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----LOCAL AND GENERAL NOTES.…

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LOCAL AND GENERAL NOTES. The agricultural papers are full of instances to show that the new railway rates will hit farmers "very hard. We hope this may be the fact. If, for instance, pigs that can now be sent for 2s. 2d. per head will in future cost 133. 4d. per head, farmers may be induced to take an interest in this subject. Highef rates is the only policy railways seem to understand, and yet they make all their money out of concessions wrung from them by the Post Office and third-class passengers. At the Liverpool Bankruptcy Court last week a wan named BROWN, hay and straw dealer, came up for his public examination in bankruptcy. BROWN had liabilities amounting to £500, and X165 5s. 8d. assets. He had been in business for twelve years. He had no money when he started, and he had never been solvent. He had not lost any money, he said, because he had none to lose, but had lived at the rate of about two pounds a week. This gentleman—this really ingenious gentleman- has been in more senses than one, a man of straw, and he illustrates once more the truism that people are mostly fools. There are 2,725 ordained Congregational ministers in England and Wales and it is said that 2,034 are total abstainers. The former figures are probably correct, but how about the latter ? Is not great pressure brought to bear upon ministers to say that they are total abstainers ? We do not believe in the 2,034 abstaining Congregational ministers, and from what we have heard from time to time the test for a total abstaining ministers is not total abstinence. This is a matter respecting which some- thing more might be said. The desire to repre- sent ministers as abstainers is liable to tempt com- pilers of statistics to overstate facts. Complaints are made that inadequate publicity is -given as to th¡ nature and scope of the inquiry now being held at different places in Wales by Mr L. THOMAS. We had some gratuitous advertise- ments sent to us some months ago, but we did not insert them. The Government seem to think that it is the duty of newspapers to advertise for nothing, but if newspapers ask for any sort of concession they are treated with all the redtapeism for which Government officials are remarkable. The POSTMASTER GENERAL and other officials send out advertisements which would cost thousand of pounds, and expect them to be published for nothing. Newspapers, like Governments, require revenue. -:r- A week or two ago we pointed out how the owners of insanitary hovels defeat the local govern- ing authorities by simply refusing to obey orders. Last week in London a man named ABRAHAMS was fined twenty shillings and costs for failing to comply with the orders of the Beimondeey Vestry. ABRAHAMS had get a man or two to open drains and said that he only wanted time. That is the excuse. The time has come when County Councils should attack the hovel dwellings of the rural districts. In towns there in need for now houses, but people who possess money would rather hold doubtful shares than build houses, and the people who require houses do not seem to be able to make themselves heard. The MARQUESS of LONDONDERRY, although not pre- pared now to advocate Protection, yet in the future he thinks we may have Protection in a certain form. It has been proved over and over again that while Protection increases the price of commodities it does not raise wages. Wages depend, not on the number or amouot of commodities made, but on the scarcity of people to make or produce them. Protection for a, time would give the MARQUESS of LONDONDERRY higher rents because a duty was put on bread stuffs. The temnt might benefit slightly for a shorter time, but the labourer would be in competition with his fellow laboirer for dear food and his lot would be what it was m the old days of Protection, desperate. There will never be Protection in this country, and the MARQUESS d LONDONDERRY knows this as well as we do. When Protection is adoptei it must go all through every iadiiitry, and when everything has been made artificially dear, who will be benefited ? It is just a hundred years since the French re- volution. Only a hundred years, and how many governments have there beep in the time ? Last week a manifesto was issued by the Anarchists of Paris and this is what it siid Up Take to the streets Forward Do not any longer trust "to voting. Grapple bodily with the capitalists Annihilate the exploiters of the people t Seize on "the bourrroisie; twist their necks; and march onward to your definitive liberation. Everything is rottsn, all about you. You, the people, have a little health left in you. Set to work before the contagion spreads to your- selves. One s.rong push will suffice 2,11 the system that has oppressed you for centuries will crumble to the grouud, and you will be your own "masters." They took to the streets in 170,3. They grappled bodily with the capitalists. They twisted plenty of neck i. The rotten systems that had oppressed the people for centuries were crumbled to the ground, and what were the results. There was 1S15, 1848, 1870. And one strong push in 1893 will suffice Will it ? When the people revolt against one tyrart it is only to make way for another. The first NAPOLEON was not much worse than the third NAPOLEON, and the present -Rediiblic is- not less rotten than the Republic that x,-ceoed it. I J LADY ALEXANDER GORDON LENNOX died at her town residence, Pont-street, Belgravia, at h-.If-past four on Saturday, from typhoid fever. Typhoid fever is the aristocratic filth