The Cambrian

I NOTES ON MEN & THINGS. March ca:iK- in like a lion n-nd went out iiko. i lon:b. Sir George Newnex, M.P., fei.t a nv:tor-c!r iu the Chert:-ev Liberals. Ilte, o,' dance on Wednesday, the 13th. of ,Al:-iv j The curfew is not ringing these nights at Tenby. The ancient custom will, however, be resumed on 29th September next The Education Act cahie into force a couple of days ago, and the subsequent pro. ceedin^rs of the Swansea, School Board', ac.. cording to the strict letter of the law, need interest nobody any more. As a matter of fact,, however, in no ca.se has any workable; scheme yet been formulated by the new au- thorities, and probably a. yen- will elapse before it is generally it, working order The collection boxes placed outside the Mansion House realised quite a considerable amount— £ 20 in all for the benefit of the Lifeboat Fund, when it is remembered that they necessarily depended more upon the pence of the poor than the cheque-book of < the rich, and disaster wa.s unattended by those elements of the dramatic which arrest the public attention and help to relax the tightness of the purse-strings.. u. j i i Rev. Stephen Gladstone (the late Mr. Glad- 1 stone's son) writes of the Llandrindod con- cordat, that if the conditions of the Welsh County Councils are insisted on, mnna<r'>vs will be forced to close the schools, as f]-^ I debts fall personally on thern. -it seClns strange," he adds, "that the Government has pa.ssed an Act which makes it possible for County Councils to kill efficient Voluntary t schools odtigbt," ( • • 4 ( Mr. Walter Melville's play "Tj^ \yorij. t Woman in London," has scored a success fit < the London Adelphi, where the pit Ls thrilled and the dress-circle tickled by the outrageous ( villainy of the villainess ]fc appear to j! ve t been quite a revelation to the belated Metvo- po'litan critics—it ^jll be rcinember-ed it appeared at the Grand Iheatre in Swansea i who never before realised the latent potent (ii- < ties of wholesale massacre in a lady vill The Cwinavon mystery is ju.vt one of tluse problems which would appeal to the heart of Sheilock Holmes, were he a.live to-day i One can deduce anything from the circum- I stances in winch the dead man was found he may have fallen, accidentally, smashed i the bottle he wa.s can-ying. cut his head open with the pieces, and' stagered dazed into the pond. Or he may have bean brutally <1. saulted and thrown in. Of the tw(> hypo_ < theses, the former appea.s the more likely. ( ( Mr. Ben Tillett's recent address to a tin- i platers meeting on the rehtioJw exiting in ( the trade between musters J!nd m-n was ) couched in a m<^t c,nci!i.u0,y iavj commend- able spirit he g<tve trie men a timely e.x- hiDTtafion t:» iea:eaib.i> the responsibility resting upon Cum, .n th= present situation of the trade, wnen making fIc.h demands, and his hint to the masters to continue keep- i ing th. ii" eyes open and enterprise undimin- is-hed. could have given most thin-skinned employer. I We are so Limilia-i \wth "municipal enter- prise" in Swan ea taut it will be of general Iwal interest to learn that the Torqu-ay Cor- poration his gone in, inter alia, for breeding sheep, and has made a prost upon it which is a fact possibly more remarkable than the novelty of t'ns turn which Torquay en- terprise has taken. Hie pwfit, moreover, was of a fairly substantial amount. The sheep were reared upon a track of waste grazing land in the possession of the Corpora- tion. There is l'kelj to be a "nll" on offers to attend the Congress of Associated Chambers ef Commerce at Canada, that is judging by Swansea. Sir John Jones Jenkins, Mr. W. T. Farr, and Mr A. P. Steeds have intimated their willingness to represent the Swansea Cham- ber of Commerce if asked to do so. As mem- bers have till August to submit their names, it is not unlikely that the summer holidays of several of our local commercial men will be spent across the "herring pond." A Cardiff paper comments upon the anomal- ous situation at Swansea of trade going up, if not by leaps and bounds, at any rate at a considerable velocity, despite the heavy bur- den of rates, and draws thereftom the com- forting augury that Swansea is recupera- ting." Things are not, alas, as cheery as they appears. The manufactories established in the town are hardly likely either to be aug- mented by recruits from the Midlands, or to be capable of much expansion, with the pre- sent onerous handicap clogging them. And trade, for which the town acts more or less as a funnel