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ABERDARE COUNTY COURT.

ABERDARE POLICE COURT.

PONTYPRIDD PETTY SESSIONS.

PONTYPRIDD BOARD OF GUARDIANS.

BLACKWOOD POLICE COURT.

ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE. '

Family Notices

THE IRON, COAL, AND TIN PLATE…

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THE IRON, COAL, AND TIN PLATE TRADES OF SOL I'll WALES. IKON.—The anticipations which were formed during the past winter and early sprincr of briskness and increased stimulus in this trade have been fully realised. Orders now on hand will supply the ironmas'ers with an abundance of work for a considerable time to come indeed the great difficulty with which they have to contend is the impossi- bility of working to time. They cannot turn out their orders fast enough, and, as the summer advances, the in- creased heat will, doubtless, in some measure still further retard the progress or the work. Every effort is being made to meet the requirements of buyers. Future contracts for rails may probably be made at an advance upon present prices. From Middlcsborough reports are received of "steady increase in the demand for irnn," and prices are lookins up. Makers are unusually busy upon shipments to the French. Belgian, and German ports. Current prices on May 31 were as follows :—No. 1 pig-iron. ;~>5s (id No. 3, ->2s (id No 4, Tils Gd.—f.o.b cash payment. The stock on warrants is reduced to 18,534 tons. The large business in Scotch pig. reported last week, with a tendency to higher prices, has been succeeded by a period of consider- able excitement, and advancing rates up to 60s cash, since which the market has receded to 59s 3d cash, and closes at 60s A fair inquiry exists for Welsh merchant bars, and prices have advanced to t7 7s Gel, and £7 10s f.o.b.. London F >r Staffordshire iron there is more inquiry, and it is anticipated that better times are in store may be gathered from the fact that fresh furnaces are being built in the Staffordshire districts, and arrangements made tor increasing the power of production. It is, perhaps, difficult to estimate the extent to which iron of all kinds may be utilised. There seems to be no end to the capabilities of the production, and at tbis moment some descriptions can hardly be manufactured fast enough. The present brisk condition of the market mainly results from the demand for iron for railway purposes. This demand will be met in course of time. Other varieties meet with fair inquiry, but nothing more. The question, then. naturally arises, when all these new furnaces and new works now under construc- tion become productive, will there be a continuance of such orders as now keep the ironmasters so fully, and so profitably, employed ? The iron trade has passed through lornr periods of stagnation, and it may do so again. Much depends upon the general prosperity of this and other countries, and the prospects when viewed from this point are good. Railroads have still to be introduced into India, and yet further East, and as their growth during the last thirty years has been marked with rapidity almost incredi- ble, so we may look fur at least a corresponding advance in time to come. The Carnarvon Herald states that Mr Bright's health continues steadily to improve, and the right hon. gentle- man is able to take regular walking exercise, the weather being mild and favourable. Mr Bright still stays at the George Hotel, with Mrs Bright, and the family remain at Oakley-house LORD WARWICK A:>"B SEWAGE IRRIGATION.—On Tues- day week the negotiations between the Earl of Warwick and the Leamington Local Board of Health, for the dis- posal of the sewage of the town on his lorship's estate, were brought to a satisfactory termination, and the agreements between the Board and his lordship were executed and ex- changed. His lordship agrees to pay £450 per annum for the sewage, which the Board are to be at the cost of pump- ing to a given point on his estate, when his lordship will undertake the entire responsibility of disposing of the sewage on land prepared for its reception. The agreement is to extend over a period of thirty years, and the neces- sary works are to be completed by the Board, and the de- delivery of the sewage commenced on the 25th of March next. THE editor of a religious newspaper, who admits that he is not an emotional man, and is rather deficient in the nobler elements of human nature —in other words, is an unruffled scoundrel—says that upon reading an account of thepupiisof the industrial school attending the musical festival, he found his heart swelling full. and tears coming to his eyes. We grieve to add that, having brought his readers to this point of intense interest, he abandons them to futile speculation. Whether those tears actually slopped over. and if so, whether they were wiped upon the edi- torial coat-sleeve, or permitted to roll in silent majesty into the corners of the editorial mouth, are mysteries which wiil probably never be solved until the grave shall give up its dead religious editors starved to death upon senti- mental Christianity.