The Tenby Observer Weekly List of Visitors and Directory

WALES AND BRITTANY. The Freemaa says:—The Baptist Missionary Society intend giving up the Breton Mission. The Rev. John Howell writes to the Seven urging Welsh Baptists to take up the work to be soon abandoned by the Missionary Society. He alludes to the fact that the work in Brittany was inau- gurated by Wales, which years ago sent out the late Mr Jenkins. He pleads on the ground of the virtual idolatry carried on there, of the ethnic oneness of the Welsh and Breton peoples-a fact which Professor Rhys more than disputes-that Wales should not allow her own child to die of support. The matter is warmly taken up by Mr Jones, a Welsh Baptist layman living at Birken- head. Both Mr Jones and Mr Howell have, on several occasions, visited Brittany, and have, before this crisis, evinced a warm interest in the Breton Mission.

THE CAMBRIAN SOCIETY. A meeting of the council of the Cambrian Society of South Wales and Monmouthshire was held at the Cardiff Town-hall on Monday, the Rev. G. Arthur Jones presiding. There were also present the Rev. Idrisyn Jones (Newport), the Rev. David Young, Messrs George Thomas (Ely Farm), George Thomas (architect), Principal Viriamu Jones, Professor Roberts, Ivor James, S. Carne, D.C.L., Hybart, H. J. Evans, and Tudor Evans (secretary). —The Rev. Archdeacon Griffiths was unanimously appointed chairman of the Council.—The council then proceeded to the appointment of an executive committee of fifteen. Sub-committees were also formed respectively of literature, music, education, science, and art.-A conversation subsequently took place on the" subject of giving lectures and papers by members of the society, at Cardiff and other places in South Wales. Ultimately this and other matters were adjourned to a meeting of the council a month hence.-The Rev. I. Jones gave notice of a resolution to make a request that Prince Albert Victor, eldest son of the Prince of Wales, become patron of the society.

Archdeacon Farrar has been confined to his bed for several days from an attack of jaundice. On Wednesday the reverend gentleman was a little better and able to get up in the forenoon.

DEATH OF THE REV. SIMON EVANS, I OF HEBRON. This eminent Independent minister died on Wednesday April 15th, after a short illness, at his residence, Caeraeron, near Whitland, in his 62nd year. He was educated at the Narberth Grammar School, under the late Rev. Henry Davies and the Presbyterian College, Carmarthen, when the late Dr. Lloyd was principal. He displayed remarkable talents both at school and college, and would, on doubt, have distinguished himself in a different sphere if he had proceeded to one of the Universi- ties. Being of a religious and earnest turn of mind, he decided upon entering the Christian ministry, and was ordained co-pastor wfth his father—the late Rev. John Evans—over the Churches of Hebron and Penygroes, and relinquished the prospects of academic distinction for the humbler but not less noble office of a Nonconformist minister in a rural part of Pembrokeshire. He ministered to the same people for over forty years with great diligence, acceptance, and success. His influence in the neighbourhood in which he lived was unbounded, and he was one of the few remaining specimens of the Puritan divines of the Welsh reformation. He was not the servant of his people, as is too often the case in the present day, but their guide, counsellor, and friend. Mr Evans was not a popular preacher, in the ordinary acceptation of the term. His style was philosophical and practical-he never appealed to the passions of his hearers—and was always listened to with attention and profound respect. These qualities, combined with a high and elevated moral character, soon brought him into notice, and he became an authority and a power among his brethren. He took an active interest in the affairs of the Independent denomination, and was a lead- ing spirit in the deliberations of the Conferences. His mind was essentially conservative, and he always discountenanced every tendancy to extremes. He leaned rather to the Presbyterian form of Church government than the Republican, and had often been taken to task for it. He took a firm stand against his old college friend, the Rev. Michael Jones, in the Bala College affair, which caused so much anxiety to the denomination. He filled the chair of the Congregational Union a few years ago and delivered on the occasion an able and profound address, which was afterwards published. He married some thirty years ago Martha, daughter of the late Rev. James Griffiths, of St. David's, and sister of the Rev. Henry Griffiths, late Principal of the Brecon Independent College, who died three years ago.. He leaves no family. He was descended on his mother's side from the Morgans, of Aberg- willy, and was cousin of the late Professor Morgan, of Carmarthen, and uncle of the present Rector of Miles Platting. The Independents of Wales have lost one of their brightest men and whose place it will be difficult to fill.—Deceased was buried on Tuesday, when his funeral was attended by nearly 70 ministers, and an enormous concourse of the general public.- Western Mail.