alone, is of little general benefit. # Saturday's game at Cardiff should rank as the most sen.sational for several se-asons. There is no doubt our team of late is getting "fraj-ed," and are a different team from that which won so brilliantly until Devonpoit re'ereeing took the fire out of their efforts, i Nevertheless, <1, determined effort on Saturday may yet win back lost prestige, and show that 1 Swansea's defeats have, save in one ilstanee, been mere adverse luck. Whichever wins will get great glory, pro. tern, if nothing more ^ub-tantial. Should the Swansea fifteen crumple up we must wait for the next season, mur'Tiuring like the villain, "a. time will come." 1 The sum of £100 has been promised for t J tide's new church, Swansea, by Sir John ,k weivn, as his contribution for fhiis year. I Mr. and Mrs. Ben: Evans are making a stay 10 th > Continent until the end of April. They ,1, dt present staying at Borueghera, Italy, Wolverhampton has lost £6,000 on the first year's working of its electric tramways, the ight for which it might have let for £15,000 j i year. Lord Asliburnluun. who has provided a settlement at Burry Port for a large number of the eriled Brc-ton monks, has gone to Venice on a visit to Don Carlos, Duke of Madrid, at his palace. A committee is arranging a presentation on behalf of the Carmarthenshire County Council to its euairman, Mr. H. Jones Davies, on the occasion of hi.s marriage, with Miss Ellis, sister of the late Mr. Tom Ellis. M.P. Picton Villa, Carmarthen, which is row ten- anted by six uuns of the Sisterhood of the Holy Ghost, will lunceforth be known as St. Wimfride's Convent. There is also a St. [\ inefride's Conw.ut at Swu;\sea.. • • The subscribers to the "Memorial to the Fallen" Fund are invited to meet on Mon- day evening next; the subscribers to the Mumbles Widows' and Orphans' Fund to a neeting at noon on Wednesday next. Considerable feeling has been aroused in Swansea municipal circles by the imperative veto placed on a surface contact system by the Tramways Company. The right of the latter to a decisive voice in the matter is to be challenged. # That pleasant,bat wholly unnecessary func- tion, the pilotage survey, is not to take place this year. It is to be replaced by a trip to the members of the Medical Association, and doubtless the Harbour Trustee., and officials will participate, so they at all events will not be losers by the change. The marriage of John Kendal Rashleigti and Evelyn, second daughter of Mr. W. H. P. and Lady Caroline Jenkins (sister of the Earl of Je-rsey), will take place at Cape Town, South Africa, at the end of IMhy. It will be remembered that Air. and Lady Caroline Jen- kins recently visited tvit Briton Ferry. If the Swansea Council approve of a re- solution adopted by the Tramways Committee m Wednesday, the Corporation will presently be at close quarters with the Tramways Company as to the time and conditions for acquiring the property. Doubts that have oppressed the City Fathers for years past are about to be tested in the only way possible. It cannot be said that the pictorial posters issued by the Swansea Chamber of Trade are ineffective. The only flaw is that the artist must have imagined the details. When the visitor seeks in vain for the flotilla of pleasure boats setting off from the sands, or for the woodlands running flush with the high water mark, he is likely to think highly of the de- sc-riptive powers of that arfi-t. < Mv. Alfred Davits, as the representative of .he Carmarthen Borough in Parliament, has ;iven anything but sati;.faction, and the L lb- ),:1' party at Llanellv is now fully determined .0 run a candidate of their own a.t the next deelion. The workmen of the town arc now splendidly organised and it. apparent to :vf ry one that they ate quietly pr. paring {or he next eketxn Whenever a community suffers..