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LOCAL AND GENERAL GOSSIP.…

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LOCAL AND GENERAL GOSSIP. The Deputy Town Clerk of Cardiff, Mr. A. H. Coilingwood, has been appointed Town Clerk of Carlisle, The position is worth JE600 per annum. Out of a large number of applications for the post, two were selected for final choice, namely, Mr. Collingwood, of Cardiff, and Mr. Ernest Mawdesley, Deputy Town Clerk of Swansea. A deputation from the Carlisle Corporation visited both towns, and after hearing all they could learn concerning the two candidates, they had a tough job to arrive at a final decision. The choice having fallen upon Mr. Coilingwood, Mr. Mawdesley is left at Swansea a little longer, to the satisfaction of all who come in contact with him, and who cannot but appreciate his straightforward and sterling qualities. It is only for a short time, how- ever, as his qualifications and experience are bound to win for him a position of increased responsibility aDd emolument. There is now likely to be a little quarrel as to who first suggested that Christmas Evans's neglected grave at Bethesda, Swansea, should be decently restored, if not greatly improved. The redoubtable Athan Fardd says that credit is being awarded to a certain member or members of the ministerial body, whereas the ma er first mooted by a layman—himself—so far back as 1884in the it even Cymry. He further expresses the hope that something will now be done to perpetuate the memories of three of the most brilliant geniusas that ever Wales or any other country has produced, viz., Christmas Evans, Joseph Harries (Gomer), and leuan Ddu o Lan Tawy. We bor e so too. The neglected condition of Christmas Evans's grave has been referred to in The Cambrian several times within the last nine or ten years. 0* What a change This is what occurred to us the other day when we had occasion to visit the Landore Siemen's Steel Works. We remembered a visit about ten years ago under very different circumstances, when the British Association held its annual conference in our midst, and at the invitation of the late Sir William Siemens, the scientific visitors made an inspection of the gigantic concern and afterwards sat down to a sumptuous banquet on the plateau in front of the works. When we visited the place on Wednesday last, the same open space, upon which the late originator of tbp. works made a brilliant speech, was occupied by about 30 or 40 lads playing football. Truly a remarkable and most unwelcome change has come over the place and its surroundings. We took a stroll through the once busy mill-sheds. We found the large steam hammers and all the appliances as we had formerly seen them, but the hands to work them had departed. All was silence and desolation. There was not so much as a boy to be seen to give a note of prosperity for the future. The vast machinery which had been the means of circulating nearly £2,000 a week among the tradespeople of Swansea, providing labour for nearly the same number of hands, and supplying food to four times as many mouths now idle, and perhaps in a short time to be put under the auctioneer s hammer. #*# There is perhaps no town in the United Kingdom where projects for the benefit of the public are taken up with more spirit and enthusiasm than in Swansea. But for some reason or other, most projects end eventually in a failure Competition is all very well in its way, but when competition is put forward with an amount of antagonism, it must be expected that disaster must follow. Several efforts during the last few years, have been made in Swansea to cultivate a taste for high class music among the lovers of music in and around the town. Those who remember the old Swansea Harmonic Society cannot but admit that Jules-Allard and his co-workers achieved a very great deal by the performances given of oratorios by the master composers of past ages. As much may be said of Professor Phipps, organist of St. James' Church, and conductor of the Swansea Oratorio Society, but Mr. Phipps happened not to be a Welshman born, and excep- tion was taken to this and other failings, the result being the starting of the Swansea Choral Society. This society achieved a much larger series of successes than any of its predecessors, but like them it has gone the way of all flesh and of all human creations. ## Now there are the Saturday night popular concerts. It will be remembered that these entertainments last season and the previous one were so attractive at the Drill Hall, that an opposition programme was provided for a large audience once or twice a week at the Albert Hall. A change, however, has come over the people, so that they will not be enticed to the concert at the Drill Hall on a Saturday night. The result is that it the attendance is not better, the entertainments will have to be brought to an abrupt termination, and so, what was twelve months ago the rage, will go the way of all the other good projects started for the benefit of Swaaseaites. Let us hope this may not be the case. There is this to be said about the matter that Swansea has lately had more than the usual number of entertainments offering attraction to the public. On Saturday evening last there were no less than six or seven entertainments going on, among which were the Pantomime at the New Theatre, the performance at the Pavilion, Poole's Myriorama, the Popular Concert at the Drill Hall, and two temperance meetings. Perhaps when this number gets lessened, the popular concerts may again rally. But such a state of things is not indicative of a growing leve of music in our midst. *#* Swansea is a peculiar place for giving support to a large number of entertainments. The patrons can only be drawn from the north side of the town, the open bay being on the south, soath-east, and south-west, and from which there is no population to be got. It is, therefore, obvious that even a pantomime gets exhausted in a couple of weeks in Swansea, while Cardiff and provincial towns in England, with large populations on all sides of them, can run a pantomime performance, with profit, for five or six weeks. The railway accommodation is also defective, the arrangements for late trains on the Midland and London and North-Western Railways receiving no consideration whatever. The Swansea Chamber of Commerce might obtain some advantage for the town and the public in moving in such a matter. Perhaps the council of that body will take the hint, and endeavour to get something done in that direction. They might do a lees useful thing Some stir has been caused ia the camp of the Salvation Army by the fierce light" of criticism which has lately been brought to bear upon it. The scrimmage was com- menced by the Rev. J. Llewellyn Davis insisting upon