Llangollen Advertiser Denbighshire Merionethshire and North Wales Journal

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NOTES AND NOTIONS. THE proceedings at the annual meeting of the West Denbighshire Liberal Association, as recorded in our columns to-day, betoken a vitality and a cheeriness for the future success of the cause, which must be greatly gratifying to all concerned. The genial presence of Mr. J. Herbert Roberts, M.P., on the occasion, was in itself a motive for congratulation, and his views on the war at the present crisis, and no less on the Welsh land question, will be found worthy of the deep thoughts of all true Liberals. IT is a matter of importance to the town to learn that the Cottage Hospital authorities have a new scheme in hand for the district nursing, which is said to be greatly needed. The Hospital authorities met on Monday, and the local medical profession was in attendance. Work- people will be greatly benefitted by the proposal, particulars of which will be found in our report of to-day. LLANGOLLEN WOMEN'S LIBERAL ASSOCIATION is in a flourishing condition, and the meeting and entertainment of which we give a report to-day, will be found very pleasing to those interested in this work. Mrs. Lias Davies, a host in her- self and thoroughly devoted to the cause, presided, and the meeting had as its principal guest Mrs. Herbert Roberts, wife of the member for West Denbighshire. In the course of the addresses, the perplexing question of mistress and maid was entered upon. Seeing the diffi- culty there is to engage good female domestic servants to-day, the subject proved one of real importance to the local community. » THERE is an old saying that all is fish that comes to the net. If we were to give credence to a case which was heard at the Police Court this week, an old-hand poacher will resort to strange means so as Dot to return home with capacious pockets empty. He had had a bad night at his favourite pursuit, but so strong, did seem, bred the natural instinct within him that, failing game, &c., he bagged a number of swede turnips. He was caught on his homeward journey by the police, which resulted in his finding that the turnips did not turn-up trumps. • ♦—'— THAT there is still plenty of work for temper- ance advocates to do is painfully illustrated by the remarks of Mr. Justice Grantham, who presided at Durham Assizes, on Wednesday. His lordship said they bad not bad before them there so terrible a list of crimes as on the present occasion for many years. Drink was manifestly the cause of nearly all of them. Public-houses, he urged, should be dealt with more strictly, and keepers of public-houses should be made to feel the results of these crimes. Public-houses were, he admitted, necessaries of the times, but no one in his senses would suggest that they could not be better regulated.

RURAL NOTES. rBY AN OCCASIONAL CORRESPONDENT.] AT last a sharp reminder of winter nipped us on bhe nights of the 16th and 17th inst., and the midnight searchers for meteors none could see, would find this add to their disappointment and discomfort both. So far, few are reported to have been seen in Great Britain, some few were observed from a baloon in Paris, most in New York, where the Havard astronomers counted sixty-four at dawn on Thursday last, 15th inst. Most of our deciduous trees are now all but bare of foliage, but even on the 13th some were prominent still against a back ground of spruce firs. The silver birch is certainly one of the most graceful of our forest trees, the long pendent tresses lovely in the tender green of spring, some quite lately that apparently had not lost a leaf, simply splendid in their golden dress of full autumnal glory. Seldom do we attain the middle of November without some sharp remin- der of the season. Last year frost is recorded on the 2]st, snow the 22nd, and the winter of 1898 was exceptionally mild. Even now it is surely allowable to think and speak of spring. It is positively refreshing to write the word merely. And who, may I ask, that has stood entranced beneath the wood that overhangs and skirts the lane, listening long on some genial day of April, to the soft murmuaing coo of the wood pigeon, reaching him at intervals from the far recesses of the wood, in a silence indescribable. What emotions are awakened, what pleasurable thoughts of growth and joys innumerable, all the delights of the season inten- sified by thoughts of long, dull days of gloom then happily left behind. Nature has shaken herself free from a period of dead torpidity, the music of birds greets the ear after so long silence, there is life and motion in the air; not a tree nor plant, nor bird nor beast, not an insect but revels in this general resurrection, even the fish join in the universal gladness Now at times, the fields are blue over with countless numbers of wood pigeons seeking a precarious living, feeding on the pernicious seeds of weeds the farmer could not possibly collect, some little return for the grain they, may have consumed during harvest. It is amusing to watch a great flock of these birds feeding, for there is ever a system of fair play enjoyed, the rear rank constantly flying to the front at intervals, thus insuring an equal chance of food for each. Of all our wary, timid birds these are the shyest. But in spring they lay aside all this timidity, and very often, where unmolested, choose and seem to prefer the vicinity of man's habitation for their nests, often sitting closely, with both men and beasts constantly passing within a few feet. It is a very handsome member of our fauna, and consequently many attempts have been made to domesticate it, but hitherto with small success. It has often been reared in the pigeon loft, but on arriving at maturity, and as autumn comes, it generally prefers a state of nature, joins some flock of wild birds, and so disappears. Better systems of agriculture, say the restric- tion of fences, the absence of brushwood and rough places, the drainage of swamps and land generally, all tend to reduce and absolutely banish many of our once familiar birds. Time was when most fields held their spongy swamps of greater or less extent, with reeds, willow twigs, and a dense undergrowth of course grass and rushes. These were the home of the snipe, the reed and sedge warblers, the bog sparrow or black-headed bunting, the water hen, &c. Even the haunt of the lapwing, on a larger scale, has been laid bare and dry, and unsuitable for them. In an opposite direction, the general and strict preservation of game has led to the destruction of such beasts and birds of prey as fed on wood pigeons, stock doves, and other smaller birds, and led to a great increase of these and game, and most of our notable songsters. The fox yet holds supremacy in hunting districts, but pole cats, badgers, stoats, weasles, martin cats, owls, hawks, jays, mag- pies, carrion crows, &c., &c., are now indeed aros aves hereabouts. Even ordinary tabbies in country places are by no means plentiful, and as a rule are not long lived, nor has the reputed preventitive of closely-cropped ears ever had general adoption to prevent their nocturnal rambles. This would certainly detract from their appearance, but it is said the dew and sand filling their ears thus, treated proves such an infliction, they prefer mice and milk and the home fireside to any luxuries found abroad on the prowl. Sir J. Lubbock delivered a most admirable address last week after a distribution of prizes at some boys' school, from memory let me quote the gist of his speech. The choice of books in youth is almost as important as the choice of friends, the one exerting an influence on our after life equal to the other. Education does but begin at school, enabling us successfully to profit by experience, and increase our store of facts every moment that passes. It is no small misfortune that natural science is all but ignored and omitted from the public school course, a study conferring unbounded advantages and satisfaction in after days, adding as it does, the power of full appreciation of every day of out- door life, and all the beauties of nature sur- rounding and adorning it. He spoke too of an after-dinner speech of Sir F. Bramwell at Cambridge, who at a late hour was called upon to respocd to applied science.' He said, under other circumstances, there is much I should wish to say with reference to applied science, but at this late hour, the only application of science which strikes me as appropriate, would be the application of the domestic lucifer to & bedroom candle! Llangollen, 20th November, 1899.

