ENGLISH NOTES. (Pall Mall Gazette.)

Otago Witness, Issue 928, 11 September 1869, Page 17

ENGLISH NOTES. (Pall Mall Gazette.)

The usefulness of small birds as destroyers of insects is thoroughly recognised by the Saxon Government, as is shown by a curious scene witnessed last week on the marketplace at Dreod«n. A body of polio* suddenly made their appearance, and, without any previous warofog, seised all the c»ges containing singing bird*) •aposod for sale, and released their inn»t«sv A decree has also been issued forbidding, under penalty of a fin*, th« killing or trapping of these useful nongotors, and containing especially severe regulations with regard to binlnestmg. In Frasoe, notwithstanding all the efforts of Government, the daughter still continue*. At a rook-sbootujg ptety last week in th» Boia de Boulogne no l«t« than 5000 of the** ciefal birds were destroyed, though at the wy timo the trees wore •warming with caterpillars. A. phenomenon of a most extraordinary natnr* lias lately b**n witnessed by the in* habita&ta of the borders o< the Caspian Sea This huge salt l»k« is dotted with numerous Islands whiohwoduoe yearly a larfs quantity of naphtha, and it is nounoommoa occurrence for fires to break out in the works and bura for many days before they can be extinguished. Burly I**» month, owing to some su*t«rmnootis disturbances, eno-moun quantities of this inflwamable tubttauoe were projootfld from the naphtha we);*, and spread ever the entir* surfaoo of the water, and booominK igniud. notwithstandlos «v«ry precaution, converted the wholt a«a into ih* semblanoe of a gigratio flaming punoh 1 owl, many thousands of square miles m sxUnt Th« fire tttkrnt itself out in about forty-olght fcouro, loaviog the surfaoo strownd with tfas dead bodies of innumerable a»hss. Htr«* dotus msntioos a tradition that tho same ptoaomtaon wm ooos before obstrrod by

the triW inhabiting the ahores of the! Caspian Sea. ' ■>'<,_.-. i< ; .»\l. (!■ It is a singular faot that the ' co-operative stores which have been' tried in tho United States' have nearly all turned out to be failures. -A very*excolient building ,asaociation was , established, in,; K>w York on the cooperative^ p iupiple, but it soon collapsed. The p»aprietoj;s of some large iron works set up a, ,6 tore <f.or their, workpeople t at.,whi h goods could be purchased at a little over co-»t price. ~ The profits' we're to bed«vided among 't&y workmen! " Th'i&J'too, broke do vn. In NeW England "the/ co-operative Btof'js artgenerally unsuccessful. " One cause of this is the " avlperior attractions held out ty the ordinary grocery store in- America. < In the first place, 'ready tooney is not only not astad ior, but, long) credit is . given. Then spiriiß are usually sold in suoh shops, so that the family marketing may be carried on over the convivial glass. The co-operative sto c is obliged to do business in a more rigid fashion. Co-operation in whaling or piloting enterprises ia found to pay. For once there may be seen in operation a strike which employers and workpeople have combined to arrange. The masters have even offered to contribute to the support of the workmen if they will only keep oat on strike. The scene of this experiment is the principal coal region of Pennsylvania, and the objeot, of course,. is to "starve" the market, and so foroe up the prioes. There are now about 20,000 miners on strike, but they make no demand for increase of wages, nor have they assigned any oauae for dissatisfaction. The triok promised to Vie suoceasf ul, for coal at once advanced from 50 cents, to a dollar per ton. It was thought that better results still might be achieved if the colliery owntMS and tmnurs could continue to agree so ploaeantly. Perhaps the invention ravy not be wholly new in this country, but it has never been tried her<- on so extensive a scale. The sham strikes of Pennsylvania are likely to gain the same sort of notoriety as that whioh Conneotiout long enjoyed, perhaps undeservedly, for its wooden nutmegs and hams.

