SCOTLAND. (From Our Own Correspondent.) Edinburgh, May 27.

Otago Witness, Issue 2265, 29 July 1897, Page 63

SCOTLAND. (From Our Own Correspondent.) Edinburgh, May 27.

A BLEAK' SPHINQ. The prestnfc spring is likely to be long remembered on account of its unusually bleak ohartoter. People in the etat of Scotland do not readily cry oat aboat cold, and the fact that everyone hai been doing co indicates the exceptional character of the season. The Grampians have been covered with deep snow down to their basis, while snow has fallen even at the sea level, and the wind has been most piercing and withering. At the same time there has been scarcely any rain, and on all these accounts vegetation is about a month behind. The lambing season has been a disastrous one, especially on hill farms, the cold weather snd lack of grass working havoc among both lambs and ewes. If rain and more genial weather do not come soon, the farmers' loses will 1)e no trifle: Sportsmen have also heard with regret that disease has broken out among the grouse, especially on the Border moors. "The dead birds which have been examined have been found to be suffering from' intestinal worms. lokd Glasgow's welcosie home. The commissioners of the town of Largs, accompanied by the local volunteers and the Boys' Brigade, went out to Kilburne Castle, his Lordship's Beat near Largs, on 10th May, to pretent him with an address of welcome on his return from New Zealand. The Earl and Countess, accompanied by their daughters, received their visitors on the lawn in front of the mansion, and the address was read by the Provost. Lord Glasgow, in expreising his j thanks, said that it was a genuine pleasure to him- and his family to think that they were not forgotten, but, on the contrary, that a warm interest had been taken in their life in the beautiful colony of New Zealand. THE GENERAL ASSEMBLIES. These church courts are now in session, and occupying the customary amount of public attention. As usual,, the United Presbyterian Church led the way at the beginning of the month, the Rev. Dr Hutchison, of BonnicgtoD, Leith,, being mqderator. As this is tho Jubilee year of the church, the proceed- j ings were unusually aniiimated, and the synod , continued its sittings two or three days longer than usual. Financially the church seems to be in a vigorous condition, and Scotsmen, and especially U.P.s, are not bashful in intimating the fact. Beyond some talk- of union with the Free Churoh, however, there was nothing in the synod's proceedings to interest outsiders. The General Assemblies of the Established and Free Churches met on May 20. The Marquis of Tweeddale again represented her Majesty at the former as Lord High Commissioner, and the Rev. Dr Mair, of Earlston, Berwickshire, was elected moderator. Naturally the Queen's approaching Jubilee occupied much attention at 'both assemblies, and in the case of the Established Church the Lord High Commissioner had the pleasing onty of announcing a special gift of £1000 from her Majesty towards the furtherance of the interests of religion in the Highlands and Islands. *In the Free Churoh the Rev. Hugh Maomillan, of Greenock, whose writings illustrative of the connection between natural and spiritual things are so well known, was called to the moderator's chair, and delivered a very interesting and instructive opening address. The principal subject of other than routine j interest before the assembly this year is that of j union with the United Presbyterian Church, but, as the -interest in it seems to be .rather languid on both sides, some time is likely to elapse before any definite step is taken. The following shows the membership of the three Presbyterian Churches :— j Established Church 633,408 Increase ... 6,637 Free Church. ... 287,689 v 4,158 < U.P. Church. ... 191,463 n 2,582 The -following shows the total amount of money raised by each church during the year, with the total for the English Presbyterian Church added for the sake of comparison :—: — Free Church -....£673,583 1ncrea5e... .£23,559 Established Church 466,138 n 45,215 U.P. Church ... 406,420 Decrease... 4,433 English Presbyterian Church ... 260,493 Increase... 29,956 The reason for the decrease in the total of the United Presbyterian Church is that the total for 1895 was swelled, by a special .legacy of £25,000. The sustentation fund of the Free Church amounted to £172,441, .which is a decrease for the year of £188. The Rev. Alexander Martin, of Morningside, Edinburgh, has been appointed to succeed Professor "W. G. Blaikie, who has retired, iv his chair in the New College, Edinburgh ; and the Revl Dr Denney, Broughty Ferry, h&s been appointed to succeed the late Professor Candlish in Glasgow. LABGE CHARITABLE BEQUESTS. Many deserving charities will benefit largely under the wills of two ladies who have died daring the past month. The elder of these was a nonagenarian, Miss Brown, of Waterhaughs, Ayrshire, and she has bequeathed no less than £97,4-75 to a large number of different benevolent objects. The principal bequests are : — Edinburgh Association for Incurables, £21 000 ; Home for Incurables at Broomhill, Kirkintilloch, £21,000 ; Fund for Relief of Indigent Gentlewomen of Scotland, £20,000 ; Royal Infirmaries of Edinburgh and Glasgow, £5000 each ; Universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow, £5000 each ; Free Church of Scotland, for bursaries for. student*, £5000 ; Royal National Lifeboat Institution, £2000. The testatrix's private legacies exceed £60,000. The other lady referred to is Miss Christiana Thow, cf Dundee, who has bequeathed a total sum of £32,700 to a variety^ ot objects, for the most part in connection with Dundee. The largest bequests are : — Dundee Hospital for Incurable?, £10,000; Dundee Royal Infirmary, £5000 ; Convalescent Home, Barnhill, £3000 ; St. Andrews University, to found two scholarships, £5000; eight other bequests of £1000 each, most of these being to various agencies connected with the Ckurch of Scotland ; and feix smaller legacies. THE BOYS' BRIGADE. Field Marshal Lord Roberts inspected the Glasgow battalion of this brigade on Ist May, when there was. a turn-out of 3407 boys and 266 officers, with 3*4- bands. His Lordship made a speech in which he expressed his high approval of the appearance of the lads, and his pleasure at the spread of the brigade to every important place in the United Kingdom, and to all the colonies and dependencies of Great Britain. He believed the Boys' Brigade had done, and would yet do more than anything else to raise the status of and the tone of the boys brought np in our towns and cities, und make them useful members of society. He thought it was the bounden duty of * very one to encourage a movement which had for its object the training of the boyhood of tho country in habits of obedience, reverence, self-respect, and ill others jt»b tend to Christian maaUaeoß*

