The North Wales Express

BIRTHS. MARRIAGES, DEATHS. BIRTHS. Edwards-February 21, at 5, Garfield terrace, Bangor, the wife of Mr Evan Edwards, local manager of Messrs Robert Roberts and Co., of a son. Evans—February 24 (Shrove Tuesday), at 34, Orme road, Friars, Bangor, to Mr and Mrs J. H. Evans, a daughter. Jones—February 19, at 5, Moriali terrace, Carna.rvon, the wife of Mr Robert Jones, Morlan, Barmouth, of a son. Jones-February 16, the wife of Mr Pugh Jones, M.A., Headmaster County School, Holyhead, of a son—first-born. Peters-February 24, at 20, New street, Car- narvon, the wife of Mr Edward Peters, of a daughter. Winter-February 23, at Bleak House. Car- narvon road, Bangor, the wife of Mr Augustus Winter, photographer, Bangor, of a son. Wynne—February 16, a.t Station House, Griffith's Crossing, the wife of Mr E. Wynne, station master, of a daughter. MARRIAGES. Davies Jones February 25, at Penuel Chapel, Bangor, by the Rev Edward Evans, in the presence of Mr Pentir Williams, de- j puty registrar, the Rev James Davies, Cwm Park, Treorkey, to Miss Lizzie Jones, Bod- erwydd, Bangor. Ellis—Jones—February 17, at St. Peter's Church, Pwllheli, by the Rev Canon E. T. Davies, Vicar, Walter Richard, third son of the late Rev P. Constable Ellis, Uanfair- fechan, to Catherine Eleanor, second daugh- ter of the late Mr Walter Jones, Pwllheli, and niece of Mrs Lewis, Whitehall, Pwll- heli. Howard Mitchell February 21, at St. Peter's and St. Paul's Catholic Church, Carnarvon, by the Rev Father Jones, Mr Howard, Custom House Officer, to Miss Mitchell, schoolmistress, St. Peter's and St. Paul's School—both of Carnarvon. Hughes—Humphreys—February 24, at Ban- gor Cathedral, by the Rev T. Edwin Jones, M.A., Junior Vicar of Bangor, William Hughes, tailor, son of Mr Wm. Hughes, I 15, Mountain square, Bangor, to Barbara Ann Humphreys, daughter of Mr William Humphreys, carter, 211, Carnarvon road, Bangor. Hughes—Davies—February 20, at Caersalem Chapel, Carnarvon, by the Rev John Frim- ston, in the presence of Mr Daniel Hughes, registrar. Mr Hugh R. Hughes, Isle Isaf, Upper Llandwrog, to Miss Caroline Davies, Chapel street, Penygroes. Owen—Williams—February 20, at Moriah Cha,pel, Carnarvon, by the Rev R. Dewi Williams, B.A., assisted by the Rev W. Williams, Talysarn. in the preseice of Mr Daniel Hughes, registrar, Mr Griffith Owen, Brynycoed, Talysarn, to Miss Elizabeth E. Williams, Upper Llandwrog. DEATHS. Edwards—February 21. at Compton House, Roewen, near Conway, aged 76 years, Mr John Edwards. Thomas—February 16, aged 69 years, Mrs Margaret Thomas, widow of the late Mr William Thomas, upholsterer, South Pen- rallt, Carnarvon.