( scapegoat a well-nigh indispensable. This is probably lue to the abiding influence of the ir.stinct which in pagan days induced the sacrificial ttfering of human and animal lives to pro- pitiate the superntatuiial powers. A1t. the Mumbles, the losses ineiured by reason of :-he oyster are being attributed, without ap- parent reason, to Air. Henry Da vies, the ex- chairman of the Council. It is practically iseless t.o argue against a notion -once firmly tooted in the public mind. The Swansea. Tramways Company have ilealt what seems a final quietus to the idea. )f anv surface contact system being intro- luced into Swansea. They won't depart from the overhead system at any price. This in ?tfect was what Air. Teigitmeier, the chair- man of the Tramways Company, told the Corporation representatives on Tuesday. This knocks the Lotion; out of the idea that the tramways ami ti'.e .Oo!i?v Companies are. Jam mated by the same r.?r.»;:ulit.y and could be trusted to agree. The Royal Institini, d South Wales has just, had some interesting gifts of i',c.i) she'is, etc., that sihould make, ih cardiological see- tion, to which Colonel L1. Morgan recently contributed, one of the strongest in the Insti- tution museum. The latest gifts are from Mr. E. J. Pritchard, of the Chemical Works, Port Teimunt (the shells were collected in this ease by his late father), and Miss Wat- kins, of the Bank. Llandovery, who sends the collection of shells, botanical specimens, and Silurian fogs;ls of the district of her late brother. Progress continues to be made with the electric lighting supply of the town. One works, the Anglo-French Nickel Company has agreed to take not less than 100,000 units of current per year for power purposes, and is negotiating for an additional 15,000 or 20,000 units for light. The proprietors ot two other large works are seriously consider- ing the expediency of following suit. By the way, Mr. Prussmann, the borough electrical engineer, has been down with influenza, and has been compelled to get. away for a week to recuperate. The campaign in this district on behalf of Labour representation in Parliament has got into a curious tangle. Mr. Hodge and Air. John Williams are exchanging repartees cal- culated to keep colliers and steel-workers well apait, and meanwhile Mr. Littlejohns is pro- fessedly prosecuting his campaign in Swansea District by means of meetings which are said to have considerably less to do with the Gen- eral Election than with the distribution of Socialistic tracts. Some electors, who have attended the meetings went away convinced that they have been induced to be present by false pretences. It is difficult to follow and understand the changes in the directorates of the com- panies brought into relation by the proposed adoption at Swansea, of the Dolter Surface Contact System. Mr. Garcke was a director of the Dolter Company, and the dominant spirit of the Swansea. Tramways Company, itS the offshoot of the British Electric Trac- tion Company. Now this gentleman, pro- bably the ablest man in tramway ventures in the country, is a director of neither and views are put forward, on behalf of the rramway Company wholly irreconcilable with those formerly expressed by Mr. Garcke. What is the explanation of the transforma- tion? The new hose Under purchased by the Swansea Corporation IN similar to one in use at Exeter. It is said to be of great conveni- ence in hilly districts. There are indications of tempestuous timeis in the relations of Corporation and Tramway Company at Swansea. The storm cone is up as the public will presently realise. Rev. W. Knilyn Jones, Alorriston, says he is now waiting medical advice to be guided by the weather before he embarks on his voyage to the Canaries for the beneSt of his health. Constitution Hill railway, after a brief inglorious career, is on offer to the Corpora- tion for £500 The venture cost the pro- moters between £8,000 and £9,000. The total amount* voted last year as ad- ditions to the salary of the Alayor of Swan- sea, exceeded £2,000. But even that large sum fell considerably short of the actual disbursements. » • An outburst sooner or later at the Cray Water Works has been long and confidently predicted. The latest meeting of the respon- sible committee is reported to have produced marked eruptive symptoms. Saturday's disasters to the All Whites at Cardiff must rank as one of the most remark- able reversals of form on record. After New- po;.l} s hejavy defeat of them everybody expected a considerable score uv Swansea. The threequurter line was disorganised, it is true, but had the substitutes been in proper form and tiairiing they should have held their own. as they are at least equal under normal circumstances, to a brace of the Car- diff quartette. Swansea of course, is knocked out of the running for the champion- ship, but. their reputation may, at any rate be retrieved by a decisive victory over New- port. A sign of the times has been a considerable increase in the number of motor cvde" at Swansea during the last few months. The odour of petrol which they leave as a trail in the wake of their progress, is, however, neither a refreshing nor gratifying one, but We suppose an odourless substitute will be discovered in time. e According to Air. Young, of Llanellv, a Very distinct earth tremor was Felt there on Lady Day. He w rites -"While I was ittinu qvieily at work at 1.13 p.m.. a .si.nivr shock of what 1 took to be an earthquake occurred. It seemed to come vertically upward, and with a sudden crack (kc a rifle (as it were) to hit everything up. There was no boom, as usual when one gets the wave motion.