having a list of names from among a large number of people living in the "slums" of his parish whom Mr. Booth's missionaries had been bragging that they had saved." After a good deal of badgering, a list of six names was produced. Mr. Davis says that two of these were known to him to be working men of exceptionally good character before they became connected with the Salvationists, and that three others were living in places which no one would think of calling "slums;" that therefore they did not belong to the uncared-for class; and that there was no excuse for reaching them by means of what the Times called semi-barbarian antics." This remark hurt the feelings of General Booth, who fell foul of the leading journal for using such terms but the reply he got was that the editor could not withdraw the phrase, but should even have to be less complimentary in his terms if he desired to characterise the taste and temper of a hymn sung on the previous day, as well as a large portion of the General's" own speech on the same occaiaon. One of the most impertinent passages in this speech was that when he said he lately had occasion to visit the Home Secretary, and that "if the right honourable gentleman had not been pressed for business he believed he should have got at his soul." Another specimen of the style of one of the General's followers occurs when he begins a sentence in a letter with By- and-by, when I make the personal acquaintance of the Psalmist." This reminds the Midland Counties Herald of a saying of the late George Dawson's that the faith of some people amounts to assurance. # # What is the best age to marry ? that is the question. Most people will think when they like is about the best time. A Hungarian scientist, M. Korosi, has been ex- amining the question philosophically, and having collected a large amount of data has come to the follow- ing conclusions:—"Mothers under twenty years of age and fathers under twenty-four have children more weakly than parents of riper age. Their children are more sub- ject to pulmonary diseases. The healthiest children are those whose fathers are from twenty-five to forty years of age. and whose motbers are from twenty to thirty years old. M. Korosi says that the best marriages are those in which the husband is senior to the wife; but a woman from thirty to thirty-five years old will have healthier children if her husband be somewhat younger than herself. A man from thirty to forty years old ought to take a wife from twenty to thirty. If the mother be five years older than the father the vitality of the children becomes impaired." These details are very edifying and ^interesting, and they will doubtless in- fluence those about to marry" as mnch as a barometer influences the weather. It would appear that there is such a thing as a epidemic visitation of murderous crime, just as there is of small- pox. The Spectator says: Nothing is more astonishing than the law of moral contagion which appears to render violent crime the cause of more violent crime, almost after the same fashion as that in which one case of scar- et-fever is the cause of another case of scarlet-fever. Possibly it may be the failure to discover the author or authors of the horrible Whitechapel murders, besides the morbid interest excited by those murders, which may have added to the force of the criminal impulse—or. rather, which may have diminished the fear that should have counteracted the criminal impulse. And, if so the ill-success of the police in recent cases of murder' for example, in the case of the murder at Poplar, and of the three recent child-murders, the authors of all of which may very likely succeed in escaping detection -will contribute still further to increase the criminal's hope of escaping punishment. But though it may well be that the mystery which envelops a good many of the recent murders has diminished dangerously the whole- some dread of exposure and of punishment, we believe that the morbid excitement which the story of the murders has produced has done far more to stimulate the active criminal impulse, than the failure to detect the criminal has done to diminish the dread of conse- quences. It is a great misfortune that the publicity which is necessarily given to every great crime, and still more to every great series of crimes in itself fosters the moral ferment that produces such crimes. The evil, however, is nearly inevitable. It would never do not to express indignation and horror. And yet the indignation and horror—except, at least, where they are directed against the actual offenders rather stimulate than dimmish the morbid tendencies of Nhich crime is the consequence; and even when they are directed against the actual offenders, they cannot by any means effectually neutralise the injurious conse- quences of the morbid excitement that has been pro- duced. Captain G» M. Alldridge*N., is fully convinced o the advantages of Lundy as a Harbour of Refuge for the Bristol Channel. He writes :—' I feel I may be permitted to raise my voice in favour thereof, having been for many years the Admiralty surveyor in the Bristol Channel, and, during my operations, had every opportunity of witnessing the immense number of vessels trading up and down the Bristol Channel, and the great necessity there WHB, in bad weather, etc., for a Harbour of Refuge at Lundy Island. I have on various occasions, when appealed to, given my opinion in favour of Lundy Island as the proper spot. I did so when examined before the Royal Commission on Harbours of Refuge in 1858-1859, and drew a plan be- fore them of my ideas as to the necessary breakwater; since which I gave the secretary of the Devonshire Harbours otRefuge the same plan, and every informa- tion in my power, when he did me the honour of calling on me; also, at a meeting held in March, 1886, at the Castle at Exeter, I sent likewise a plan of Lundy Island, with my proposed breakwater marked on it. Lundy Island possesses all the material required for constructing the breakwater, has good drinking water, capital holding ground for anchorage, and possesses every requisite for fortification, which, with a powerful fleet at hand, may defy the passing of any enemy up the Bristol Channel, and provide shelter and safety to the commercial ships."

-I COUNTY COUNCIL ELECTION.

—. PERSONAL GOSSIP.

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FAREWELL MEETING AND PRESENTATION…

. THE COUNTY COUNCIL ELECTIONS,…

THE WRECK OF THE BARQUE IN…

+ AN INDICTMENT AGAINST MORMONISM.

THE CONTESTED ELECTIONS.

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THE UNITARIAN CHURCH NEW ORGAN.

. WANTED-A MARKET AT SKETTY…

OUR LOCAL TRADE, MANUFACTURES…

♦ LIVERPOOL TIN-PLATE MARKET.

♦ THE TIN-PLATE TRADE.

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