Cymro a'r Celt Llundain

Notes and News. THE best New Year's Gift to the old folks at home-the LONDON WELSHMAN AND KELT for 1908. OLD-fashioned Christmas weather is now a thing of the past. Instead of the frost and snow mentioned in story books we ex- perience spring-like sunny days. THE Right Hon. D. Lloyd-George, M.P., and his two sons have gone to the continent for a few weeks' stay. THE Welsh Land Commission existed for a lengthy period, but the Welsh Church Com- mission bids fair to spoil its records. THE Rev. Richard Roberts, B.A., late of Willesden Green C.M. Church has just issued a Life of Robert Owen, the Socialist. AN Irish M.P. was sent to prison last week. Cannot one of our Welsh M.P.'s do something notorious to make them talked about? "League John Hugh" is not dead, it woke up suddenly for a few hours last week. THE WELSH C.M. monthly meeting, held at Jewin last week, decided not to establish any English churches under the auspices of the Connexion in London. S.L.H.'s address on Welsh politics at the National Liberal Club last week was dis- appointing. Mr. Hughes looks at all our claims from an average Englishman's stand- point, and admits of no special treatment for Wales in anything except Disestablishment! MUD seems to have entirely supplanted snow as the climatic accompaniment of Christmastide. PEOPLE who heard Mr. Haldane's plati- tudes at Rhyl in reference to the Welsh Army" are now calling him Haldane shon bob ochr." POOR Mr. McKenna The Welsh Educa- tionalist is too much for him. He is follow- ing the Scottish Minister of Education unswervingly but he will have to stop his manifest injustice to the Welsh Secondary schools, or he will have reason to regret it later on. WRITES a correspondent in a Welsh weekly Mellditbir cryn lawer ar yr arfer- iad o yfed te, ond hyd yma ni chlywsom am neb wedi ei anfon i'r carchar am yfed gor- mod o hono, nac ychwaith am neb wedi ei ddirwyo am fwyta gormod o deisen." No, we have not. MR. DAVID DAVIES, M.P., has gone on a trip to Mexico. MR. KEIR HARDIE, the socialist leader, is still in foreign parts. It would be interest- ing to know who pays the expenses of this eccentric Scotsman's pleasant little outing. Who would not be an I.L.P. Leader ? A CORRESPONDENT writes :-Is London civil.ised ? After the recent disgusting scenes during the trial of Wood for the murder of a woman one is inclined to doubt it. If such a deplorable state of things existed in Wales, how the London editors would have condemned Welsh barbarian- ism," &c.! IN a recent issue of the Labour Leader, Bruce Glasier has an article, in which he makes nasty reflections on the morals of Nonconformist founders. It is one of the most offensive articles that has ever appeared in print, and ought to open the eyes of Non- conformists as to what are the real views of such Socialists. IN a previous issue Bruce Glasier had made a brutal attack on the morals of Catholic pioneers, and in the last number of the Catholic Herald a Catholic priest gives the Scotsman a smart handling. If Socialists imagine they are going to further their cause by gratuitous insults to Nonconformists, they are greatly mistaken. BY the way it is a curious fact that the three British Socialist irreconcilables are Scotsmen., viz., Keir Hardie, Ramsay Mac- donald, and Bruce Glasier. When they address meetings in Wales they never pay any deference to the spirit of Welsh nation- ality. Ramsey Macdonald is a particularly noisy individual of the here-I-am look-at-me sort. AMONGST the veterans who accepted the invitation of the Daily Telegraph to dine at the Albert Hall, London, on Monday (December 23rd), was one genuine Cymro, in the person of Mr. John Evans, hairdresser, Dolgelley. Mr. Evans, who is 72 years of age, is in excellent health. He saw active service in the Indian Mutiny in 1857, being a corporal in the 1st European Bengal Fusiliers. Last Saturday, at Bethesda, N. Wales, a pretty wedding of general interest to our London readers took place. The contracting parties were Mr. Arthur Rhys Roberts, solicitor, Lincoln's Inn Fields (partner with Mr. D. Lloyd-George, M.P.), and Miss Dilys Jones, the famous contralto singer, second daughter of John Jones, Esq., of Holywell. The Rev. W. R. Owen was the officiating minister. MR. F. P. DODD, head master of Festiniog County School, does not believe in the prominence given to Welsh in our elementary schools. At the prize distribution, on Thurs- day, he said that English language and composition seemed to have proved the stumbling block, accounting for the failure of many candidates in examinations who did well in other subjects. He felt convinced that they were beginning now to feel the effect of a change introduced into the elementary schools some four years ago, when the formal teaching of English gram- mar was abandoned. He thought this was a very unwise step, and he was quite sure that in consequence of this change of method the acquaintance with English of pupils now entering the intermediate school was not nearly as thorough as it was several years ago. Of course, it was a moot point at what stage in a boy's course of instruction the teaching of formal grammar should come in, but he was quite certain that a certain amount of it was necessary for two or three years previous to entry into the intermediade school, especially in districts like Festiniog, where Welsh was the language of the hearth and of the place of worship.