Our Home Letter.

Otago Witness, Issue 1461, 15 November 1879, Page 6

Our Home Letter.

London, September 11th.

The depression in agriculture at Home continues with practically unabated severity, the continuous wet weather not a little contributing to the general distress amDngat the farmers. Recent storms have almost ruined the grain crops, and what the rain has spared, there ia no Bun to ripen. The outcry of the farmers is loud enough to make a stir in the land, but they have tided over bad years before, and no doubt will over this. Some, however, are so disgusted with their prospects in England that they have determined to seek literally " freßh fields and pastures new" in other lands. A party of no less than 80 sturdy EDglish farmers left for Few York a few days ago, to try their fortunes in Texas. Almost all wera Yorkshiremen, and some among them were posset sei of a considerable amount of capital. Several of them clubbing together, will unite their fortunes in the new country. It will be interesting to hear how they have fared at the end of a year. Texas is so vaßt a country, and has so much land that is unequalled, and so much that it execrable, that it is quite a chance whether emigrants find themselves in the fertile districts. There has also, it must be confessed, been a good deal of " bogus" work done to attract the flow of emigration towards Texaß ; and many who have been induced to go there by flaming prospectuses and brazen assurances from agents for Texan companies, have written home to England warning their friends from following them, and comparing their fate and treatment to that of youiag Martin Ohuzzlewit when he arrived at Eden. These complaints . are to a certain extent borne out by the letters of a gentleman aigning himself "St. Rames," who, as the special commissioner of the " Field," has beeu travelling all over the Western States with the special object of reporting oa their capabilities as fields for emigration. These letters are attracting immense sttention in England, are excellently written, and should be read by everyone who thinks of casting hi 3 fortunes in America. As to Texas, they are certainly uot altogether in its favour, and it is quite possible the 80 farmers may find the j»oldeu promises of Texas a poor exchange for hard-earned competence in England. With the hard times, emigration, it matters hardly where to the poor people, is becoming the favourite topic amongst the manufacturing and agricultural classes ; and the man who, over the alehouse fire, can discourse of the wide lands and rich soil of the Australian Colonies, the Oanadas, or the States, is more earnestly hearkened to, and has a more attentive audience, than the loudest stump orator or most eloquent strike advocate. A novel scheme was successfully mooted a few days ago to aid emigration. All who have any desire to leave England become members of an Emigration Association in their district. Every member subscribes weekly a certain amount, say threepence, of his wageß. When sufficient money has accrued to defray the expenses of a batch of emigrants, a ballot is taken from among the names of all the members, and the successful names in the ballot are entitled to all the' assistance the Association can render, in this way any subscriber with ordinary luck will find his turn come round within a year or two, and will be comfortably started on his journey by the slowly mounting contributions of his leBB fortunats fellows. The plan seems decidedly safe, original, and possiblo, and the example and ruleß of the parent Association have already been followed in more than one laige town. It ia a sign of the existing distress that emigration associations on all kinds of bases are being formed right and left. Lord Kilmorey haß adopted a new method of dealing with agricultural depression. His Lordship owns some 50 farms in Cheshire, and has always been on the best of terms with hia tenants. Not unnaturally, they wished for a reduction of rent this year. In answer, Lord Kil« morey's agent has served them with notices to quit all round. All the farina are to bs offered for sale by public auction at onco, and, in tSaa original way, Lord Kiimorey hopes to solve the question whether agricultural prospects are desperate by the prices his farms fetch. Thia may be an in tensely interesting experiment for Lord Kilmorey, but hia tenants are uot at all well

disposed to have to make away for a land lord's theories.