We should like to know whether any and what reduction can be made in the polioe force of vtaxwelltown, county of Kiroudb ight. The inspector of Constabulary for Scotland reports the strength of the force to be one conatable. Population to each constable, 3646. He adds, " This force consists of one constable, assisted by a lamplighter, and is inefficient." Tbe ineffioienoy is hardly to be wondered at, more especially if any attempts have been made to live a military charaoter to the force. The unfortunate man who composes its strength .cannot surely be expected to drill, in addition to his day and night duties. If such is the case, it must require all the lamplighter's aasiatance to keep him going. And hew about the lamps ? Are they neglooted wh le their custodian is, contrary to the spirit of our Constitution, performing constabulary duties ? Is the consta le expeoted to take a turn with the ladder occasionally ia consideration of the help he receives from the lamplighter ? Is he atco called upon at times to array himßelf in some disguise and mingle with tbe 3646 inhabitants of the district as a detective officer.

Wo are glad, that the horrible story whioh is told by the inhabitants of B irking is to » c enquired into officially. Harking was once considered by people who like flat country to be rather a pretty place, but a fearful visitation of sewa?o has befallen it, and if all tales are true, it must now be very nearly the most unfortunate town in the world. The main outfall sewers of London discharge their contents at' this spot, and fishing grounds are turned into beds of diigusting tilth, while " banks composed of solid sewage, six, eight, and ton feet deep," have been formed within a short period oi time. In weather an. has has just arrived, to live at Barking must be the most glooinv punishment ever yet heard of. Let us hope the worthy inhabitants extffgerate a little— on any other supposition we do not see how any of them aio lefts alive, A hot sun would breed a peatilenon in snoh a plaoe in twentyfour hour* if it were all that is deacribed. It is true thar tho phenomenon of a hot sun has till now given ns little oauae for alarm this yea?, but it is quiW possible that wo may have a spell of warm weather before tho autumn. Tho Backing sewerage certainly ought to bo looked at. Ny some one who is oompotcnt to adviao -what should be done with it.

The aooounts which we are receiving from Canada in rofereaoe to the emigrants who lately left £he*o shores aro aatislnctory for l«vera] reaion*. In tho first place, it is evident that the Government if at length amused to some s«nse of its duty. For years it has been asleep on tha subject of emigration, while in the United Statos no Inducement has been wanting to temnt over the surplus population of Europe. Good reoeiv* ing housos for emigrants have been rttablitned, and proper officers appointed to assist th» now oomors to the fields of labour most auitablo to them. The Canadian authorities are even now obliged to borrow warehouses or sheds for the accommodation of the people who detiro to settle among th«<m. But they are waking up at lant. It is alto encouraging to find that tho artisans from England have obtained employment without dimonlty in Canada, Thw was the most, doubtful point of all, and the suooesa of the emigrants show* that if fresh arrivals are properly treated tb«y are oortalu to find work. There is an immsQSO tide ot emigration now swooping across tho Atlantic—last woek alone noarly 8000 persons Uft theso shores for Amerioa, The ITmtod States Govern* mtnfc well understands that this i» so muoh

