LONDON.

Otago Witness, Issue 1148, 29 November 1873, Page 6

LONDON.

(from our own correspondent.)

October 3rd.

POLITICAL.

The Queen held a Council at Balmoral Castle on the 30th ult., and a meeting of the Cabinet will, it is understood, be held in Downing street probably to-day. Mr Bright has received the seals of office as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, so that he will shortly have to appeal to his constituents at Birmingham for re-election. Upon Mr Bright's return to office, the Times remarks that one of the most important of the Ministerial changes has been completed by the delivery of the Seals of the Duchy of Lan. caster to Mr Bright. Since he was a popular tribune, new ideas have germinated for good or evil, and there is now a democracy which looks on the school of Cobden and Bright as antiquated. But even those who leave far behind the comparatively moderate purposes of middle-class Radicalism, well know that Mr Bright is, and will probably continue to be, the most sturdy reformer in any Cabinet which is likely to be formed in this country. Advancing years, and the accomplishment of the changes which were the dream of his youth and the labour of his manhood, may deaden the reforming impulse within him; but a man who has based his political conduct on certain principles, the possession of a small and earnest party, and who lias defended them on a hundred platforms, through years of controversy, is not likely ever to become a commonplace Minister, placid in his judgment, shifty in his opinions, complaisant and deferential to the new society in which the former display of his talents has placed him. Mr Bright can never be thoroughly officialised ; an irradical quality of his nature will always make him judge every subject as an independent Radical member. He may be less aggressive than of old. He may even leave the initiative of reforms to others ; but when called upon to give an opinion on each successive subject that comes before the Cabinet, his counsel, we may be sure, will always follow a particular tenor, wellknown to all who have watched his career.

Amongthe late Liberal reverses at elections one of the most severe is that at Dover, where a Conservative candidate has just been returned in the place of a Liberal. There are vacancies by death for Bath and Hull, and the acceptance by Mr Henry James of the office of Solicitor-General obliges him. to seek re-election at Taunton. These three seats were held by Liberals. Should they be lost to their party, their loss would inflict a heavy blow upon the present administration which even Mr Bright's return to office could not avert.

MrW. H. Gladstone, M.P., the son and heir of the Prime Minister, has been making a speech to his constituents at Whitby, which has been variously commented on by the Press. In the hon. gtntleman's opinion the question of disestablishment ought not to influence present political action. The Premier felt that the question belonged to another era in politics, and when that era of Church disestablishment arrived it must be when many of the most prominent figures on the present stage had passed away. Upon this the Pall Mall Gazette (remarks, " Mr W. H. Gladstone now tells the Liberal party ' that their present leader was not the one to lead them in the question of the disestablishment of the English Church,' not, mark, because he condemns the movement, bat because he felt that was a question for the new era, while he was the leader of the old era ; and he felt, moreover, that the era in which he had fought so long, and so gallantly, was fast coming to a close. The 'new era,' it appears, is to open when Mr Gladstone and those who had so ardently supported him have 'passed away.' This is very well, and we can understand Mr Gladstone's reluctance either to meddle with the Church Question or to treat with the Nonconformists, who are pushing that question to the front. But political 'eras' do not wait in their formation for the personal convenience of politicians."

Mr Disraeli, in declining an invitation to be present at the annual festival of the Woburn Improvement Association, writes, " Although from, a sense of paramount duty I have attended Parliament, I have been and am otherwise living; in seclusion." PREMONITIONS OF THE FINANCIAL CRISIS.

Another rise in the rate of discount will tend to divert the eyes of Englishmen from the New York to the London money market. No great change in the situation has occurred, and, with the subsidence of the panic in America, there is an evident diminution in the amounts of gold withdrawn from day to day for shipment. There is, however, a circumstance which makes it imprudent to speak confidently at present of the crisis so far as America is concerned. The Banks have insisted on obtaining thirty days of grace. Not until the cheques drawn on them have been through the Clearing House, will they honour or dishonour them. We need scarcely say that this delay compels one to suspend one's judgment. The Times assures us tiiat there is no cause for alarm. But we cannot help recollecting with anxiety that we are now approaching the most perilous part of the year, in which there is always a tendency in the price of m >ney to rise, even when nothing of an unusual chai'acter occurs. Now begins, and through October will go on, the drain of money to the provinces. Now if, as happened last year, this annual movement occurs simultaneously with a foreign demand, the " natural prices " of money will be heavy indeed.

T'KB ASHANTEE VTAk.