King Alfonao of Spain has been wooing in the small town of Arcachon, in France, the Archduchess Christine of Austria with all the etiquette of Castilian courtship. Both partiesbeing perfectly agreeable, hia suit prospered, and the Archduchess will speedily change the veil of the Abbess of the Ladies' Convent at Prague for the Crown of Spain and the Indies. The Spaniards are glad to see their young King contracting another marriage, for, fond as they are o£ revolutions, they look forward with horror bo the confusion that would ensue i£ Alfonso XII died without issue. Spanish marriages and Spanish successions have become historical for the troubles and commotions they have caused, but the union of the King with an Austrian archduchess awakens no remonstrances, and is regarded politically with perfect indifference. That the King can so soon have forgotten the sweet Mercedes, who won alike his heart and his people's, is impossible ; indeed he has made it pretty apparent that marriage was altogether distasteful to him yet. State reasons, however, prevailed, and October will probably see a Queen Christina again at the Palace. The archduchess is described as tall, pale, and pretty, but not handsome. She has lived a life of comparative seclusion, and is very simple and unaffected. Possibly the young pair may learn to lovo each other as Alphoneo XII and Mercedes did ; but at present the arrangements for the marriage have certainly been conducted in the most cold-blooded way. The exciting event of the last fortnight in France has been the return from New Caledonia of tho amnestied Communists. They were brought back in two troop-skips, and. proved that a sub-tropical sun had not driven all the Freaoh blood out of t,h*ir veins by challenging the naval officers lo i series of duels when France was reached, which would infallibly have resulted iv somebody being bruised, if such a calamity were possible in a duel ala Francaise. The officers declined, and the fiery Communards returned to Paris with their honour unsatisfied. Immense preparations for their reception were made by sympathisers with their opinions. Deputations met them at the ship's side, tables laden with bread and meat, fruits and wine, awaited them on the shore ; and at the capital thousands of Parisians of the lower orders waited 12 long hours at the station for the arrival of tho Communists' train. As a rule the men are eaid to have looked utterly wasted, emaciated, and aged. The revolutionary spirit has been completely drawn out of them in New Caledonia, and they have only one desire now — to settle quietly in France. Many of them hwe declared that if 50 Communes came intio existence to morrow they would shun them as poison. Every kindness is shown them by s, committee in Paris, which supplies money and work to each of the returned prisoners. There is no douht the French Government were perfectly right in letting them come back to France. They are now, perhaps, the least dangerous men in all the Republic. The Yankees, as usual, have beaten us in practical adaptation of the recent electric inventions, and central telephonic exchanges are working to the complete satisfaction of subscribers in New York, Chicago, and other large American towns. The advantages are so great, and the system so easy, that the same sort of exchange is now being fitted up in London. It is expected that before long subscribers from all sides will secure the erection of exohanges in all the busy parts of tho metropolis, and the post office, the telegraph, the corpß of commissionaires, and the office-boy, will find their occupation gone. The plan is simple as possible. A clerk sits in a chamber, into which the various wires, numbered and lettered, lead. If A wants to talk to B, the dark joins their wires, and then sits down and goes on with his dinner until A and B are made thoroughly aware of each other's affairs. It is certainly a weirdly simple method of communication. How Sir Christopher Wron would have started had he been told that 200 years after his time men sitting miles apart would have conversed with one another along wires fixed within a w&ll's breadth of the famous whispering gallery. Yet this is what we see today ; and did the telephonic wires stop to gossip by the way, the visitor to St Paul's might find his muttered question in the gallery echoed and ra- echoed along the wires to a hundred London houses.

People still talk sometimes in society of the brilliant marriage of the Duke and Duchess of Norfolk, when all the exalted ones of the earth met together at the Brompten Oratory. There were great rejoicings this week at Norfolk-house, St. James, when the Duchess gave birth to a Bon and heir. At least so the medical reports say, but the names by which the infant Earl of Aruudel was christened leave the otdinary mind in delightful {uncertainty. They were " Philip Mary." Roman Catholics have a peculiar habit of giving fominino second names to masculine children ; and in Spain, where the habit is carried to excess, a grandee will often have half-a-dczen Marias and Isabels tacked on to his ordinary Carloa or Alfwnso.

Who has not read "Bleak House"? and yot how many know that; there was a real Bleak House which formed tho type of Dickens' famous building ? It was situated in Is'ington, and thared the fato cf all old buildings in a disastrous fire last week.

