Dublin Notes.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XX, Issue 4, 30 October 1891, Page 21

Dublin Notes.

CFrom the National Papers.)

Twv announcement that the " Coders Hall " has been pat up for auction will recall to the minds of many some interesting associations connected with the famous building. The hall, which is situated in Salisbury Square, London, has been established for about 25 years, but the chief interest, so far as Irishmen are concerned, is connected with the debating club known as the " Barley Mow," which met next door, and which, among its members, included John Philpot Cuiran, Daniel O'Oonnell, John Wilkes, and Judge Keogh, and at a later period T. P. O'Connor, M.P. ; Frank Hugh O'Donnell, and other celebrated Irishmen. The discussions which were conducted at this well known reaort had, no doubt, a very great influence in shaping the future careers of its members.

The return of the banking and railway statistics in Ireland for the halt year ending June, 1891, has just been issued. The deposits and cash balances in joint stock bonds which in Jane 1886, stood at £29,223,000. having shown a decrease of £17,000, comparad with the corresponding period of the preceding year, rose to £29,339,000 in Jane of the year 1887, sbowing an increase of £116,000, or 0 4 per oent. over the corresponding period of 1886. In 1888 they rose by £971,000, or 3-3 per cent, to £39,310,000. In June of 1889 they amounted to £31,205,000, showing an increase of £894,010, or 3'o per cent. In June, 1890, the amount was £33,061,000, or 5-9pei cent, more than in June of the previous year, and in June of the present year the amount has still further risen to £33,000,000, being an increa Be of £639,000, or 1 9 per cent.

A Btate of things has come to pass in the most pluvious province of Ireland where there appears to be no such state of things, traditional or historic — this is a water famine in Galway. To use tbe good old familiar phiaae, not even within the memory of the oldest Nestor of the town has there been seen such a lowness in rivers, lakei, and streams. The reservoirs are run completely dry ; the machinery which whilom used to supply them with water has had to give in owing to the low level of the water line in Lough Corrib. It is a month siace the sttamer Eglinton was able to ply its way from Galway to Cong and back. There is a notion current in the minds of tbe Galway Town Commissioners to procure pumping engines to fill the reservoirs. Farmers have to take their cattle eight miles to water them. Meantime Leinster could spare a few million gallons of rain water which she gets daily.

Last week (ending August 22) the Donoughmore extension railway line was commenced by the turning of the first sod. Lady Colthurst, of Blarney Castle, performed the ceremony. She was presented by the contractors for the line with a silver salver as a memento of the occasion. The line will run from St. Anne's Hill Station of the Cork and West Muskerry line through the Shournock Valley to Donoughmore, about nine miles in length. It will cost £30,000, or about £3000 a mile. There will be four stations on the system. It is expected that it will prove a very valuable feeder to the Cork and West Muskerry line, which runs into Cork at the Western road, at the Queen's College. Mr Ward, the contractor, entertained a large company at dinner after the ceremony. The Mayor of Cork and Sir George Colthurst, Bart,, the chairman of the company i and many other prominent Cork men were present.

A catalogue cf lace and needlework has been issued by the Irish Industrial Society which testifies to the reality and excellence of the work which has been done under the auspicee of the Society, and its continued efforts to carry out the benevolent object for which it is formed. It wants an extension of maoual education to the children of the poor. The first essential for the creation of industrious habits is to teach children the use of the needle, spade or hammer. It is one of the flagrant anomalies of the social system prevailing in Ireland that one million out of every five are not taught any useful work unless they become criminals. The Society aims at supplying this deficiency. After the children are taught plain sewing it is expected that knitting, netting, tatting and croshet will in due time follow. Specimens of work have been sent to the exhibition from various parts of the country. Among the most interesting are examplesof Limerick lace,Cairickmacross lace,lnsh point and guipure. The exhibition illustrates the importance of training the young in habits of thrift and industry. Tbe Sjciety desires to show the necessity for making needlework part of the system of primary education.

In the " General Abstracts " embraced in the recent report of the Registrar General, there is an exhibit showing the accrage uuder crops and the number and description of live stock in e^ch county and province in Ireland in 1890 and 1891 from which we quote :—: — The total extent under crops in 1891 is, 4,815,463 acies, being a net decrease on the extent in 1890 of 104,261 acres or 2-1 per cent. There was a decrease in Leiuster of 82,452 acres, or 2-4 per cent ; in Munßter 7,954 acres or '07 per cent. ; in Dialer, of 56,001 acres, or 3*2 per cent. ; and in. Coanaught, of 7,854 acres, or 1-2 per cent. In