The Ashantee preparations ore going on with great briskness, and it looks very much as if we were in for a costly expedition to Coomassie. About 2000 railway sleepers, roughly sawn deals, tarred over, have been made by the workmen in the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich, and are on the wharf ready for shipment. It is thought that the line of rails will be laid about forty miles from the point of debarkation, whether it be Cape Coast Castle, Accra, or some place in the Volta, according to the selection of Sir Garnet Wolseley. It is not unlikely that a great part of the railway by which it is proposed to carry the troops away from the unhealthy region about the coast into more salubrious quarters inland, will be made at the Royal Arsenal, where there are vast resources for such a purpose. In addition to making a railway, it would saem that the authorities have determined that there shall also be a telegraph. Telegraph wires are shipped. The telegraph posts, it is expected, will be provided in the native forests. On the Ist October the steamship Bowing, laden with material, a valuable cargo of provisions, ammunition, and other stores for the Gold Coast expedition, set sail. Amongst other articles, she carries twelve surf boats, and a ton of freezing salt for the manufacture of ice. The expenditure already incuried in the Ashantee expedition is estimated at £2,000,000 sterling. A correspondent of the Times asserts that a very large trade is carried on in Birmingham in the export of flint muskets, commonly called Africans or Parkpalings, for the use of the Ashantees against the British. These rude weapons are quite as effective at short ranges as the Martini or any other elaborate arms. They are made by thousands in Birmingham ; also, very formidable hatchet knives abont two feetlong. In inserting the letter, the Times asks if this can be true. Tlw Peace Society have issued a circular deprecating this war, and an influential public meeting has been held at Birmingham to consider the action of the Government towards Ashantee. A soiree of the Friends of International Arbitration has been held at Manchester urging the use of all reasonable endeavours to avoid further recourse to violent means in dealing with the Ashantees. The latest news from Cape Coast Castle was that the Ashantees had remained quiet since the successful attack on Commodore Commerell's expedition up the Prah.

A FRIGHTFUL CRIME.

There seems to be an umisual number of railway accidents and an unusual number of murders. Possibly these casualties and crimes are not really more numerous than is common, but that they attract more attention during the quiet season. One recent murder is, however, horrible enough to have attracted attention during the most eventful times — a woman has been imirdered and then mutilated. Different parts of the body have been picked up at various times and in sundry places by the side of the Thames in the neighbourhood of Battersea. Greenwich, and Woolwich. The scalp and the skin of the face had been stripped from the skull to prevent identification, and ihis ghastly relic was found at Limehouse. 14 pieces are now in the hands of the authorities, and the surgeons give it as their positive opinion that the body has not been dissected for anatomical purposes, but that it has been sawn and cut to pieces only a few hours after death. The inquest on the woman was concluded on September 15, and the jury returned a verdict of " wilful murder against some person or persons unknown." The sight of the body was harrowing in the extreme, 'and one witness fainted on seeing the head. Government has offered a reward of £200 for the discovery of the murder. The remains of the poor mutilated woman have, not been positively identified. "Various suppositions are afloat, and the police are sifting different rumours. Though 25 days have elapsed, however, they have not been successful in their efforts to find the murderer. The mutilated corpse, in the condition in which the pieces have been skilfully put together by Dr Haden, has been successfully photographed ; the features are so characteristic that recognition by the portrait will be far less difficult than by viewing the corpse. The search in the Thames has been continued, in the hope that the hands, or some remnant of clothing, would be discovered. The bands would have enabled some judgment to be formed as to the condition in life of the murdered woman ; but it is not improbable that this was purposely made impossible by the murderer, and that the hands have been as effectually destroyed as it was intended the face should have been. It is a matter of remark that the police have had fewer communications concerning this murder than in any other previous case of " mystery."

THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION'S MEETING.

Bradford has been en f6te. I cannot say that it was gay, for that is impossible, with its smoky atmosphere and its inclement climate. Wet and murky and raw seems its normal condition, and its streets are execrable, if its buildings are fine. The British Association has been in session, holding its forty-third annual meeting. Last year the meeting of this Association was held at Brighton, and Stanley, the discoverer of Livingstone, attended there. The aquarium, the promenades, and the sea breezes all helped to make last year's meeting an attractive one. The Bradford people did their best to make their visitors' stay agreeable thia year. A shilling guide-book to the town was offered gratis to every stranger, and the local committee presented an essay on Bradford and its worsted manufactures to every member and associate. On the. firs); evening that

