MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS.

Waikato Times, Volume II, Issue 76, 24 October 1872, Page 3

MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS.

Drs Tripe and Liddle, medical officers of Hackney and Whitechapel, have just issued their annual reports on the sanitary condition of the districts under their charge, and .several extraordinary instances of overcrowding arc mentioned by them. For instance, in one room in the Templar-road the inspector found tin- lather, mother, two grown-up daughters, find a son aged L 5 living and sleeping in one small room ; in a small room in Tottenham-square the father, in >1 her, a grown-up daughter, and two young children 'slept in one bed ; in one room of a house in Nliarp-road not large enough for two grown-up persons there slept t he father, mother, a son of 20 and a daughter of 1 7, and a hoy and girl under 10 years. A worse case was that, in Col tage-placo, Well-slrcct, where the lather, mother, eight children, a grown-up unmarried daughter, and a young man lodger lived and slept, in one room. Smallpox broke out in this family, spread to the young man, and caused his death. At Krederick-terrace, Stonebridge-common, in a room only large enough for two grown-up persons and one child, there were found the father, mother, two grown-up daughters, and two girls under 12 years. Anot her bad case occurred in Georgestreet, near the London-fields, where the father, and four daughters occupied only one room and one bed, the ages of the children being 17, 15, 12, and nine years. In a lodging-house consisting of four small rooms only, there were found four families and several young coloured men lodgers, the t >tal number of inmates being 17- The inspector found one room in .Hlackstone-road occupied as a. living and sleeping room by a man, his wife, an unmarried female lodger, and t wo children ; and in anot her room in Westutreet. t he father, mother, a girl of 1(i, a boy of 10, and four girls under 12 years of age. In Hackney there were discovered altogether no fewer than LI eases of indecent, overcrowding, and ,'J-t instances in which the number of inhabitants was decidediv in excess of t hat allowed by the sanitary regulations. In the Whitechapel District Dr Liddell also gives instances of overcrowding among the poor. In the six houses in Croodman's-buildings the inspector found each of the 12 rooms indecently occupied and overcrowded. In several of the rooms there "were as many as nino or ten persons, principally adults of both sexes,-sleeping together, and the air was most offensively impure. In a house in Hayes-court a. family of four persons lived and slept in the kitchen, which was so small as to give only 82 cubic feet for each person ; and in a kit chen in Wells-place, Whitechapel, a family of six lived and slept, in a, space of 32 I- cubic feet-, or only 54 cubic feet to each. Among the very p.ior a practice prevails of letting "furnished rooms" in which there are only a few dilapidated pieces of furniture. These let at rents varying from 2s to -Is per week. Hr Liddle reports that the sanitary inspectors of his district have, ill visiting these dens, seized several filthy beds, straw mattresses, and pillows, which the owners of the houses were required to destroy and replace with new ones. 3592 houses were inspected in Whitechapel iu the quarter ending June 20. In a speech at Raleigh, in North Carolina, the other day, Mr Frederic Douglas, the negro agitator, in connexion with his early life as a slave, gave an amusing illustration of slave casui-try. Replying to the charge of being a thief, he said : —" Well, I e mIvss that I did something that bore that construction years ago, for, iu fuel, 1 stole myself. I was a, piece of property ; T was owned ; I was what tliey call a chattel to all intents and purposes by a fair construction of the law; and yet in the face of that fact I took possession of myself, put a bundle on my shoulder, and left after the fashion of the pictures in the old-fashkmed newspapers. . . . ' But did you never steal while you were a slave?' Well, yes, I did. Yes, according to your notions of stealing, but I had conscientious scruples about it. Force of education was very powerful. I had heard the minister tell I must obey my master, and 'Thou shalt not steal;' but I was hungry once, very hungry indeed, and I had a little conference with a brother slave on the subject of helping myself to a turkey that I saw fluttering iu one of the outhouses. I told Sandy (for it was Sandy Jenkins) that I was hungry, wanted something to cat, but that I had religious scruples against helping myself to that turkey. I knew that he was a praying, mail, a God-fearing man, and I wanted his advice on the subject. He told me that it was rather a ticklish question in ethics. There was some risk about it, but so far as the act itself was concerned it was perfectly legitimate. He said, ' You are your master's property?' 'Yes,'l said, 'That turkey is your master's property ?' ' Yes,' '* If you put that turkey into you. that turkey does not cease to be the property of your master, but only adds to the value of his property in,, another form.' So it was simply a question- of removal. I said that it stood to reason, the whole thing was clear to reason, and I ! helped myself."—Tall Mail Gazette.. j

