks of a river as a good place for drowning farmers, and generally keeps the people around him in mortal terror of their lives, there are a few prhna-fack reasons for suspecting that he is not m his right mind. The circumstances will he read in the papers. Is delmv.v\ tvemens, after all, simply madness ? 3 1 a man knows that by drinking for a certain time he will begin to think himself the Emperor of China, or commence to converse with black beetles, it seems to us that he is acting more criminally than the afflicted lunatic whose brain is dis • eased from congenital causes.

A man who keeps a milliner's shop was fined this week for working his unfortunate gang after hours,. He had only to pay fortyeight shillings for the offence. The noble fellow put down the money at once. Of course he can afford to run the . risk of another proseoution, and make the thing remunerate him, even if twice the first penalty is inflioted. Why not send him to gaol or to a penitentiary ?

Christmas has been attended this year, as usual, by a number of tragedies arising out of the festive excesses of the uneducated; and the papers for the laat few days have

been fall of doleful facts. Dr Lankester, the coroner, held twelve inquests on Monday, of which thß greater number had reference to deaths caused by drunkenness. The pol ; ce magistrates on the same day had before them seveial cases of assaults on the pokes and othtra, comrrjitted in the frenzy of intoxication ; and ou -Saturday, at; Bow street alone, there were nearly thirty charges of a similarnature. Atßarnsbury, an upholsterer, named Campbel 1 , killed a friend aod fellowlodger in the course of a jolliLication on tho night of Christmas- eve ; and alrhouga, m this case, the>-e is some &us[>ictou of latent insanity, it is evident tnat the mischief was excited by libations of ruin and whisky. At Shadwell, on the same night, two friends disagreed on some it,si'mificant stibject, and oii>i of them, in the course of a scuiUe, fell from a high platform, and was killed!.. ' The provinces have been equally wodigal of crimes and disasters connected with the festivities of the season. Four drunken men rook refuge for the night in a barn at Methley, and set the place on fire m lighting their pipes ; one was burnt to death, and s.n'other injured. Aman wild with drink entered a dancing 'saloon afc Salford on Boxing-night, and stabbed a waiter, who was endeavouring to put him out, so severely that he died in a few minutes ; and about the ssnae time a detective policeman was shot in the streets of Northampton, without the least provocation, by a man who had shortly before endeavoured to shoot his own brother. What with these tragic circumstances, and the numerous deaths caused by the terrific gales of the week, the superstitious might almost be excused for thinking thafa just at present " the de'ilhas business in the laud." Bui; what a mockery of Christianity is the way in which many of us spend our Christmas ?

bhootrog and lynching go on as merrily Ie the Umted States as laudlord-potting and baihff-huuting foimerly proceeded in Tipperary. A part y of ludiana " Regulators " recently took rail to the Bridewell of a neighbouring township, and hung offhand a batch of prisoners confined there. There is little compassion for the lynched, but the lynchers are frightening the people, who consider that the period for rude justice has expired. In New Albany a lady pistolled a young man for writing notes of assignation to her. "The ball severed his jugular vein, and he dropped dead on the floor without speaking a word, or making the least sign." An unsavoury, but profoundly important topu. is at present being agitated in Glasgowm connection with the sewage of the town The River Clyde, which is a very beautiful stream until it approaches the city of Glasgow, is, from that point, transformed into a filthy and offensive canal, which only loses itsdisgnsting properties when it reaches the broad basin of the estuary. The Clyde in fact, is the main sewer of the city ; and' in summer time, is the most offrnpive river m Europe. Something is proposed to be clonetowards its purification ; and in the diacussion of this matter, the question as to the proper methods of disposing of sewaj-e has turned up. An able and well-informed pamphlet, by T) r James Adams, has been published which shows that the probable effects of the introduction into a large city of earth-closets in the place of water-closets would be the reverse of what has hitherto been anticipated. 1* Adams points to Pans (and the argument is a stron« one to aim who has had nasal experiences o£ the French capital) as a warnins- that deodorants and other mechanical appli^es odrnirable as they may be i n theory, are disastrously inefficient in practice. He insists—and we consider the position indisputable—that our present system is the ajostimmeaiate, cleanly, and healthful method of taking away the sewage from town houses, ™ 1 W6> rm oUld put m a *> lea on *^,}f of the Olvde. fhe commercial waste and the social injury of turning the river into a sower are both unnecessary and remediable. But the present convenient and cleanly system of getting rid oc domestic refuse might there as elsewhere, be com; ined with a plan for the utilization of the sewage, which should leave the | river more like what a river ought to ho. Dr Adams's pamphlet is an important and interesting contribution to the dhcussion of th.s very vital quebtion. It 'is curious to note that, in this discussion, oneScotch doctor objects to water-closets because they "are opposed to Revelation." Contributories to joint-stock eonroanfcs in Chancellor Giffard's rtcwiou on the claim of aL n^^' ?d? d 0& ? hl liquidator to the will hS+l f t Caßnan did kis worfc well ; but that, we imagine, is exactly whatit was his auty to do, and nothing more. He appears, m the first instance, to have MS onn T vicos at the triflin £ 3UQi of 1^6,000; subsequently at only L 25.000. ftenn COmm £*? c of shareholders thought -L/OUO a sufficient remuneration, but then, as the money was to come out of their pockets, probably Mr Carman did not take much interest in their opinion, ihe Vice-Chancellor took for granted Me Cannon's account of the time ho and his clerks were .employed, and allowed him at the rate of LI 10s per hour for himself and partners, and 0s 6d and 2s per h .intor bis clerks, and then threw him in about LIOOO as makeweight, awarding hixa altogether L9OOO. This is four and a half times, as much as a solicitor would have beer*. allowed for the same work, and is then only about one-fourth of the original claim. We should like to know what would have been, said to any solicitor bold enough to makesuch a- claim, as that of Mr Cannon. He