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OUR LONDON LETTER. THE visit of the Emperor of Germany has directed attention to Windsor, for as he only landed on Monday at Portsmouth, coming via Spithead to the quay where the railway steamers usually land, just opposite the ferry to Gosport, there was little chance of seeing him en route. His visit has given much satisfaction, and the military band which played Willie, we have missed you," as a welcome to our shores for the Kaiser Wilholm, touched the popular feeling very effectively, for as a boy he used to play on that spot. The Queen is pleased to see him and his wife and children, especially now when much German feeling is on the side of the Boers, with whom they have been trading profitably, in war materiel, for years. The Germans are very selfish, and worse than the Jews for an eye to the sixpence." 1 have just seen a letter from a German banker which states that German, Austrian, Russian, and even Italian officers are largely volunteering to help the Boers, who will "pay them well for dying," as they greatly need skilled officers just now. So it is well that the Kaiser did not listen to those who tried to persuade him not to come. THE DEATH OF LADY SALISBURY takes away from us a hearty and active politician, who has been a noble help-meet to Lord Salis- bury since the days when his father, the old Marquis, looked askance at him. We feel for the sorrowing widower deeply. She was the daughter of a judge, well known as a good and sincere man, and most of her relatives were comparatively poor people, but none the worse for that. She was herself good as gold, and Lord Salisbury found in her that a wife worth gold is better than one that merely has a large supply. The Mar- chiohess was in early days a Dissenter, and her grandfather was opposed to verbal creeds. He was known as a Unitarian minister, and her deep mystic influence was seen at Hatfield, when she and the Marquis often sat silent in the chattering family group, merely holding one another's hands and saying nothing. THE PREVALENCE OF DISSENT is again seen in a plain, silent way, by the fact that the Queen's present to her soldiers is choco- late prepared by three firms who eschew quack and mixed cocoas, and only sell what is generally understood to be unmixed cocoa. These three firms each belong to Quaker families. One of the Cadbury brothers, who died this year in Jerusa- lem, used to spend every winter at Morfen, Llan- duduo, and loved Wales amazingly. One of the Fry people, then an M.P., called at my office, and the Superintendent of the Discharged Prisoners' Aid Society being in my room at the time, told me when I came in that one of the prisoners was waiting for me-so plain and simple did this M.P. appear. Mr. Rowntree was once an M.P., and 1 have often met him as a determined teetotaller. The giving of cocoa is m,uch better than giving wine or grog. God save the Queen Strange it is that, like many other Dissenters, the devoted Marchioness, when in Church atmosphere, became a strong High Church woman. Good religion is in good people, not in creeds, as her grandfather used often to say. It is declared by good articles sold over the counter better than by words. SOLDIERS' SUNDAY was observed in the churches and chapels largely last Sunday. In some of the latter, people were asked, because they did their best against the war, to redouble their activity in favour of the soldiers who went there at the nation's mandate. One of the greatest Free Church leaders, in making a collection in aid of Soldiers' Widows and Orphans Fund, urged that the consolidarity of the nation was bound to be considered as a high moral principle, and we must feel as the heart of one man when the soldiers acted as our agents and fought at onr bidding. Mr. Alfred Griffiths, who was formerly on the Llangollen Advertiser staff, is now the honorary secretary of the Westbourne Park Institute, and is to-night about to ask the two thousand members who come to the lecture by Ian Maclaren, to subscribe in behalf of the Soldiers' Fund. In Germany they are making collections on behalf of the Boers, as they think us rich and proud! Even our Dutch-speaking fellow-subjects in the Cape find their sympathies running a bit wild, and have to be warned by Gen. Redvers Buller. The meeting at the stately and sedate Claridge's Hotel was not needed to show in its charming concert, with a guinea admission fee, that the Americans could at least subscribe for a hospital for both sides, and Mrs. Browne Potter looked as beautiful as ever an American could when she stood with the American and British flags in each hand, helping on the chantant. FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE, who was the first lady nurse to leave an aristo- cratic family and go to the Russian War to tend the soldiers, is still alive, and sent a cheery message to South Africa, for which the tedder-- hearted soldier wounded sent a telegram back with thanks to her. AP VANER. London, Tuesday night. ——