—Next time the earthquake comes along. the Ntepney- istieel trams ought to be ready for the sacri- fice. -K- Corporation economists have a. weakness for striking at the weaker parts of official- dom when the demand for "saving" becomes imperative. The upward leap of the rates has so far had the result of causing the dis- missal of four water-tap inspectors and three park keepers. Apparently the thought never occurs to a City Father that economies might- be effected by aiming higher. The drawers of hundreds are hedged round by a kind of divinity that warns off the sternest economist. Rather more than J35,000 has been collected for the Mumbles Widows' and (trphans' Fund, which, with the balance of £2.000 available from a. former fund, places £7.000 at the dis. posal of whatever trustees are appointed Invested in Harbour Stock, yielding 4 pei cent., the sum would yield J3280 a year, or enough to provide for the families without drawing at all upon the principal. This superfluity of cash would seem to suggest the expediency of establishing a permanent fund for the relief of all sufferers from lifeboat ac- cidents in the locality. "Coming events cast their shadow before." It may seem a far cry to November, but al- ready one at least of the councillors whose term of office then expiie- has begun his elec- tioneering. On Friday evening Air. Morgan Hopkin. who is obviously not unaware of the trend of feeling in the ward, sought to reach the- electors by means of a meeting ostensibly convened to decide whether bricks or stone should be used in .e tacmg of the Cray water works darn. The pioceedings appear to have been diverting in the extreme—and gave a foretaste of what, may be expected in November. By the way, the filler of the leading role ma.de no reference to "ex-parte, apparently his first attempt to pose as an authority on Latin yieh- >d too depressing a result to warrant a. second. Mr. John Hodge's remarks at. Gorseinon on the subject of Labour relations with the two great political parties, were particularly apposite in view of the offer of alliance to that new political force which Sir Henrv Ce.mpbell-Bannerman threw out at Leeds. The latter, with characteristic shortsighted- ness, could not see that the very origin of the movement was distrust of and discontent with the two existing parties as a means of securing the aims of labour. Mr. Hodge dis- played hostility to the Liberals, as well as a conviction of their uslessness of them for his purposes, which should open the eve of any local LiberaLs who have been deluded by their leader's speech into the assumption that there is something in the idea. of a Libera] and La- bour alliance—if any such deluded men theie be. « Here is a full, accurate, and veracious de- scription of the new pictorial poster which is to bring a stream of gold into the pockets of Swansea, seaside lodging-house keepers and hndladie-s The sea and sky are of the richest ultramarine .the former dotted with white- winged yachts; the sands are of the deepest gold, covered with gaily dressed people, bath- ing machines, donkeys, and other attributes of a. popular beach. The greater part of fife Mumbles is missing entirely; so are the cliffs behind it. So are Blackpill, Clyne Wood, the old golf links, the.L. and N.W. railway embankment and bridge, the fringe of trees between Blackpill and West Cross. The West Cross Hotel stands Isolated on the foandsl iin solitary grandeur. Elsewhere a smiling green landscape is dotted with villas embowered in trees, and a tiny Mumbles train creeps shame-facedly along; and the range of hills (Gower 7) tower above all in gorgeous purple. The one solitary thing a. Swanseaite can recognise in the picture is the water; that is truthfully depicted enough. In a vignette, the Brighton steams smartly Ol1.t between the two piers, which are overlooked by the Kilvey slopes, set out in an emerald hue! (Shades of valley copperworks!) A charming picture of rural beauty, verily, but about as inaccurate a production as could be published. Most Swansea men who see it cannot but laugh, and' that