GBEAT POUCH HAUL IN T GLASGOW. The police in the western city are crowing, nob without justification, over a grand coup which they have ]"u»b mnde. Inquiries which they instituted regarding a theft of jewellery from a shop in Mum street, Bridgeton, led' to their arresting an Irishman named Clements, and his wife, who kept a email eating hcuse at 117 High street. When in his house, the deteotives noticed that ib had an earfchern floor, and they accordingly procured picks and shovels, and began digging in it at midnight. After four hours of hard work they came upon a tin box and two canvas bags buried 4ft below the surface, and which were found to contain 169 silver watches. Clements, who had been brought back from the police station to watch the operations, suddenly made a dash at something which the detectives had not observed, and which proved to be another tin box containing £79 in £1 notes and a sovereign. Clements became very excited over this, protesting that the money was his ovrn, and had been put there by him for his little girl, and that he knew nothing of the watches. He became so obstreperous that he had to be taken back to the police van which" was in wtifcing at the door, but it required five constables to msster him. some hours later the police resumed their digging, and_fouud four more watches, making a total of^one gold and 172 silver watches, besides the money aforesaid. Two men and two women have been arrested on a charge of stealing some of the watches, which Clements and his wife are charged with receiving. The announcement of the discovery made a great seasation in Glasgow, and fpr some days the police were deluged with letTers and calls in regard to the watches. One day the callers averaged one per minute over the entire day. One man came from Inverness and identified a watch which had been stolen from him. Most of the watches were already noted in the police books as missing, and some of the entries date four years back. It is stated that in most cases the watches are in very fair condition, notwithstanding their burial in the damp earth for so long a time. The further investigations of the police will be awaited with much public interest. It is possible that the thieves by whom the watches were stolen are now in durance vile, and that the watches wsre hidden away to await their release. I may here add that just before this discovery a jeweller's shop in Canning street, Bridgeton, Glasgow, was broken into by burglars, who wrenched away two iron bars from a back window, c\»t the glass near the •• snib," and then forced the latter back, so that the window could be opened. There are holes cut in the shutters, and the gas ii kept burning in the shop all night, but the thieves selected their goods from a part which was not under observation. The property stolen is valued at some hundreds of pounds. The burglars left behind them some old clothes, a knife, and a "jemmy." THE LATE PHOFESSOB DHUMMOND. The announcement is made that the task of writing the biography of the late Professor Henry Drummond has been undertaken by one of his intimat* friends and colleagues, Professor G. A. Smith, of the Glasgow Free Church College, who is already distinguished as an author. The personal estate of Professor Drummond has been returned as amounting to £11,658. His will, which is-holograph, and written on a single page of notep&per, leaves the bulk of his property to his brother, Mr James W. Drummond, who is a seedsman at Stirling. MILK AND CONSUMPTION. A very important and somewhat alarming report has been presented to the Midlothian County Council by Dr Brock, its medical officer of health. Dr Brock stated, on the authority of the registrar's returns,, that in 1896 the deaths in Midlothian from tubercular disease amounted to more than one in six of the total j number of deaths of persons under 25 years of i age. In fact, the mortality from tubercular disease was not far short of that from all other infectious diseases taken together. He went on to say that it was a serious duty to see to the removal of at least one cause of the disease, in the shape of milk from cows affected with it. Every such dairy cow should cease to be a source of milk supply. Dr Brock further instanced the case of a dairy farmer at Hawfchoruden who