MISCELLANEOUS.

Timaru Herald, Volume LX, Issue 2355, 29 March 1897, Page 3

MISCELLANEOUS.

'• - '. '' •''•' — — The refusal at a public auction of a bid of !iE57,000 for the site of Cleveland House, at the corner of St. James'ssquare and King street, gives rise to some reflections on the growing value of landed property m London. In 1665, little more than two centuries ago, Charles 11. granted a lease m perpetuity of the forty-five acres upen which the square stands, for the annual retai of £80 to Henry Jermyn, Earl of St. Albans. To-tiay a quarter of an acre cannot be had for less than £60,000. Aristocratic incomes cannot keep pace with this development. Only successful speculators, and but few of them, are prepared to. pay a ground rent of £2000 or £3000 a year before a stick or a stone has been laid of- a future mansion. :, ••,' A report just adopted by the Licensed Victuallers' Society for the Chatham and Rochester district, m which there are about 500 licensed houses, haß caused considerable stir. The report strongly condemned the " low class trade " fcarried on by some of the brewers, who, it'asserted, hawk beer and push the sale from door to door, thusrobbing retailers of the most profitable part of their business. All the houses m the districts being tied the position was becoming most serious. It was unmanly for the brewers to take such a. mean advantage of their helpless position tp ; ruin a body of men who worked so hard and paid sb dearly for the privilege of retaining the article of their (the brewer's) own manufacture. A combination of causes was fast bringing to ruin a large number of the poorer members of the trade, and seriously diminishing the daily takings of the larger houses. At the South- West London Polytechnic Institute on February 15th , M iss M. M. Sharpley gave the first of a course of lectures on "The Principles and Methods of Charitable Work." After speaking of the immense scope for charitable' work and the necessity for organisation m 'dealing with it, Miss Sharpley proceeded : to the question of what is to be attacked. " Attack causes," she said. Levelling blows at effects was but too often like cutting off the heads of weeds, which grew up all the stronger m consequence. If a drunkard thought : that charity would step m and avert the r reßultof his evil doings by supporting his wife and family for him, he would be deprived of the strongest motive to d**ter him from drink; The only/ safe policy was to go to the root of things, ahd here Mi ss Sharpley cited six typical cases m which the effects observed were similar but the causes which produced them widely divergent, and pointed out the best way to help each case. She also spoke-, oh the; subject of helping people before they became ' ' cases," and thought more attention should be given tp the class above the destitute. A Russian woman at Odessa, who had developed melancholia and an appetite for odds and-ends that would have been tbo much tor an Australian emu, was operated Upon at the German Evangelical Hospital m the Euxine port, and there were taken out of her stomach, before Bhe was discharged cured, a threeinch, key, a six-inch silver teaspoon' a plated .teaspoon, an eight-inch plated fork, two nails, measuring six inches together-, two hairpins, twelve pieces of glass, a four-inch iron hook, asteel pen, nine needltjs, a piece of black lead, and a ; ; four and a .. lialf inch crochet-needle, besides, a. boot button and other trifles. This mania had been preceded by an appetite for petroleum ahd dilute carbolic acid, and still this human pantechnicon survived. She is only thirty-two years old. New York papers contain long despatches about the sufferings of the poor m Chicago, where exceptionally cold weather had disclosed unprecedented destitution, ln that city 50,000 persons are idle and penniless, and 50,000 more are scarcely able to keep soul together. The dullness and stagnation succeeding the little spurt of activity which followed the defeat of Byran have deprived thousands of work, and the city has Buffered by reason of the failure of several of its banks. A majority of the applicants for aid are said to be persons of the respectable middle class, who have come to the very end of their resources. Only by means of appropriation of public money and the prompt reinforcement of the overtaxed charitable organisations by generous citizens have bread riots been averted. New York and the East generally are m much better condition, but m the central part of the country and the far West there is much suffering. The election of McKinley has not brought relief. , ' ■