1890 the extent returned under grass was 10,212,256 acres. In 1891 the amount returned is 10,291,400 acres, being an increase of 79,144. The extent returned as fallow in 1890 was 14,595 acres, and in 1891, 21,786 acres; the extent under woods and plantations in 1890 was 327,461 acres against 311,351 acres in 1891 ; and the extent returned under " Bog and Marsh, Barren Mountain Land, &c." in 1890 was 4,854,715 acres, against 4,888,751 acres in 1891, being an increase of 34,036 acres ; of tbe acreage thu returned in 1891, 1,191,122 acres have been entered by tbe enumerators as turf bog, 551,375 acres as marsh, and 2,211,314 acres as barren mountain land. From 1890 to 1891 there has been an increase in the number of horses and males amounting to 6,617 ; and in the number of cattle amounting to 208,161 ; in sheep there have been an increase amounting to 398,996 ; pigs show a decrease of 202,590 ; of the 15,216,543 poultry enumerated in 1891, 932,569 were turkeys, 2,117,295 were geese, 2,876,754 were ducks, and 9,289,925 were ordinary fowl."

The result of the recent written competitive examination for promotion to tha situation of examining officers, which was held at various centres in Great Britain and Ireland, under the auspices of the Civil Service Commissioners, is announced. Assistant examining officers and duly qualified acting examining officers competed to tha number of 300, and 142 officers succ eded in passing. A gratifying aspect of the examination, from a national point of view, is tbe remarkable and brilliant success of Irishmen and Catholics. No leu than sixteen Catholics, all Irishmen save one, are included in tbe twenty-three successful candidates 1 list. Gire Irishmen fair play and they almoßt invariably come to the front. The officers are young men, and have a bright future before them. Tbe names of the Catholics are Messrs A. Kennedy, D. MeN mara, M. Frost, M. M. Kelliher, D. M. O'Leary, J. Carmody, P. J. Kane, P. O. Donovan, P. O'Connor, D. O'Connell, W. Gordon, W. McLonghlin, M. O. Fitzgerald P. Conroy and G. Manzar. In Greenock, Scotland, of tbe two success' ful candidates out of six competitors one i a Catholic and an Irish* man — Mr J. Sullivan. Again, Mr Georg arroll, of Ardrossan, and Mr P. Donovan, of Campbelltown, swell the list of Irish hononrs. The three Irish Protestants are Messrs J. 0. Holmes, B. Simpson and E. C. Moo nan.

The London Times, ever on the alert to expose the Irish character, fabricated and published a sensational article some months ago, in which it charged that ether drinking is alarmingly prevalent among the people of Ireland. In the annual report of the Local Govern* ment board of Ireland, just issued, we find tbe result of Dr. Stafford's official investigation on the subject, which very materially contra* diets and falsifies the scurrilous assumption of the Times, He says that the classes chiefly addicted to the habit are the small farmers in the remote country districts and the fishermen along the shores of the Lough Neagb, Such people, when they go to fairs and markets, take a draught of ether in the Chemists' nd Grocers' shops ' and then carry home a pint or half a pint as a medicine for their cattle, as well as a drink for th mselves. The women of tbe country round about Magherfelt sin in the same direction, taking ether as an " unfailing remedy " for flatulent dyspepsia, and for almost every ill that flesh is heir to. These women give it to their children, diluted with water, for almost every trifling ailment. In computing the number of gallons used annually, or the number of consumers in each district, there is a considerable difficulty in arriving at an approximate calculation ; but from the evidence of the inspector from local sources, he is of opinion that where the Times, in its sensational article on the subject, estimates by the thousands, it wonld be nearer to substitute the word hundred. The amount taken at each draught by experienced drinkers is about a tablespoonful, without either holding the nose or taking water afterwards. It is supposed not to give headache as whisky docs. Dr. Stafford has been unable to hear positively of any organic disease produced by the abuse of the drug nor does he believe that insanity has been largely increased by the habit. The most plausible theory of the origin of the habit of drinking is thus set forth : About the year 1843 at a period when cholera was epidemic in Ireland, a certain so-called Doctor, it is said, came from Glasgow and opened a chemist's shop in Draperstown, where the vice undoubtedly originated. He appears to have prescribed ether as a preventive of cholera, and administered it in small draughts of about one drachm at a time, or, as they were called in the venacular, a " nick "—i.e. up to the first gradation or " nick "in the measure glass. The remedy seems to have become rapidly popular in the village and its neighbourhood, and from being considered as a specific in cholera it came to be used in other diseases, and eventually as an intoxicant. An ingenious suggestion is given currency— namely, to add a certain percentage of naptha, a peculiarly nauseous and evil smelling compound, to ether, alcohol or methylated spirit (which threatens to take the place of ether,) as, while that would permit the alcohol to be used at a cheap rate for trade purposes, it would possibly prevent its being consumed as a stimulant. The inspector is satisfied that in most districts there has been a steady decline in the consumption of the drug, a result mainly attributable to the influence of clergymen over their respective flocks, and i to the Order in Council scheduling ether as a poison.