is the chief merit of the thing'—its humour. Half-a-dozen photographic views would have made a far more attractive and truthful picture than this gorgeously flaming mass of absolute inaccur- acy. What with Lord George Sanger's circus, and Buffalo Bill. the Swansea, public is being pretty well catered for in the ensuing summer. Lord Gienfell, of Kilvey, assumed command of the 4th London Army Corps on Wednes- day. April Lst, a day when quite » number of new Acts and reforms came into force. The choice of a date is singularly unhappy It seems rather amusing at first to read that- the Parks Committee is going to select a "site" in Victoria Park for the new pavilion, the park not being so extensive as all that. It will probably be on the western half, the eastern portion being the favourite spot for circuses, shows, etc. Air. Hull Hedley's name is cropping up in connection with the Swansea District Par- liamentary (next) election. As a candidate, he would command a great bulk of labour support, being a well-known and popular em- ployer. Possibly more support, in fact, would be attracted to him by his recognised substantial status, than would be accorded the official Labour candidate. Dr. Rawlings will not find many to agree with him in his opinion that the cemetery should be closed on Palm Sunday. The cere- mony is one of the few popular and beautiful religious rites still extant, and if from aes- thetic reasons alone deserves fostering, rather than discouragement. Alanv graves, more- over. would be in a. sadly neglected s;ate were it not for this annual "brush-up." It has so frequently happened that a home team of established inferiority is capable of occasionally snatching a. victory when the conditions are against pure skill, that t.he result at Cardiff on Saturday should not have occasioned much surprise. When dash and determination are the qualities which have most to do with the issue, -it- is not unnatural that a fifteen worked up to fever pitch by a sympathetic crowd should now and again achieve a victory against IJdcb. » When Mr. Acland was at the head of the Education Department, during a Liberal administration, he made the Voluntary Schools toe the line with merciless exactitude. Buildings had to be repaired and renovated in wholesale fashion, and extensive were the consequent lamentations and complaint. But the exacting and pushful Minister proved a. friend in di-guise. By reason of his de- mands, the Voluntary Schools are now in a much better position to withstand the critical inspection to which they are being subjected by unsympathetic educational authorities. Apropos of the Carlistle sWans, which cannot be sent- to grace Swansea's municipal duck ponds because of a. 20th centuiy deluge on the Eden (a river, not the original Para- dise) the King sometime ago offered several swans to Belfast, the royal birds on the Thames having been fruitfully multiplied and replenished the river to the point of overcrowding. Belfast, however, had plenty, so the offer was respectfully declined. A Royal swan would be a desirable acquisition to Brynmill, and perhaps .some are "on the market" still. Monitions, admirable of course in tlieoiv, were again uttered in the Swansea Police Court against the practice of jumping off trams in motion, when a man was fined for so doing. In practice nobody will take the slightest notice, unless the policy of proeecu- tion Ls pressed, in which case a good deal of indignation will piohablv be felt. A man in. a hurry cannot wail for the trail), to slow flown and come to a dead standstill, as if he were an invalid o'd lady, litis is just one of the little practices the public will persist in. holding that an occasional fatality is not a sufficient deterrent or reason for following the more prudent course—if that prudence is not excessive. A bright future in the way of musical efficiency is promised for the Swansea Police Band by experts, who consider that in six months it will almost rival the best band in South-West England—the Plymouth Marine Band. Side by side appear the an- nouncement that about JB200 per annum is re- quired from sources other than the I Corporation subsidy, in order to keep the I band up to the mark. Doubtless, when the former ideal is reached, the latter will not r be far off by reason of profitable engagements offering themselves. It is to be hoped we will oiten hear the band in the parks of a summer evening. Swansea showed last year thai, these open air concerts were one of the most popular ideas the Corporation