disease. Country houses are "most delightfully" situated, but the cellars are cesspools. The wells for the local water supply are impregnated with filth, and death is dealt out with the drinking water. The poor do not know how amply they are avenged for the neglect of ages by this deaths of the aristocracy from one of the foulest filth diseases. No east- end hovel is as deadly as the stately mansion standing in its own wooded grounds, where the inhabitants are literally imbedded in their own filch. We arc told that klld is going out of cultivation unless protection is adopted. Protection will not he adopted, and the quescion arises what we shall do with all the land—all the land miud you. A few acres will be required to grow hay, which fetches a good price in the markets, and straw is not exactly given away. Then a few acres will be required for grazing, for gardens, for potatoes, fruits, barley, roots, oats, hops. Wheat seems to be almost the only crop that cannot be grown at a profit, so even without protection a very consider- able breadth of land will still remain under cultiva- tion. The railways of the country think that pro- duce will bear higher rates for carriage, and are acting on the thought. If the people who demand protection got it, the landowners and the railway companies would divide the spoil between them and everybody else would be worse off than before. Last year it is stated that the amount of new capital of all kinds offered for subscription barely reached £80,000,000, and of this not more than £ 60,000,000 in hard cash was found by the public. In 1889, the high-fever year, the total offered in London was about 9190,000,000, of which probably E150,000,000 was found. The frauds of company- promoters have at last made investors cautious. Further legislation is demanded to protect the ignorant and foolish but no legislation can prevent the fool and his money being quickly parted. What is wanted is that every prospectus should bear on its face the promoters of the company, and every promoter and director should be really re- sponsible for the statements made. Still, if the public are willing to give a hundred thousand pounds for a thing that is not worth five thousand, who is to prevent them ? Dr NORMAN KERR, president of the Society for the Study of Inebriety, gave evidence last week in the case of a woman who was found dead after a spell of drunkenness. This poor woman's case was made the occasion by the CORONER, Dr G. DANFORD THOMAS, of some very sensible remarks. He said that as a matter of public economy, as well as of humanity, surely, instead of committing inebriates to prison a hundred or even two hundred times, it would be far betfer to eompulsorily detain them in suitable retreats for one long period with a view of I effecting a permanent reformation. This is a free country, and we question whether Mr AUBERON HERBERT and other extreme Individualists would not consider the detention of a drunkard for his own good an outrage on the Sacred liberty of the subject. There is a limit, easily reached, where people should not be imprisoned for their own good even when those people are drunkards. ♦ Alderman HOLDEN says he will never again offer himself again for election at Walsall. He said he would work zealously for any one else, and he was satisfied that a stranger would be able to do what he could not do—namely, do away with the caves which had been formed in the party in the borough. It is a melancholy fact that the man who is least known, and who remains least known, has the best chance of being elected as a member of Parliament. How frequently it happens that a man who is only known by name will be unanimously chosen to re- present a constituency over the heads of hundreds of able men who have lived with the people all their lives. Why did you elect Mr NULLUS to represent you. The reply is "0, we did net know anything about him and therefore he had no enemies." How much Alderman HOLDEN'S deter- mination says for the crass stupidity of the average eiector. Foreign newspapers are discussing the probable theatre of the next war." A few men-under a dozen in number-kp.ep millions of their fellows armed to the teeth and ready to spring at each other's throats. We look forward to the time when the masses of the people of England, France, Ger- many, Russia, Italy; Austria, Spain, and other countries will forbid war as an outrage on humanity. Take the German EMPEROR. Why should he be able to plunge Europe into war ? There is no reason. Who is he ? The Emperor of RUSSIA, again what is he better than the meanest of his wretched subjects ? He is no better. The people arc slaves. They are willing to murder each other for a pittance a day. Good God. the folly is simply indescribable. The war of 1870 un- seated an emperor. The next war may unseat several more. The people of France have no quarrel with the people of Germany. The day is coming when the people of Germany will ask the people of France why they should slay each other. kVe should be glad to hear the answer to this most reasonable question. A large Royal Commission has been appointed to consider the position of old people in receipt of parish relief. Lord ABERdare is president. The PRINCE of WALES is a member. Mr ALFRED THOMAS is not a member, but Mr A. C. HUMPHREYS- OWEN is. The subject is a big one. and it is a shame that no woman has been put on the Com- mission. Nothing effective can be done in the pauper question until labour colonies have been es- tablished and until tho relations of trade societies, friendly societies, and other organizations towards the poor have been revised. At