had all animals co affected weeded out of his herd by a leading veterinary authority, who continues to supervise the 30 cows now on the farm. The consequence is that this dairyman gets 3d per gallon extra for his milk, which finds ready sale in the west end of Edinburgh. It certainly seems as though this matter deserved more serious and practical attention that it has hitherto received. MARINE DISASTER OFF ABERDEEN. A collision, resulting in the loss of seven lives, took place about midnight on May 3 off Girdleness lighthouse, near Aberdeen. The steamer Collynie, 272 tons, bound from Mebb.il to Aberdeen with coal, was struck amidships by the steamer Gimigoe, 76 tons, bound from Wick to Sunderland in ballast, and sunk in a few minutes. The Gimigoe, though much injured hersolf, stood by to save life, and a boat was sent off by the passenger steamer St. Clair, which witnessed the accident. They only succeeded, however, in picking up the captain of the Collynie ; his wife, two boys, aud ei.^ht of a crew being drowned. The captain was clinging in an unconscious state to a floating hatch when he was rescued. He afterwards stated that he was holding his wife by the hand when his ship went down, but a wave separated them and he l saw her no more. The night was fine and clear. At an official inquiry since held the captains of both vessels were found to be guilty of mismanagement. AN AIHDBIE SBNSATION. An extraordinary occurrence is reported from the farm of Ballochnie, near Airdrie. The farmer, Mr James Allan, was awakened out; of his sleep in thesmall hours of the morning by a figure in white entering his room. It proved to be his housekeeper, Jane Ferguson, a woman 43 years of age, who was dressed in a shroud and other grave clothes. She levelled a revolver &t his head, and exclaimed : " You promised to marry me, and now you are putting me away." Mr Allan sprang from his bed and seized the weapon, while she was pulling vainly at the trigger. In the struggle she was thrown on the floor, and her right shoulder was dislocated. She got up, however, seized a knife which was lying on the mantelpiece, and with it inflicted several wounds on her own throat, but these were afterwards found not to be serious. Tho police were summoned, and she was taken off to prison. She said that she had received notice that her services would no longer be required, and it was this which had so upset her. A doctor who examined her pronounced her to be .quite sane. It seems that she had bought the revolver and 50 cartridges in Glasgow. It was fully loaded, but from her ignorance of firearms it was only on half-cock when she pulled the trigger, and hence it would not go off. She is now awaiting trial on a charge of attempting to murder her master. Needless to say, the affair caused a great sensation in Airdrie and the neighbourhood. LADY CYCLISTS ATTACKED BY A HORSE. A strange experience befell three young ladies on May 11, as they were enjoying a run on their j bicycles along the Dumbarton road, a little I way out of Glasgow. Seeing a riderleis and ' apparently run-away horse approaching them

they dismounted and stood on one side to allow it to pass. Instead of doing so, however, the animal made for them, snapping its teeth. They dropped their cycles and fled, and two of them managed to crawl through a hedge into the field beyond. The third was not so fortunate. The horse made a grab at her hat as she was trying to follow the example of her friends, and tore it from her head. He then tried to seize her by the dress, but it fitted so closely that he could not get hold of it with his teeth. There is no knowing what he might have proceeded to do, but at that moment some men arrived from the farm whence the creature had escaped. They beat it off with sticks which they carried, and drove it home. The young ladies were more frightened than hurt, and after they had smoothed their ruffled plumes and recovered control of their nerves they were able to remount their bicyoles and ride home. Much speculation has been indulged in — among others by the Scotsman in a leading article — as to the motives which impelled the horse to make such a. savage and unprovoked assault upon these damsels of the wheel. Their adventure is likely to be a •'record " for a good while to come.