has struck uoon. < Air. Peter Jones-, of Chelsea, one of Lon- don's most- prominent drapers, was in Swan- sc-a on Tuesday. Like manv another Welsh- man. his. career in the Metropolitan drapery trade has been ore of remarkable succeEi;. Welshmen in London, in fact, shine almost as pre-eminently in this branch of commerce as they do in the humb'er calling of milk vending —which, they monopolise. The canny Scot is usually reputed to be pretty successful in London; a Scotchman hurled at the English the other day the taunt that they were a "nation of employed, the employers of course mainly hailing north of the Tweed; but it is clear that in the Welshman they find a for- midable competitor in the arc of exploiting the Saxon's lack of "push." A gift given at once doubles the gratitude of the receiver, runs a proverb. Another saw says that he who gives quickly gives twice, and the Swansea Watch Committee are to be commended on the example set by the prompt reward which they have bestowed on the Alorriston lad. Boyce, for his plucky rescue of another youngster from the Morris- ton Canal. This is the right way to reward such gallantry—promptly and effectively. Why, by the wa.y, is that. canal not fenced in? There is a story of a man being half- drowned in a London canal; he was fished ouL but perished from the poison in the wat:'r he had involuntarily drunk. Another version places the canal at Manchester; but one glance at the Morriston waterway is enough to give birth to a third version, with Alor- riston as the scene. Will Crooks M.P., one time inmaite of Poplar Workhouse, and now Alayor of that same borough, and representative for Wool- wich. is due to speak at Cardiff on April 21st. It is a pity we cannot get him down to Swan- sea, the paradise of the labour member. Mr. Crook's debut in Parliament, by the way, wa.s lather disappointing to his constituents. During the election he was lavish in his prom- ises of better pay, etc. pay at the Arsenal is rather low—but the first time he got up to -<:peal.: at Westminster it was to unsuecessfully appeal against an edict for the discharge of several thousand workmen. The war had rendered them superfluous. Air. Crooks, we take it, like all Labour members, has a pious if "crankish" horror of war. Queer is the freak of fortune which places him in a seat that can only be rendered one of roses by a continual succession of wars, petty or other- wise. Sousa. whose Iwrul visits Swansea on Satur- day, has dabbled a. bit in roma.nce. He re- cently published a short romance entitled "Fifth String," a tale of rather a weird char- acter. It is untrue that the Cardiff Arms Park is a "gathering ground for the Cardiff Coun- cil's reservoir, or that the local meterological experts intend making it a permanent station for rain-guoge experiments. The King ha- presented the Royal Welsh Fusiliers with a new goat to replace the one which came to such an untimely end through grief at its separation from the succulent grasses of the Home Park at Windsor. The waning interest in football with the end of the seasun was shown on Saturday when the excursion train to Cardiff took only a couple of hundred Swansea people to Car- diff, many of them of the gentler sex, unin- 'terested in the pastime. By the final settlement of the terms in the Welsh coalfield, the greater part of Wales is assured of industrial peace for the next three years. Having regard to the known determination on both sides to avoid a strike. the event tits in with the expected. • » The strike at the, collieries of Aleissrs. Vivi in and Sons ha" lasted so long that most- people have forgotten it. The effect of a dc- plorable dispute is that the majority of the colliers whose homes are in Treboeth and district. now are lodgers in various parts oi the Welsh coalfield. « The efforts Llanelly intends making to get the local Volunteer camp fixed for some other week than that of the eisteddfod give rise to the reflection that it is not the eisteddfod which will suffer should the camping date remain as fixed, ft is a case of music versus Mars, with music an easy first. Business continues to be very bad in Car- diff. despite the impression of prosperity yielded by the appearance of the principal streets, ^The tone general in commercial circles there is pronouncedly pessimistic. The only element of comfort is that by the settlement in the coal trade stagnation has not been reduced' to absolute ruin. A good many complaints are being made 01 the lack of a. "general" catalogue for the Swansea