ENGLISH NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 1005, 4 March 1871, Page 18

ENGLISH NOTES.

(Spectator. )

A horrible explosion occurred at Witton, near Birmingham, on Friday week. A number of women and girls were employed by Messrs Ludlow in priming percussion caps : and it appears that in one of nineteen sheds occupied for the purpose a fire had been allowed. One of the women went up to it to dry her apron, it took fire, the fire caught some loose powder and ran down the benches to a powder dep6t, it exploded, and three sheds were blown to pieces. Thirty of the women were either killed, or so injured that they died immediately afterwards ; thirty more were frightfully injured, and many bodies are Btill wholly unrecognisable. They look when laid out like Backs of cinders ; As yet the evidence points to considerable care in the general management of the works, and excessive carelessness in the management of the stoves, which were not even mentioned in the rules.

The Times has an account of a very clever swindle indeed. A New York tobacconist sends out ciroulars marked " confidential" to many persons In England, offering them counterfeit sovereigns made of aluminium found in the Rocky Mountains, at L 2 for 20 or LSO for 500. They are so good, the circular says, in appearance, colour, and weight — a physical impossiblity — that experts are taken in, but nobody must have more than 500. Persons desiring such sovereigns must send the money and their orders in the form of orders for smoking tobacco at prices enclosed. They would then get the tobacco, find it worthless, and be ashamed to complain, while, in the face of their own orders, they would have no legal remedy. A coiner can be punished, but not a man who offers to sell coins if an order is sent for tobacco, and does not sell them. That is a civil breach of contract. Fisk should bay that tobacconist, and make him Chairman of the Erie.

The Directors of the Union Bank are, it would seem, " impressed with the distress and difficulties resulting from the early and improvident marriages of some of the junior clerks, who, without any other resources than their commencing salaries, soon find their incomes inadequate to meet the increased expenses entailed by marriage, and often by Bickness in addition j" consequently, " acting in the interest of their clerks," they, on 7th December, issued a decree that any clerk who should marry on a salary of less than USO a year should "be considered to have resigned his appointment." It is really true, though this is 1870. The decree appears in extenso in the Times of Monday, must have passed a committee of grave English gentlemen of responsible position, and is actually defended, except so far as it is retrospective, by the City Editor of the Times. What a lot of people there are in the world who would be pronounced " impossible fools " if described in novels.

A new spirit seems to have come into Deny, possibly with the new stipendiary, Mr Keogh. After a good many years of deliberation over the point, the magistrates of, the brave old town came this year to the conclusion that law ought to be obeyed, that broken heads were not lawful, and that celebrations leading to broken heads were not lawful either, and. ought to be stopped. So, having legal authority for their act, they prohibited the annual riot got up by tho "Apprentice'Boya "on the I9ttt * The' Apprentice'

Boys were of course irat»> and threatened all manner of things ,'fbut the magistrates were firm, Colonel Hillier, commanding the armed police, was firm also, and the Orangemen had for the first time to give way. Nobody was killed, nobody was wounded, and nobody was much the worse, unless it be Colonel Hillier, who is threatened with an action for damages for arresting "'Mr Rea, a 4a 4 gentleman wellknown in Ireland as, on the whole, per' haps the least turbulent and most silent Irishman who ever lived.

Earl Russell is uneasy about the state of the army, and writes to the Times to point out what powerful grudges appear to be getting up against England on all sides. America bitterly inveighs against us for what she did during the wars of the South American Republics with Spain, and for giving the same answer that she gave to the remonstrances urged. The Germans bitterly reproach us for doing what they allow America to do on a far greater scale without any interruption of friendly relations. " The envy and hostility which have pursued every wealthy commercial nation in ancient and modern times are now dogging our steps, and will one of these days burst out into open aggression." " Why suppose the British Channel impregnable V says Lord Russell. " Why not raise, by ballot if necessary, and embody, 100,000 Militia?" Why not, indeed? Everyone is asking the same question a« Lord Russell, and the Ministry may be assured that the answer must be a very good one, or, popular as they are, they will not remain long in office.

Lord Derby addressed the Ist Lancashire Rifle Volunteers on Wednesday, at Liverpool, on the defences of the country. After some words in praise of the Volunteer movement, he observed that England differed from every other country in this, " Bha'lwd no frontiera." The utmost force by which this country could be invaded would" be 100,000 men, and when people talked of drilling aU the able-bodied men of this country, they had either a low opinion of British soldiers, or intended something other than defence, " inconsistent with the ideas of our time or the real interests of the country." If we train everybody, we shall have too many soldiers ; if we pick and choose, we commit gross injustice. We had far better, even from the economical point of view, trust to voluntary enlistment, and pay the fair market value of the military labour we want. A "nation was meant to be something else than a camp," and war carried on by the mass of the people instead of by a class is " a retrograde step in civilisation." It never seems to enter Lord Derby's head that three years' drill may be made the very highest education j that military training, ao far from wasting force for peaceful pursuits, accumulates it. Muscular education, capacity to organise, ability to obey— these are just the qualities our people want.

Mr Gavan Duffy and his associates, who have been engaged, as we reported some time ago, in the preparation of a report as to the federation of the Australian colonies, have presented that report to the Victorian Government, and included in it a proposal that the new federation should be neutralised, i.e., should not take part in England's wars, but be regarded us the lonian Islands were during the Crimean war, as an independent State under the English Protectorate, — not bound to share in its quarrels. The Commissioners point out that in order to effect this, the federation must be conceded the power to contract independent treaties with other States, — such treaties, we suppose, requiring the assent of the British Sovereign as Sovereign of the Confederation, but not requiring the assent of the British Government or Parliament. Were the new federation to "be thus neutralised, the Commissioners point out that England would save a great deal of expense and anxiety in attempting to protect them in time of war, while the federated Australias might volunteer to assist us hi our wars, if they so pleased. In a word, the relation would be one of personal union through the sovereign, and nothing more, but might become aa much, more by the consent of the new federation as that federation might choose. It would never do. A State really independent and able to negotiate independently with' other ; States, would never endure , to have a Sovereign at the Antipodes whom it never saw, and whose views in appointing a Viceroy would necessarily "be influenced by other considerations than the good of the colony. Besides, when you destroy the substance of a relation you. had better destroy its form too. Alliances between equals would be far better than such a tie. No doubt we must engage to protect our colonies by our fleet, and keep our engagement as long as we give them no influence in declaring war. But tjll they think themselves fit lor real independence that is the only reasonable solution of the difficulty. Mr Duffy's' plan is a l ohimer»,