wealth and strength 1 added^to, the country. The Government of : the^Dprniuion are ' only just beginning to look at immigration in the same light** ■ ■ - , > Mr lnfiham, the -police . magistrate, : has, deoMed that .it is cruelty to orop a a dog's ears, and has inflicted a ,fine of 5s each on' James B.se and George. Hudson 1 for this offence. Two veterinary'^urgeona^said it, was cruel. Sir E. Landseer was of the same opinion, and stated that the Queen protested' against cropping and had never' hnd'a'dqgV ears cropped m her life. Under' these* circumstances, unless the defendants could have brought up more veterinary [surgeons:another great ai tist. and another monarch to stiy it was not cruel, they naturally, .had no chance, and were accordingly convicted, Mr Ingham oaying that if he had, followed hia own feelings he would have sent them to prison, Wit for the argument which he could not resist, that they were foolish persons. The practice of cropping puppies' ears is proba ly, as Mr Ingham remarked, a harbarous relic of a barbarous age ; bo ie the practice of ' docking horses' tails, ringing pigo' noses, boring ladies' ears before they come of age. "It is orael and barbarous to array a footman ia plush breeches and make him uncomfortable and ridiculous ; but when we are summoned before Mr Ingham to give an acoouat of theae barbarisms, would it not be sufficient for him to fine ua on our first conviotion without threatening to imprison us unless, we can prove ourselves fools ? We might not always be ready with the proof, and ab all events should have due notice taut we are liable to imprisonment for fashionable barbarities. What will be the next art invoked by advertising tailors ? Tuey seem to be going the round of the muses. Oue has employed poetry, and another has jttat taken to porfaiture. A volume called the ''Illustrated Fashion Book" contains, we are toM, the po tr nits of "thirteenyoungprinoes, from four to sixteen years of age, two learned divine*, and twenty-two eminent poets and painters." B-<oa of these distinguished persona ia, we tether, represented as ie issuing from the tailor'a shop, wearing aome particular garment whioh ho ia supposed to have just purchased. In the present co'nfnaod Btate of the law we do not know whether this ia libellous ; but it certainly seems hard, for example, that Sir Edwin Landaeeic should > c handed down to posterity as a man whose choice was the "New Albiou overcoat 215," and yet be without a remedy. Moreover, it ia not easy to a- c what principle of seleotion is adopted or what is the affinity between the man and the coat in each oase. The "two learned divines" are, indeed managed in a way that *hows some sense of theologioal pewpeotivo, for while the Bishop of London, has a "clerical frock suit at 665," the Rev. Newman Hall is turned out with nothiot! but a " olerioal overcoat, 253." But what can be the meaning Of investing Mr Robert Browning With a "professional Oxoiiinn " ors Mr Tupper with a '• Yachting suit?" The only case in whioh the coats appear to have referenoe t<»the"iriumstftno«3 of the wearer ds that of the Prince of the Asturias, who gets the "aao overcoat," a moat ungenerous allusion to the way in which his family has been treated by Spain. A strange story his been disclosed to the magistrate oli Lambeth in regard to the relations between the police and the predatory classes agtinst whom they are supposed to protect the publio. According to the evidence of Sergeant Ham, he «>ne day received a letter from Riohanis, an inspector of the Brighton Eailway Company s detective polioe, expreising a desire to sea him " very particular" about some bu*in<»Bs. '• hey met accordingly, and Richards said, " You and Hanger (another constable) have got old Black Miles and Bily Green (two men charged with theft) ; 1 suppose you don't want to get them convicted, do you? Ham replied, " No, not particularly ;" and I Riohards went on to say thai if the sergeant and the other constable would swear that they had made enquiries, and found the atolfn proparty belonged to some oue whom the prisoners would send to "boff" it— that is, own it- they should havo L2O between them. The. negotiation was at ones reported to the superintendent at Lambeth, anil as soon as it had been oomplotod by payment of the bribe Riohards and another man, equivocally desoribed as M a dealer in jewellery," who had also taken part in the trausaotion, were arrested. It was further alleged that Klohards was on intimate terms with thieves, frequenting their public bouses, shaking hands with them, and even receiving visits from Xhtm at his own house, where he had a fine assortment of skeleton keys and similar implements, These details aro oertainly calculated to pro* duoo some uneasiness in the publio mind. AUhowth Richards was in the servioo, not of the public, but of a railway oompany. it was, aooordiiw to the charge against mm, on tbe motropoUtan polioo that ho exorcised his oor« rupting influenoo, and on whote . 00-opora. tton ho relied in his sohsmes for foiling justico. Tho British Anti-Tobacco Society, which has just held its annual meeting, gives us one really valuable pieoe of information. It has long been an admitted faot that the British Constitution is on its last hen, but we never knew before exsoriy who was to blame to tho mattor. Last year we tbouuht it was the Reform Bil> ; this year it was said to bo tho Irish Church Bill Tho AntiTotxaooo Hooitty tolls ua plainly tbat it is smokins which threatens to "ov«rthrow tho empire. " Tho first qnevthn which urines is, can nothing bo done to avert this calamity? Wo fear not. This usu(ul aoolaty baa for sixteen years endeavoured to pat out mrybody f s ptye, and '