A PHANTOM ARMY. While the British army was muddling affairs in South Africa, Lord Rosebery was preaching "Efficiency" at Chesterfield and one would then have imagined that the mistakes of the war and the popular gospel of a popular man would have taught those at tha head of affairs at home a few pro- fitable lessons. So far from that being the result the Government has been passing from one muddle to another, and no sooner was the hideous and costly blunder of the Boer war over than this country is tied to the tail of the German comet and dragged into a war with the puny re- t,9 public afi Venezuela—another mess, to quote Lord Cranborne." Mr Brodr ck imagined that he had learnt something from the state of unpreparedness in which the Boers had found us and with a few strokes of the pen hei called into existence six army corps, each composed of the requisite number of infantry and cavalry regiments and batteries of artillery, and, what was of far greater importance, to each was allocated a general and full staff. Let the nations of the earth tremble England was now prepared for any emer- gency. But what a farce all this great military programme turns out to be! According to the Minister for War's own admission only about a half of the men needed for the six corps are available. Some of the corps have in reality only the gc-neral and his staff and not a single regiment under his command; and it was most significant of the whole organisation to hear that Lord Grerifell would take up the command of the Fourth Corps on the 1st of April. John Bull is the fool and Mr Brodrick would send him further— into difficulties. By the high-sounding description of his six Army Corps, poor John will, we fear, be lulled into a happy- go-lucky frame of mind until he finds one day to his dismay that paper men and paper corps will not drive an enemy away. Fifty millions are "barely sufficient to keep this phantom army for a year and the expenditure goes up by leaps and bounds, while every year sees greater difficulties in getting recruits for the army. This rotten system which draws England's resources in men and mowev, is based upon a wrong principle which Jingo statesmen have im- ported from the Continent. It is the principle that a standing army is a neces- sity for home defence. This principle ignores two important. factors in the as- cendancy of Great Britain, its navy and its volunteer organisation. Germanv and France have huge standing armies based on: conscription and consequently have no place for a volunteer system. Nor have these continental powers to depend mainly on their navy for the home defence. No useful mialoTV can t h"rf'fore be drawn between the mifitarv situation in these countries and in this country. Yet this is what successive Ministers of War have done, greatly to the detriment of the volun- teer or citizen army and to the neglept of the llfIVV. And this mistake Mr Brodrick has perpetrated In the creation of his army corps. A standing army is only needed to man our foreign possessions and naval stations and to be in readiness for a dis- tant war. Tn the colonies proper and at home the citizen army ousrht to be brought up to such a state of efficiency as to be prepared for all defensive operations. What would this change m(-sn? Finan- cially it 'ldd mean saving the taxpayer twelve millions P-w annum. Nationally it would mean reducing thno great drain upon useful trades and crafts which takes place year in. vear out to maintain this huge armv. and it would moreover mean the building up of a, strong, sanely- patriotic armv of citizens bound together in the common defence of home and father- land. ■ ■■ ■ .t'I. —

TfOTES OF THE WEEK. Mr Chamberlain in South Africa. Mr Chamberlain's march through South Africa has been productive of many speeches, but we doubt if any permanent good will result out of the multitude of words which that wily statesman has given utterance to. "Much cry and little wool," fairly sums up the right hon. gentleman's tour. There was much boa-sting by his admirers on account of the thirty million pounds he was said to have forced from the Johannesburg gold- bugs. But it is quite a well-known fact that the mine owners were prepared to pay such an amount, if not more. And it was but a paltry price to pay for the un- told wealth over which they have obtained control by the overthrow of the Re- publics. But what a price has this country paid for their sake; and what it may yet cost us Professor Goldwin Smith, the well-known economist, writes trenchant words on the subject in a contemporary: —"Two hundred and fiftv millions have been squandered in the devastation of South Africa, and the end is not unlikely to be the loss of the Cape Colony, which before, in spite of the diversity of races among its people, was loyal, as appeared by the passing of a grant for British navy by a Cape Parliament with an Afrikander majority. By the levelling of the wall between the Cape Colony and the Dutch Republics, the whole Dutch element in South Africa has been "thrown into one. It will probably, when thus united, grow politically the strongest, and unless con- stantly held down by force will prevail. That after the treatment which it has received its heart is to be won by flatter- ing speeches or laying an orchid on a Boer's