—San Erattsisco New6 htttc. THE CONGREGATIONAL CKlOX AND THE EDUCATION QUESTION. The Congregational Union have adopted the following re-oiutionou the su-> jeet of education: "That this assembly, cherishing a strong confidence in the attach- ment of her Majesty's Government to the principles of re- ligious equality, recognises in their measure for the ad- vancement cf primary education, an anxious desire to res- pect the conscientious convictions of all classes of tbe people, as shown especially in the proposal to abolish de- nominational inspection, to apply a conscience clause to all schools in which religious instruction is given, and to ad- mit undenominational schools to the enjoyment of Govern- ment grants but at the same time is compelled to express a decided conviction that the conscience clause as at pre- sent framed will prove inadequate that the liberty given to inspectors in certain specified circumstances to "inquire into the religious teaching given in Government schools is inconsistent with the principles of the measure, and the power entrusted to the local boards to determine the reli- gious character of the schools they establish, and to aid denominational schools already existing out of the rates, is open to very serious objection. The assembly has learned with great satisfaction that the Government are willing to reconsider the provisions of the Bill, and hopes that they will adopt and carry out such mendments as will secure a. satisfactory settlement of the question." THE USES OF FOOLS.—In proportion to the value of genius is the enormous mischief done by its opposite. Stu- pidity is the great curse against which all reformers have to fight. It is melancholy to think how vast a proportion of the energy expended in making this benighted world a little more habitable goes in the establishment of truths with which everybody is supposed to be acquainted, and the assault of evils, which have been given up as untenable by every reasoning being. What is the use, one is sometimes tempted to say in des- pair. of throwing logic before vestrymen, and showing, for the millionth time. that two two and make four? Explain to the ordinary mind by the clearest possible argu- ments, and by appeal to the most notorious facts, that all men are mortal, and that r>oorates is a man and invite him to draw the conclusion that Socrates is mortal. He will laugh in your face with the utmost good temper, and declare that he does not see the force of your arguments. Metaphysicians, I know, cherish the belief that It is im- possible for a man to believe that A is B, alld that A is not B, at the same time. That only shows the danger of arguing from theory instead of observation. Nothing is more common than to find a man renting with the most absolute complacency in the belief of two propositions which are mutually contradictory. The natural result is that human progress is. for the most part, effected by a series of blunders. We carry our, ou a great scale, the ingenious theory of education, which rests up",n the pro- position that a burnt child dreads the fire. It follows that if you let your chil tren put their fingers into the fire a sufficient number of times, they will end by beinsi more careful of those which remain. Or it may be said that we are like a tribe finding their way across au intricate wilder- ness without a map or compass. blunder into every tracK that presents itself, and only give it up when. we find, by practical experience, that it does not lead us in the de- sired direction. Gradually, it may be, we advance, but we waste infinite time and pains iu struggling through difficult and devious routes, against which a little forethought might have sufficiently warned us. We went on burning people for holding different opinions from ourselves about matters which neither of us understood till we found that burning was practically a defective mode of ar- gument. We hangedpickpockcts till it appeared thatitrather encouraged the practice than otherwise. We bullied our colonies in order to preserve a spirit of loyaltv, till we had thoroughly alienated the most valuable part of our posses. sions. We still pay people to beg. under the imprecision that it is a plan admirably calculated to encoura^ a spirit of independence. History is supposed to be au=tievatin<r study, and certainly it is pleasant to find that in some re* spects our furetathers were greater fools than ours-lves; but lt is also melancholy to see how many bidders aud crimes iu?e le:mlts, quite °pposw.) to tnose which thev ¡¡,nticipated. [t lSlgen,erell,v rseen H.i; ttie avowed motives of the rulers of man..m.t are otten different from those by which they were ea .j actuated, and that these last, again, had generally little real relation to the results which they were, in fac*"„, working out. But, not to go too deeply into such specula- tions, it is plain enough th-it the huge deadweight of placid stu- pidity is the Heaviest of all the burdens which reformers have to move. Make the lowest strata of the p ipulation one de- gree more intelligent and prudent, enable them to realize the simple fact that there is a to-morrow as weli as a to-day and you would do more to improve them than bvall the charitable schemes in existence. Give* to those a little above them some glimpse of the most obvious results of modern thought, and you v.uld clear away such masses of imbecile prejudice as would admit an unprecedented burst of daylight into the dark places of the world. If we only understood roughiy what "e were about, "e should save some of that dreary application of the rule of thumb, that patching and botching and tinkering which waste so much invaluable tune and energy. And there is enough stupidity in existence to thicken the very atmosphere.—Cornhill Magazine. .c-

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