The pilgrimage season has set in in France with unusual severity, and the Holy Grotto of Lourdes has been the resort of devout thousands. From every corner of France the blind, the halt, and the sick have formed themselves into bands, and traversed tha weary journey, singing hymns and spiritual songs under the leadership of ploua countesses and fervent duchesses. At all stations on the way the simple populace have received these victims of a strangely-uuex-ploded superstition with the utmost; revorence, and a Lourdes pilgrim finds spread around him an cdour of sanctifcjf beside which the palmera of old were simply scentless. Wonderful miracles are recorded : in the railway train a life cripple would suddonly spring up imbued with all the vigour of youth ; or a blind man would havfo his eyes opened unw him. At tho grotto itself e^en greater marvels weio witncsaorl : the damb_ speaking, the deaf hearing, the paralytics" leaping, At laast, bo tho cnthusiasti chronicler says, who iv devout rhapsodic singe t the praise of Mary. Whether hypo

crlsy, faith, or delusion mostly prevails* the Lourdea pilgrimage 1b certainly one of the strangest speotaolos of the century. The London papers have been fairly drawn into the quicksand of the silly season, and it is amusing to see the Times, and the Standard, and the Telegraph publishing columns of letters from more or less silly correspondents on every subject, from a tame cat's sagacity to the appearance of the sea-ser-pent. One gentleman who ventured to assert that the cat is " devoid of affection," has drawn down upon himself vials and via.s of wrath from correspondents whose pseudonyms and style are strongly suggestive of old maids. Another individual who puts down to the moon's cycle of 19 years the prevailing bad weather, has been scoffed up one column and jeered down the other by the whole community of astronomers. Doctors are mercilessly handled for the fees they charge; schoolmasters threatened with dire punishment if boys do not have something very like mock turtle, venison, and champagne every day ; gipsies defended as a romantic race, and aspersed as the scum of the earth ; seaserpents discovered all over the high seas ; and a hundred and one other signs of " nothing in the papers" denote the silliest period of the silly season. But if the respectable papers are terribly dull, the disreputable papers have been doing a lively business. Ido not know whether any copies of those delectable broadsheets, "Town Talk," "London Life," and "Qaiz," have reached so far as the Colony. Most likely they have, for the scatterers of this garbage are indefatigable in their efforts to penetrate into every corner with their illsavoured writings. Anyone, then, who haa been disgusted at receipt of them will hear with pleasure that the questions asked last session in Parliament have had their result, and that the police have seized and prosecuted everyone found hawking indecent literature. No one whose business has not led him to walk the busier streets of London and Manchester can form any idea of the height to which this nuisance reached. At every few steps you were insulted by some ragged urchin pressing upon you a paper which it were defiling even to handle. The letter, boxes of private houses were filled with them, and no father of a family could venture to allow his daughter to rush to the door at the postman's ring. A clean sweep is the only remedy for dirt, and the police have now set the broom going merrily. The death of Sir Rowland Hill calls up many strange memories and associations. There are still living many thousands who remember when it was a very doubtful advantage to receive a letter at all, so heavy waa the fee that had to be. paid. And although there are some uncharitable persons nowadays who curse nothing so bitterly as the postman's knock, they are outnumbered a million to one by those to whom his arrival is the event of the day ; and if Sir Rowland won no grateful recognition of his labours from men, he would have had the enthusiastic suffrages of every woman in the country. One almost feels dazed at contemplating the state of the postal service as it existed in the year of the Queen's accession, when Sir Rowland Hill first published his views, and the same service now that her gracious Majesty has sat upon the throne 40 years. In 1837, a mail containing 3000 letters would have been phenomenal for the whole of England ; to day, the same number is delivered at one house of business alone in London. The head offices of the London and North-weatern Railway at Euston square receive twice that number in a week, and numerous other instances recur to the mind of the unexampled spread of the penny postage system. If ever there was a national, a universal benefactor, Sir Rowland Hill is entitled to the name ; and the burial he was accorded in Westminster Abbey 85 mbolises his claim to be reckoned amongst the most illustrious spirits of his country. Forty years bask, all the post-offices in the kingdom could hardly have supplied a guard of honour : now, St. Martin's- le-Grand alone furnished a goodly detachment at the grave of its founder. Sir Rowland had lived in comparative affluence since he retired from active service. The Government allowed him his full pension of £2000, and national subscriptions and a Parliamentary grant further added to his means. The Lord Mayor writes to the papers requesting subscriptions to a " Sir JRowland Hill Memorial Fund," and if there 1b any gratitude left in the hearts of men, a right royal response should be instantly made.