grave can be imagined only by one whose own heart is shallow. Meeting of Welsh Members. An important meeting of the Welsh members was held on Tuesday evening to receive the report of a sub-committee ap- pointed to consider what, action they I would desire to see adopted in Wales in regard to the administration of the Educa- tion Act. This report places the case against the provisions regarding the con- trol of the voluntary schools in a very clear light and basis it upon the inherent right of the taxpayer to control through representatives the expenditure of the taxes. Under the Act the County Council is bound to see that efficiency is maintained in these schools and yet the management will be com- posed of a majority of members over whom the Council will have no authority. In face of this anomalous position this report sug. gests a remedy which merits the approval of all parties and sects. It is that -xiblic control of all the schools be secured on the one hand, and on the other that religious instruction according to any particular trust deed be safeguarded. A more fair and reasonable arrangement could not, under the circumstances, be conceived, and if, after this olive branch has been out, the supporters of the sectarian schoo system refuse to co-operate, then let, the consequences be upon their own heads. That the Welsh party offers the comprom se proves that it is cognisant of its own strength and the justice of its cause. "On this basis," says the report, "a combinar tion for joint action of all the We Is 1 C»unty Councils would be framed, and thus there would be created in Wales through all the grades of education, in- cluding the training of teachers, a single, unified, co-ordinated national system." The Penrhyn Dispute* There have been great expectations, rict only in North Wales, but throughout the Kingdom, for the debate which Mr William Jones's amendment to the Address wou.d lead to. Wo are, however, informed that the Speaker has ruled that the amendment the hon. member proposed to move wa;, out of order and could not be raised. It is unfortunate that Mr Jones is thus de- barred from drawing the attention of _h House of Commons and the country generally to such an important. economic impasse and dislocation of trade. Surely this question is of urgent public moment, and as such could be raised in the usual manner, without being in the form of an amendment to the Address. We an however, rest assured1 that the member for Arfon will leave no stone unturned in order to put the matter before the British pub- lie in its own true and terrible colours. There is not the slightest overture n, w made on either side. The men are resigne I to their hard fate—exile and the sufferings of their dear ones at home have done thci" work, the iron has entered their sou. They have approached the bounds cf humiliation even in their attempts at meeting, the demands of Lord Penrhyn Dr Joseph Parry. Wales received the news of Dr Joseph Parry's death with deep sorrow and a sense of irreparable loss. She to-day is the poorer for the departure hence of one of her most talented sons by whose genius she is the richer in melody and song. A f months back we saw him standing at, the graveside at Llanbeblig of another eminent Welshman, Llew Llwyfo; and at the Bangor Eisteddfod he went through his arduous duties as adjudicator with his accustomed vigour and enthusiasm. In many of the churches and chapels of Wales last Sunday his immortal "Aberystwvth" and "Pennsylvania" were sung with u wonted feeling and "hiraeth." A most pathetic interest is attached to his last and unfinished work, the oratorio entitled "Jesus of Nazareth: scenes in His life." Writing to the chairman of the Music Committee of the Rhyl National Eistedd- fod, he said of it-it is a grand subject, and one of my very best works. Will it be my last?" The answer to this pro- phetic question has come before he had time to finish his task. This great master of melody has gone from the midst of his labours to his reward. The Licensing Sessions. The massacre of the "innocents" (as the Licensed Victuallers would have us be- lieve) is going on apace. There is scarcely a bench of magistrates in England and Wales which has not withdrawn the licences of several public houses. What with the result of the Farnham decision (which, by the way, is to be appealed against in the House of Lords) and the terrors of the black list, the publican is living over hidden lava. Still he has little room to complain; he has had a good run for his money for many years, carrying on his traffic without much let or hindrance on the part of the law. Now comes his poor victims' chance to lav the iron hand poor victims' chance to lav the iron hand of the law upon him and his trade. This country's strength and wealth have been sapped with cruel heedlessness, if not with criminal intent, by "the trade," until at length it entered the brains of even Conservative statesmen that some- thing must be done to arrest its cancer- ing course before the moral fibre of Britain should be ruined utterly. "The trade" may well offer all manner of compromises in ;ts terror-stricken state, for this is but the first step in the direction of fettering its freedom to ,do evil and of curtailing it within the strictest bonds of the law.