the Association met, Dr Carpenter in designing his office, introduced the new" President for the ensuing year — Professor Williamson — as Professor Joule has been compelled to resign through illness. A soiree was held on the 18th September. On the 19tb, in the department of Anatomy and Physiology, Professor Furrier, of King's College, delivered a remarkable adflrefcs on the "Localisation of the Functions of tbe Brain." The place was thronged, and the immense crush was endured with^tiie utmost patience, hardly a score retiring even from the most inconvenient standing ground that was to be procured during the whole of the three hours that the address, and the remarks that it elicited, lasted. The Professor's experiments made on the inferior animals point conclusively to th© localisation of the faculties of the brain, and although, in reference to some parts of the brain, no phenomena have been observed by the in. genious enquirer which could be definitely laid hold of, the proofs actually obtained are amply sufficient to sustain the theory. Pf o« fessor Ferrier has explored the convolutions of the brain far more fully than the German experimenters. He has very carefully mapped out in the dog, cat, &c, the various centres in the convolutions of the cerebrum which are concerned in the production of movements in the muscles of the eyelids, face, mouth, tongue, ear, neck, fore and hind feet, and tail. He has also found that, in the case of the higher brain of the monkey, there is what is not found in the dog or cat, to wit, a portion in the front part of the brain where stimulation produces no muscular movement. What may be the function of this part, whether or not it specially ministers to intellectual operations, remain to be seen. The researches of Fritsch, Hitzig, Jackson, and, most of all, those of Professor Ferrier, mark the commencement of a new era in our knowledge of brain function. A new system of phrenology will be founded upon them, in which the various mental faculties will be assigned to definite territories of the brain, as Gall and Spurzheim long a gomaintained, only their geography of the brain was erroneous. The close attention given to Professor Ferrier by the distinguished co-workers in physiology who surrounded him on the platform was a high tribute to the importance of his paper ; and praise fell from the lips of the ex-President of the Association in no stinted measure. The Professor told his story with the most charming clearness^ and simplicity, and without the aid of a single note. In spite of the necessarily elaborate nature of his exposition, he did not seem to miss one point that was necessary to the complete understanding of it by the unprofessional hearer. In the Geographical Section an interesting paper was read on the distribution of coal in China, the coa. formation in that country being said to be 1 most extensive.

Mr Forster, on the 20th, delivered his address as President of the Economic Science and Statistics Section. Instead of a masterly treatment of one branch of his subject, or a central idea running through and connecting a series of illustrations drawn from many branches, he gave a medley of short unconnected discourses on most points of economic science that happen to have an immediate pressing interest. In speaking of Free Trade, he considered that if M. Thiera had not offended the commercial interests of the Bourgeoisie on this point, he might still have been presiding over them. The development of Japan, and the visit of the Shah, were quoted as symbols of the advancement of Free Trade principles among eastern nation. He asserted the necessity of extending the principles of Free Trade in the direction of land and labour, and objected to exceptional legislation of any kind, either in favour of or against workmen. Mr Forster closed his discursive address with a hearty panegyric on Mr Mill, whose death he declared to be an irreparable loss to economic science.

On Sunday, the 21st, the Archbishop of York said, in his admirable sermon on the relations of religion and science— " There is nothing ascertainable in what you call spiritual things. The Poet Laureate, who best interprets this age, tells you the best you can come to on that line of thought :—

" And falling with my weight of cares Upon the world's altar stairs, That slope through darkness up to God ; Stretch the lame hands of faith, and gropa And gather dust and chaff, and call To what I feel is Lord of all, And faintly trust the larger hope." "'Leave, then,' the man of science goes on to say, ' the certain for the uncertain. Accept the fact that we have no organs for explaining the world above." This sermon was preached in the parish church of Bradford, and much amusement was created by a number of contretemps which befel the Archbishop. The plan of the pulpit had been regulated for a much smaller body of divinity than His Grace, and on entering the pulpit he stood so much above hia manuscript that he proceeded to lower himself by flinging out a ponderous cushion that lay at his feet. This, however, did not suffice, for the Archbishop had to summon an anxious verger to take away some boarding. In order that this might be effected, His Grace had to get out of the pulpit, and wait in the chancel. While proceeding in his sermon he grew hoarse, and requested a glass of water to be brought. One of the choristers attempted to comply with this request, but when he got up to the pulpit door, he found it so firmly fastened that he could not get in, and he was too diminutive to put the glass over to the desk. Retracing his steps he got the organist to carry the water. Finally, when the Archbishop had completed his work, and the service was at an end, he found it impossible to let himself out of the pulpit, so firmly was it

secured, and it required the mo»i violent exertions of two men to liberate the imprisoned Primate, who, it is needless to say, bore the series of grotesque incidents with an equanimity becoming a philosopher. On the 22nd, the proceedings of the Association were of great interest, but popular attention was centred in the Geographical Section. In the Geological Section, the grand feature of the day wan a report by Mr L/ Cv Miall, one of the local secretaries, on the " Structure of the Labyrinthodonts, amphibious animate now extinct, and apparently akin to the Crocodile " A meeting was held in the evening, at which Lord Houghton presided, and made an interesting ipeech on what he called "The Woman's Question." At the meeting of the General Committee it was decided that the meeting of tfre Association for 1874 should be held at Bristol. Professor Tyndall was elected President few the meeting next year.