However much Englishmen grumble at their army and their generals, there is a good deal done only to carry out the national habit. Here have half tha good people who guide public opinion been expending bottles of ink and quires of paper in vilifying Lord Chelmsford ; and yet when the late Com-mander-in-chief in South Africa arrives in England he meets with quite an ovation. The Prince of Wales sends for him on board his yacht, the people cheer him through the streets, mob the railway stations to see him pass through, compel him to walk up and down the platform -that their eye 3 may be gratified with the spectacle of a victorious English general. The Queen commands him to Oaborne, the Grand Cross of the Bath is conferred upon him, and club 3 innumerable solicit him as the honoured guest at banquets galore. Since the unbroken square at Ulundi broke the Zulu power, Lord Chelmaford has been the most popular man in the army. Everything is forgotten but tho glorious victory, and Isandula might never have happened. Tho General cannot complain that his services have not been duly appreciated in Eogland at least.

General Sir Evelyn Wood mot with even a heartier recognition : the value of his magnificent servicos in Zululand can never be overrated, but it is his dauntless courage and perfect leadership that most appeals to tho public mind. In Essex, his native county, the reception given to the General was more than enthusiastic. The village of Rainham was decorated as gaily aa for a Royal festival, universal holiday was kept, and general rejoicings took place over the return of the gallant General. Tho horses were taken out of his carriage, and dozano of sturdy yeomen drew it along with tremendous cheers to the gateway of Bslhvts Park. Here addreeaes of welooiae presented, and the General in ft short, soldier-like speech, expressed his heartfelt thanks for the reception, which he applied not to himself only, but to all the officers and mon who, serving

under his command, have fought for Queen and country. The enthusiasm was tremendous, and reached its height as the carriage drew up before the entrance to Sir T. Lennard's noble old mansion, and a group consisting of the General's sisters and children, and his aged mother, were seen standing thereto welcome the brother, father, and son. High wassail was afterwards kept at the park, and there was not an Esaex man within 10 miles of Rainham who did not that day drink a health to the Essex general. Scarcely less gratifying was the welcome to Colonel Baker at Crediton, where that moßb dashing, daring, and gallant of cavalry leaders was received with overwhelming demonstrations. Lord Chelmsford frankly admits that without Colonel Baker the army in Zululand would have besn almost unable to move ; and never did cavalry fulfil their proper functions of being the eyes and ears of the main force so thoroughly and splendidly as Colonel Baker's men. Never was a leader so worshipped by his men. In the thickesb part of every fight, and he was present at almost all, the Colonel would be seen as calm as on parade, encouraging his men, whom the voice of their leader moved to work wonders. And not only where hard knocks were going, but where judgment and decision were necessary, was Colonel Baker the most to be relied on, as was proved at the Zlobane Mountain, where, had he not re mained calm and collected under terrific circumstances, aot a soul would have survived the surprise. Both Sir Evelyn and Colonel Baker have been cordially invited to Balmoral, where the Queen desires personally to convey her thanks to the gallant officers. Of the heroes of the Zulu War another is on his way Home. Major Chard, of Rorke's Drift memory, returns on board the transport Egypt ; and if ever a gallant soldier deserved » hearty welcome, it is the saviour of Natal.

Side by side with these illustrious names arises for mention another around which no fame circles ; indeed there is but one desire connected with Captain Carey's name, and that is to forget it altogether as soon as posBible. The whole business with which his name mnst ever be indissolubly associated was sad and mismanaged beyond expression. It is some consolation to know that the Field Marshal Commanding-in-Chief and the army generally agree in the acquittal of Captain Carey from any imputation of cowardice before the enemy. He returns to-day with a name theoretically untarnished, but with a life sonred by harsh treatment and misfortune. There is even a grim satisfaction in knowing that Captain Carey is deoidedly religious, and, aa he says in a letter to tbe Low Church paper, "has taken the whole matter from the first to his Heavenly Father." A man with his deeplyfounded piety is felt, so runs the world, to be less an object for human commiseration than a man to whom disgrace in this world is an overwhelming misfortune.