LLF-YN, EIFIONYDD. AND ARDUDWY NOTES. Tramps are just now receiving the special attention of Boards of Guardians in this district, and they do not like it. I had a talk with two tramps a few days ago. I wanted to know what they thought of the new oredr of things. A few years ago the Guardian. in the hope of checking the inroads of vagrants, adopted what is called the system of the three tickets. A tramp would be allowed to visit the dis- trict three times within ia -specified period but if be came afterwards he would be pun- ished as a professional tramp. I am not aware that any vagrant has been punished for having visited the district. more than three times within the specified period. The reason is evident. Vagrants have been able "to walk" the system down. If the same officers were at the police sta- tions where relief tickets are given, for five years or so, they would be enabled to recognise tramps who made a point of visiting the district as often as they pleased. But as this is not the caove, though records tare kept of all tramps re- lieved, the latter 'are shrewd enough to give evasive replies to all questions giv-en them. ibv the officers in charge of the sta- tiofns, and so they escape being ticketed as professional vagrants. It is a fact that there is a great deal of comradeship in va.Ecrcvncy. When a tramp reaches Pwll- heli from Penrhyn he gives all the necesr, sarv information to another tramp who wants to go to Penrhyn. Tne t,hrr(, ticket system" has not pre- vented va,grancy in the district. The men of the road" are too ingenious for such a system to be successfully carried out. I asked the tramps referred to above if they had any "grievances" at pre- sent ? The replies were instructive and amusing. Said one of the tramps to me, Look 'ere, guvnor, it's hawful now to be on the road compared with what it hused to be." Then the other tramp said, "Bo look ye 'ere, master, look what them fellOT's gave me hat the workhouse. Free counthvy, by jabers! No! This "ere vae- cinashiim is the worser thing I hever ditf see before. Oh. my, master, it's sore.. And hif oi complains of bein' bad them there fellows will keep me and me mate hin the workhouse. We don't want- no rac- cinashiun. Why them boards of guardians and them doctors carries hon things as they does. Wherever we goes now we hears nothink but 'small pox;' 'small pox,' and small pox.' People ha.re now hafra-id hof seeing fellows like me and my ehuxn 'ere. I'm blowed if hever I did see hanythink loik it before in me loif, and oi've been on the roadss now for many a long year. They hax ye wh-erhever we goes hif we got the small pox p., Then t,he other tramp chimed in, and said, "If a wcrser than stonebreaking or hoakum picking. De ve know. master, that these blooaning guardians compels us to We vaccinashiun. Look 'ere, master, see whot "ve got. Oh, my, it's sore! That's what oi got for my night's lodgings over a. week ,i go. It's hall owing to people athinking that we fellows as tramps the roads car- ries with bus the smiall pox. It will be a long toime. before my mate land me'>elf goes ito that 'ere workhouse liany more. We wanted a night's lodgin' and not vaccina- w, Sibiun. I'll be blowecl if they catches me again there." I noticed1 that the vaccina- tion had been successful, and that the arm was considierably inflamed. Will the fear of vaccination keep the tramps awtay f The shipping trade at Portmadoc has seriously declined during the last few years. This, however, does not mesin that there is an- depression in the slate trade. The fact is that more slates are now sent away by rail. They are despatched from Festiniog, Minffordd, and Croesor sidings. Pwllheli people were dreaming when the proposed new harbour scheme was first mooted that the Portmadoc slate trade would go to Pwllheli by and by, and that Portmadoc would be silted up with sand; and mud! Portmadoc harbour can never be silted up so long as the Glaslyn River flows through it into the sea. It is not likely that slate shippers would send Fes- t.iniog slates for exportation by vessels, to Pwllheli where not even the steamer "Re- becca," which calls weekly with goods from Liverpool, can be loaded or unloaded without the help of a fiat! And again, slates from Festiniog and Croesor would have to be transhipped from the narrow gauge railway to the Cambrian line before- they could be taken to Pwllheli, and tran- shipment means loss of time and increased expenditure. The decline in the shipping trade of Portmadoc is due to railway com- s petition, and not so much to the want of proper harbour accommodation and con- veniences.