Free Library. Prose, fiction and children s books are not the only one-" in demand .and one is groping in the dark when trying to select a general work of reference upon any particular subject. This deficiency must inconvenience officials as. much as the 1,1' public. Police Constable Tucker, whose gallantry at the fire in High-street on Monday morning educed the warmest gratitude of the inmates whom he rescued, is making quite a name for himself on the score of personal gallantry. .Not a. tire in Swansea in recent times has been complete without some reference being made to the worthy constable's pluck. Does it not deserve some recognition? ThE down-line opposition to the railway schemes for tapping the Garnant Valley for the benefit of Swansea and Port Talbot hi" gone down in the first round. It has been decided that the Carmarthenshire County Council, the Llanelly Urban Council, and the Llanelly Chamber of Commeice had none ot them locus standi to appear against either oi the two rival schemes. Therefore the pio- motei's ot the latter have now a clear deck for fighting out their claims. Several of the Swansea, football players were maltreated in leaving the Cardid ground on Saturday. This ivs a. novelty even in foot- ball. For the vanquished there is usually a feeling of sympathy the- unkindness is re- served for the victors, whose triumph Ins been obtained by wounding local patrioti-m. Jt. wiil be interesting to observe whether the hooliganism will have any ulterior conse- quences. The Union is a severe censor of the small clubs, and lays a heavy hand on them when they transgress. But is the law the same for the ¡,;tr°tg as for the weak? We doubt it. Tilt midnight affray in Dyfattv Park would seem to indicate that the inhabitants value this open space more as a suitable arena for the exhibition of hooligan pugilism than for its syivan vernal beauties. Various sentences of hard labour will cause the perpetrators of a violent and unprovoked assault upon the might and majesty of the Corporation— to wit. a watchman—to reflect, and come out sadder and wiser men. It is a pitv that there, is nothing available in the shape ot an institute wnere this misdirected hunger for a figiit cannot have its energy diverted into the legal channels of boxiana. Such a place is needed around Dyfatty Park eveiy whit as urgently a.s the Park itself. March is the appointed time for Corpora- tion officials to put in applications for better salaries. About thirty have done so this year, and the increases asked for. if con- ceded. would mean an addition of between £400 and £500 ill the permanent charges. In the presc-nt severely economical mood of the aldermen and councillors, the conditions are not favourable to the applicants, and the pro- posal. not unfavourably received at the meet- ing of the Salaries and Duties Committee, was that all the applications should stand over for a year. Ultimately this was with- drawn for another providing for a complete overhauling of the various departments, to ascertain whether reductions in number as in amount of salaries are not necessary, so as to set-off any increases to the deserving which may be decided upon. There is a deeply- looted belief that if some officials did their fair share of work there would be no neces- sity for SO many being on the salary list. Swansea school teachers are now finding themselves bracketed'by music-sellers and the like in the same class as the popular song pirate, and others who enable the public t 1 get for Id what would otherwise mean a profit of Is. 6d. for the recognised trade. Tire cause of the rumpus is the formation of violin bands in certain Swansea schools. Presum- ably music js relied upon to soothe any in- stincts of roughness that may rise kx the breasts of the "young barbai-ians" at the various schools. The musical resalts nt- tained by these bands are commendable as a rule—or the reverse; it all depends upon one's ear for harmony. The teachers are accused of cutting the ground from under the feet of the music-dealers by providing tho instruments themselves—of course, for a con- sideration. A Swansea minister remarked the other evening that religion did not pay when it became synonymous with pecuniary benefit, and perhaps the sense of this remark applies to the above situation. Swansea- school-teachers are quite at liberty of course to add to their incomes, but the above method id--nt'iias i.oe.ir personal gain too cloq,ly wi'h the school as an educational establishment, to be :;i!gether desirable.