present the rich are pensioned, but the poor are sent to the workhouse- The ejuntty is drained of wealth to maintain armies and to pay for old wars. We have never under- stood why a man who has served faithfully in the industrial ranks is not as much entitled to a pen- sion as a man who has served in the army. Every working man, whether his life long or short, spends his capital and interest in maintaining him- self and he cannot help himself. We have discussed this subject scores of times. All that is required is to enable working men to secure their capital as the rich are enabled to secure their capital, in order to get rid of nine-tenths of poverty. An Austrian professor has writ ten an article on Pulitical Insanity. According to this autnority your political lunatic is a person who. dissatisfied with the condition of human society, believes him- self culled upon to better mankind by putting some- thing new that will work, in place of the old that has shown it will not work. A political lunatic of this kind, we are told, lacks the reason to under- stand that the removal of the representative of a certain system does not destroy the system itself, that rebellion of any sort calls forth reaction, and that social progress demands a gradual evolution. As far as we can see political lunatics" is only another name for reformers. The reformer sees the evil and hopes that change will mean improve- ment. Change does not always mean improvement, and the removal of one tyrant does not ensure that there shill not be a succession of tyrants, but as revolution is the only possible remedy against cer- tain forms of tyranny we do not see what the political lunatic is to do if he does not revolt. Perhaps the Austrian professor thinks there should not be any political lunatics, but lunacy is not a matter of choice and so we are not able to say that nol.o'y will try to better the world by substituting the evil they have not tried for the evil they lnve tried and suffered from. Pr PARKER ha3 sent a new year message to the archbishops and bishops of the Church of England. He says he claims to be as much a biehop as any of them. More, far more, Dr PARKER. No ordinary archbishop asks to be made the direct mouthpiece of God for political and social messages to the people We hope Dr PARKER will be saved from a fit of modesty. Pope, nothing less than Pope, with en- larged powers, would suit Dr PARKER. ■* «- One of the bicycle fiends has been committed for trial on a charge of manslaughter. The victim was an old woman named FIELD who was run down at Dover by a young named MOAT. We have seen scores of bicyclists riding reckleisly down Great Carkgate-street and past the police office. If a few of these terrors of the road are sent for trial the pace will soon be moderated. Not only has the danger of being run down to be encountered, but the lisk of exasperating impertinence has to be faced if remonstrance is ventured upon. Miss CLARA BRETT MARTIN has been admitted to the Law Socitty of Ontario, and is now a fully qualified lawyer. In Eogland there will be a severe struggle before women are admitted to be members of the Law Society. But the severest struggle will be in resisting the admission of women to the privileges of the clergy. The Church is the last citadel women will have to take. Doctors gave way first. Law gave way next, and the Church will be last. Women have far more to gain by change of public opinion in their favour than by legislation. If women did all they now have power to do, there would be great changes during the year on which v.e have just entered. There was a considerable decrease last yeir in the amount of money invested in limited liability companies, but still the sum invested and lost was enormous. Any sort of rotten business is formed into a limited liability company, and the public are easily induced to buy shares. What is to be said about people who will invest their last penny in companies, societies, and banks of which tlify know absolutely nothing. There are banks which hold millions of deposits from people who know nothing whatever of the way the banks are managed. The best place for ignorant people to invest money is with the Government. The Government is to in not making deposits in State banks easier. The desire to speculate and gamble is deep and wide- spread. There is nothing people are more carele-s about than their money. There is at last a procpect of activity a.-nD!,gst landlords and tenants. The new railway rates aie putting up the charges for the carriage of farm produce to an extent that will finish the farmer's career, or else he has been doing a great deal better even in these bad times than he admits. In future, the carriage of carrots or parsnips, will be £ 3 18s an acre more than formerly, onions will cost an additional JEG 16s cabbage, £ S 10s broccoli, £ S 15s and beetroot, £ 14 lis Sd. If this does not Uke more than all the profits then farmers have been doing very well in past times. What is the use of talking about a protective duty equal to a pound an acre when railways come in and by the stroke of a pen demand from JE5 to JE14 per acre. Luckily railway rates cannot injure Aberystwyth, where there is cheap water carriage. Aberystwyth is beginning to have cause to bless the harbour. The Paper Unionists are disappearing gradually. Alderman WRIGHT, ex-mayor of Leicester, who was invited to contest the borough in the Dissentient Liberal interest at the last election, has seceded from the Dissentient Liberal party and this example has been followed by another leading member. There will soon be nobody left of the rebels except Mr JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN, who is more discredited every year. His misfortune has been the continued vigour of Mr GLADSTONE. Poor, unhappy, Mr CHAMBERLAIN. If he can get a peerage he would be wise to take it. He stands no chance whatever of coming to the front in the House of Commons. Nobody could have made a greater mess of a promising political career than Mr CHAMBERLAIN has made. That he might have succeeded Mr GLADSTONE is generally admitted. Now he will succeed nobody. A big ambition, a bad temper, and a torpid imagination are bad stock for a pushing politician. ♦ The Roman Catholic Bishop of North Dakota says the prohibition of. drink policy in that State is a complete failure. He says While carefully re- training from approving or disapproving of prohibition as a theory, I assert that prohibition is a fht failure in North Dakota. If the people want prohibition, let them insist upon its enforcement if they do not want it, let them have the courage to say so, and do away with it, and in its place give us some means of regulating the traffic." This is the case of the Welsh Sunday Closing Act repeated. The temperance advocate will not face the fact of that measure He clings to his prohibition policy and refuses to see that he has created numberless shebeens and brothels. We do not know what to say to him. The public houses are closed and he is happy That the evil is greater than before does not trouble him. We dare not accuse a person of keeping a barrel of beer and a prostitute for Sunday use, but there is no doubt about the fact, and this state of things is the direct result of the Welsh Sunday Closing Act The Board of Directors of the ManchesterJChamber of Commerce rebuke the agitators for a changejjm the currency hws of India by the following rcSõT- tion In the opinion of this Board an alteration in the existing currency laws of India, eithsr in the direction of closing the Mints to the free coinage of silver, or attempting to establish a gold standard, is to be deprecated as certain to disappoint the expiations of those who advocate the change, as being fraught with possibilities of serious economic loss and political danger, and as uncalled-for, looking either to the recent financial history of the Government of India and to the steady improving conditon of the people, or to its commercial relation with Europe, the ?traits Settlements, China, and the Far East." It is the official who has to send a portion of his salary to England who wants the trade of three hundred millions of people to be upset so that he may be saved from a little loss. The rupee buys its worth of goods in India and it is only when silver is sent over to this country that there is loss. A merchant who sells a cargo of cotton goods for rupees can purchase an equivalent value of goods in India with the rupees. If he is stupid enough to bring the rupees over here he \fill lose by the transaction, but there are no idiots of that kind in commerce. •» Attention has been called in the London papers to the fact that in the United States, although the foreign-born element constitutes less than one- seventh the population, it furnishes more than one-third of the paupers and live-eighths of the suicides. The man who cannot live at home may sometimes manage to live in another country, but as a rule the incapable person here is incapable there. Emigrants pay a heavy toll in suffering and death, but if they remained at home they would suffer and die. Let anyone who thinks of emigrating go and look at the slopes of Plynlimon mountain, or the watery levels of Tregaron bog, and ask himself what he would do with a hundred or a hundred and fifty acres of land far from roads, railways, markets, and population. Life in an American city is very like life in cities e!sewhere. It sometimes happens that a man do work as an emigrant which he would not do at home. They are wise who do not emigrate. There is another point. The difference between the inhabitants of one country and another are differences which the emigrant has to face often at cost of health and life. People who ate making both ends meet at home would do well to stop tntre. Work on a farm in the United States is not less j hard than on a farm in this co^n'ry. 9- ROSECGER, the Styrian poet, 1.3 dying. He has recently published a book entitled, "All Sorts cf Human Things," and in it he gives his views oil marriage. He says, If you think of marrying a woman remember you marry three creatures, a "young one, a middle-aged, and an old one. Unless "one or two die before their time, you marry a wife, a mother, and a grandmother. In her you marry a lot of people you do not know. You don't marry for to-day, or for to-morrow, but for life, and for all "sorts of situations. If she is gentle, and wise, and true, you have a bride, not only for the wedding-day. but for sickness and poverty and old age. If she is only handsome, she will some day grow ugly but if "she is good and true, she will stand wear. Try to know her before you take her." ROSEGGER ia not in it. In marriage, women marry men, as well as men marry women, and a large measure of the misery of married life arises from the changes in the men, who also grow middle-aged and old. At twenty, men and women may be equals, at fifty they may be opposites. The real evil of marriage is that it is indissoluble. There is another fatal defect in marriage, namely, the legal subjection of women. This legal subjection makes women iota suspicious tyrants. After all, women risk more and lose more, than men risk and lose by marriage.

ABERYSTWYTH.

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