regretß the/ reiulfc of their exertion? to b«> that smoking is more general than ever. Tfc i'< ,' however, a great consolation in trouble .to*. fpel\ that other people are in the same fix" m ourselves. Though 'England V going to miv at/ the Me "of 70oz per head' pwi annum, the United Skates ,are in a worse predicament, and, may look for an earlier political extinction than the mother odnwtry, for their consumption amounts to 120oz per head. Poor old Fiance and Ger.manyareia for its top, to say. nothing of Ruaaift. la fact, we are all.going tothe-bad together, and purely tha common destruction to which we are doomed should give us kindly feelings towards onw another, it scums that it ia not the actual smoker who feels the effects of strong tobacco, it is hiß obiMren* We only suffer from the nasty snuff oar fathers took ; on the other haud, our children suffer from out- pipes. The report refers to "the pale faces and slender build" of the rising generation, which explains the term "mean whites" in America. It is a bad business altogether, and the society, having failed to do any good, may as well take to smoking itself. It has at all events one grief in common with the majority of mankind—it "deplores the want of funds/ Alas, for this eternal want I The Dialectical Society is patiently pttrsu* ing ita researches into [spiritual {manifestations, tut it is difficult to understand what value can be attaohed to the sort of evidence which is now being collected. Indeed, it is clearly an abuse of language to give the name of evidence to the loose, unauthenticated statements of witnesses who are allowed to say what they like without cross-examina-tion and mwy of whom are anonymous. One gentlemin, for example, "having once been mentioned in the Saturday Review, did no 1 desire to see his name in print j<»inv We may perhapß suspeot another reason than his modesty for this reserve. He produced a crystal fall rather tdgger than » duck's egg, and declared jtha 1 it would answer auy question that might ba asked. It appeared, however, that the ball was of no use without the aid of a certain young lady; the " seeress " described the sights in the crystal "in beautiful language, andhewroteit down." Another witness introduced himself vaguely ns a merchant ia the City, who had suffered strange physioal results from the study ot mesmerism, suoh as "muscular, manual, and pedal contractions." He had often found himself speaking a language he did not understand ; had beheld "ladies and gentlemen of high position in society similarly affooted," and *' had seen them set at. defiance the rules of etiquette and ' ebave like wild Indians " Spirits of one kind or other were no doubt at w rk in producing these remarkable manifestations. A witness, who was bold enough to give his name as Manuel Eyre. B&id ho had found spiritualism very useful in obtaining a register of baptism. He applied to a public medium, and after delivering his messnge, a ta le cime and fell into hta lap. " This," he said, •'was the first communication I received ;" but afterwards he got the information he wanted before bfing quite crushed l»y the attentions of the furniture. - nother spiritualist had seen a conoertina play a tune aud the table dance to it; but that is an 0/ etory now.

At ft time when emigration is bo f oshion* able, and intending emigrants are debating what country w to be their future home, information respecting comfortable spot* cannot fail to bo acceptable. We therefore call attention to a district in Russia which may euit some temperaments that are too viv&oioui !for the mother country. Mr Consul Barrow, in his report on the trade and commerce of Kertoh durug the year 1868, states that the market j.rices have risen in every item, the necessaries of life being in tome instances doable the amount they were sold for last year. There it one solitary little bank, which refuses to ohango a Bank of England note, though ready to lend money on it for interest, and which is oontent at'the close of the year to ahow a balance on thecreditsideofsomethingleasthaa UOO. The population shows a marked ten* denoy to inorease, but the number of murders, suicides, and assassinations keeps ie at par. There are no publio works except the battery, nor are there likely to b* •ny improvements, as nobody seems to take any interest in the amelioration of the town. Mr Barrow's aoooant of the po« gress of crime should excite the admiration of our roughs and burglars. He says it is fearfully on the inorease. Robberies, mur« ders, and suioides suooocd eaoh other, and althongb the polioe are unwilling to mak# known the exaot figures, it is suppu«ed that not less than fifty people have boon murdered during the past year, some in broad noonday and in frequented place*, and about twelve have destroyed themselves ; these latter belonged principally to the better classes— generals, oolone s, and young ladies figuring on toe list On each occasion the suiotde was effected by means of a revolver. Tbo police, about seven in number, are in eve»y respeot inefficient, and are constantly in a state of intoxication. Such, he adds, it the aad but true oondition of Kertoh, and will be readily recognised by every one who baa hid the calamity to soj<vnrn in it. Whatever Mr Barrow's opinion may be, we oannot ntlp fotling tbat it must be a most interesting home for the pbilanthropiat or the rough. Could not a few of them be iaduood to tmi. grato there in oompany ?

A rmMlo library is about to be f sUWiabad at ' Roxburgh, funds su^cienf for the pur« chiwo of atwral hundred vvlutnett having boon subscribed.