Tho Archbishop of Canterbury spoke at a mooting hold in Carlisle, on tbe 19th of August, in aid of the Society for tbe Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. lie said there were many reasons why we should not relax our efforts in our Missionary exertions. One of these arose from the peculiar circumstances in which the world found itself at tho present day. It was no longer necessary to send men to distant lands in order that they might sec specimens of the heathen. "Take," said his Grace, "a return ticket to London in the middle of the season. Go either to Her Majesty's Levee, or the Lord Mayor's Banquet, or walk even through the streets, and what do you see? A cavalcade of some six carriages bearing the Burmese Ambassadors; absolutely heathen, who had come to do homage to the greatness of England in the centre of England. Go to the Temple, where the familiar sight of our barristers with their peculiar costume used formerly to be the only thing we saw, and we find some 00 Hindoo members of the Temple or Lincoln's Jnn still remaining Hindoos and heathens in the centre of civilization. Go, again, to the Eastand of London, to what is called the Oriental Home, where every specimen of the heathen of tho Last is gathered together in consequence of our merchandize with the East; or follow Mr Dickens into the Chinaman's shop and see men smoking opium as if they were in the centre of China; or go elsewhere, and meet a whole troop of Japanese, and you will see that a man no moro oquires to go to the extremities <f, the earth to be convinced of the claims which the heathen have upon us; that in our metropolis we are brought so near heathenism of the worst class that, unless we take some steps for the converting the heathen, the heathen will be converting us. For this is not merely an imaginary idea. lam almost afraid to say it, but I cannot help thinking that this great proximity of the East to ourselves has, somehow or other, all'ecLed the philosophy on which the young men feed in our great seminaries of learning; that men of learning have more toleration lor that denial I ban they had in the olden times; that systems which have existed for centuries in the extreme lands of lieiit henisin arc finding some sort of echo even among the literature and philosopyol this Christian country. Therefore, we are bound now, far more than ever we were before, to exert ourselves in this great work which this and the sister society have undertaken many years." A Cologne let ter notices a curious result of the heat of the weather in Germany. A procession of about 2000 pilgrims, that had come a distance of 12 miles, singing and praying, to make a pilgrimage to a certain locality on the Lower Rhine, had brought an enormous wax candle with them destined for the Virgin. It, however, never reached its destination, for the sun's rays proved too much for it, and it melted op the wav.

Madame Adeline Patti (says the A the net! urn) has consented to sing in Paris, at the request of Mdnie. Thiers, once in the Hikjuouols, for the benefit of the snll'erero from the war. She will sing at Homhurg for a few nights, prior to her engagement at St. Petersburg, and from there will go to Vienna, to play during the lirst two months of the Exhibition, and will be in London in May, IS/.3, for Covent Harden, where she has renewed her engagement for two years at £200 per night, reserving her own ivpcrloirc. At the end of the season 1870, Madame Patti will make a tour in the United btates, under the direction of her brother-in-law, llerr Maurice Strakosch. The Paducah Kenlu-clcian- tells this : —"ln one of our neighbouring towns, one evening, recently, some ( rood Templar posted up a notice, calling for a meeting at one of the churches in the place, for the purpose of organising a lodge of Good letnplars. In a few minutes after the notice had been put up, the saloon keepers stuck up, immediately under it, the following offset notice: 'Attention!! drinks to night at all the saloons in town. No lodge was formed there that night." The general public, as well as Etonians particularly, v,ill be glad to hear that Mr .Jesse is engaged on a work which will tell the history of the great school, and show the influence of its in narratives of the lives of the most illustrious of its pupils.—Athrruriou. It is often< easier to obtain favours from the pride than the charity of men. A shrewd preacher, alter an eloquent charity sermon, said to his hearers : " I am afraid from the sympathy displayed in your countenances that some of you may give too much. 1 caution you, therefore, that you should be just before, vou are generous, and wish you to understand that we desire no one who cannot pay his debts to put anything in the plate." That collection was a rousing one. Burlington, lowa, boasts the parental authors of the following terse epitaph : — " Beneath this stone our baby lays : He neither cries nor hollers ; He lived just one-and-twenty days, And cost us forty dollars." A tried-out editor says that the sermons of a neighbouring clergyman remind him very forcibly of eternity. Crile Jolt, as sleeping in his cart he lay, Some pilfering villains stole his team away. (riles wakes and cries — 4 What's here ? a dickens what ? Wliv, how now! —Am I G-iles or am I not? If he. I've lost six geldings to my smart; If not, —odds buddikins, I,ve fonnd a cart.'