GOSSIP OF THE WEEK. It will be hard to beat Anglesey for the' number of people who speak Welsh. Among middle-aged people -> that county only nine in a hundred are entirely English,, while 40 per cent. can speak nothing but Welsh. • «• » ♦ I understand (writes a London corres- pondent) that Sir William Preece, the dis- tinguished electrician, is having a motor built upon an entirely new principle. It is near completion, and will be ready to. convey Sir William anywhere in the course of the next three or four weeks. The motive power is, of course, electricity, and some very remarkable improvements have been made on the accumulator, by which Sir William will be able to travel a hundred miles with one charge, and at a fabulously cheap rate. It is said to be free from all the defects of the present electric motors, and to be the very perfection of smooth- ness, silence, and comfort. w < w The Chubut correspondent of the, "Drych"—the organ of the Welsh people in America—states that the burning ques- tion among the Welsh people in Patagonia is the movement started for establishing a Welsh colony in South Africa, and they are anxiously waiting for the report of the representatives. The "Drych" states that the movement was started through the efforts of Captain Vaughan (Owen Rhos- ccmyl), who, at the pressing request of the Cymmrodorion of Capetown, consulted Lord Milner and Mr Joseph Chamberlain, and fixed upon a district in the State of Youtspansbure. in the north of the Trans- vaal, as a suitable part for a Welsh colony. The delegates from Patagonia who have gone over to South Africa as the Welsh re- presentatives are Bonwr Llwyd Ap Iwan, Mr D. L. Jones, formerly of Rhymney, and Mr R. Roberts, formerly of Llanuwch- llyn. • • • • Mr B. lrfirry, publisher, Swansea, writes as follows to the Cardiif t, (-st-ern Mail," explaining how the late Dr Joseph Parry composed his famous hymn-tune "Aber- ystwyth" -rany years ago, when repre- senting Messrs Hughes and Son, the pub- lishers, of Wrexham, it was part of my business in the execution of my duties to be engaged in the publishing of Messrs Stephens and Jones' Congregational tune- book. The late Mr J. D. Jones, Ruthin, undertook the compilation of the tunes, but the harmonies of the greater portion were undertaken by the late Rev E. Stephens. Among the many hindrances and delays of the publication of the book, the hymn "Beth sydd genyf yn y byd" was one of the causes of delay. Meeting Mr Stephens in the train one day I pressed on him the importance of completing the work,-as the community were waiting im- patiently for it. "Well," he said, "I have finished all my work with the exception of one tune, which has t.o be written." "Why don't you write one yourself ?" "Well," he said, "I have tried three times, and I canuct please myself." "Why don't you get someone else to try to which he, said, "There is only one man that can do it." "Who is he?" to which he said, in his familiar way, "Joe Parry." "If that is tho case." I replied, "i shall be at Aber- ystwyth next Monday and I will get him to write a tune for you." "All right," he said. 011 the evening of that day I was invited by the late composer to go for a walk with him as far as Llanbadarn Church, and as we were sitting and resting on a tombstone I gave him the words. I asked him to write a tune for me. "They are good words," he said. "Where are you going to-morrow?" he asked. "To Aberayron and New Quay." "Call to see me on Wednesday evening on your re- turn," which I did, and at supper the tune was placed on my plate, The tune ap- peared for the first time in Stephens and Jones's tune-book as originally written., with the exocpticn of the first bar.