THE ST. CLEAR'S TRAGEDY. The accused man, Thomas Thomas, charged on remand with the wilful murder of his wife, Rachael Thomas, at Maesygrove Farm, near St. Clear's, was brought up in custody at the Shirehall, Carmar- then, on Saturday, and charged (before Captain Grismond Philipps, Mr J. Lewis Philipps, Mr Lewis Morris, and Commander G. G. Philipps) with the crime. Mr A. H. Lascelles, solicitor, of Narberth, appeared for the defence. There was no profes- sional advocate in charge of the prosecution. Tha evidence given at the inquest was repeated in sub- stance, and the cross-examination was directed towards the point of showing traces of insanity in the prisoner. One new feature was introduced into the case by the discovery, subsequent to the in- quest, of a couple of pieces of strong cord, which were found fastened to the bedpost in the room occupied by the deceased and the prisoner on the night of the shocking tragedy. There were marks of blood upon the cord, but whether it had been used for tying the poor woman to the bedpost whilst the accused stabbed her in the neck and in various parts of the body (as was deposed to by Dr. Jones) was, of course, left an open point. Inspector Wil- liams, however, added to his previous testimony that he found dried blood on prisoner's hands and wrists, and also in the right pocket of his trousers. When James John, farmer, of Broadmoor. had re- turned from Laugharne on the Saturday morning in question he found prisoner, who was then in cus- tody, on the landing. John said to him, "What in the name of God came on you last night ?" Prisoner replied, I thought I heard men in the house, and I got out of bed to go down and see who was there. My wife tried to stop me, and that was how we had the scuffle. Whilst in the custody of Police-Constable Bowen, at Maesygrove, one of the men asked prisoner how he felt, and he replied, I feel my head a little better now." When taken ftito the cell at Carmarthen he said to the police- man, "I have not got much more time, Bowen bach." I He offered Bowen threepence in coppers, which was refused. He made no reference to the death of his wife either at Maesygrove or at Car- marthen. Mr Valentine Llewellyn Watson Jones, surgeon, St. Clear's, after describing the six wounds on the body, said, in cross-examination by Mr Lascelles, that he had treated the prisoner about four months ago for delirium tremens. Delirium tremens might cause permanent derangement of the mind in a person who had been an habitual drunkard but it was generally only a temporary derangement. Mr Lascelles elicited from the ser- vants the fact that after prisoner had become an abstainer-a month before the occurrence-he had not seemed so well, and was not half so talkative as before. At the conclusion of the evidence pri- soner was formally charged with the wilful murder of his wife on Saturday, April 11. He at first wished to make a statement, but, having been ad- vised by his solicitor to keep silent, he said nothing. The Bench then committed him for trial on the capital charge to the ensuing assizes at Swansea. Prisoner's solicitor reserved his defence.

Ella attended the Drawing-room, and, fortu- na4|Jy, having the entree, had not to share the ex- I perieiice of the ladies whose carriages advanced, a pace at a time, up Westmoreland Street and Dame Street. She says that the comments of the crowd were most amusing during the few moments they had to wait. One man remarked: "Och, but ye've the bright eyes God forgive you the damage they do to the min's hearts." An old woman, her head rolled up in a shawl, said, sententiously: "They look cowld, the crathurs. A johnnie would do them a hape of good." On inquiry, a "johnnie" was discovered to be a small glass of whisky. And another woman expressed her conviction that it was a a purty show, but divil a wan of yees can hould a candle to the Princess, bless her sowl.

•" ■" 111 ■■ '■ 1,1 ■■ ■ 111 DESTRUCTION OF PEMBROKE FLOUR MILLS. During the early hours of Thursday the 16th inst., one of the most disastrous fires that has ever occurred at Pembroke took place at the mills worked by Mr Thomas Jones. The mills stand on the bridge dividing the large sheet of water known as the millford, from the river below, and on the direct road from Pembroke to Pembroke Dock. The men had been working during the night, and the last man to leave was Beakley, who states that when he left, at about one o'clock in the morning, all was right. P.C. Warlow passed the place shortly before four, and there was nothing to attract the officer's attention. Soon afterwards, a man named Thomas Roch, on his way to the dock- yard, raised the alarm that the mills were on fire. Mr Jones was aroused, and so were Supt. Clarke and Mr Paget (Mr Jones' managing clerk), who hurried to the spot. P.C. Warlow had in the meantime promptly got a bar of iron and knocked off the lock on the stables, and turned out the horses. The mill consists of five floors, and as the wood is old and very dry, the fire, which seemed to have originated at the north or inner end of the mills, spread with alarming rapidity, and the whole block was, in a few minutes, in a mass of flames. It was evident that very little could be saved, and efforts were directed to the office where the books were kept in a Chubb's safe. A plank was laid to the window, and quantities of water were poured upon the safe, and as soon as the fire was got under a little, Mr Paget entered the office, unlocked the safe, and got out the books, which were found to be in good condition. There was a sum of f20 in cash in the drawer of the office table, and this had to be abandoned together with some pocket books of Mr Paget's. Soon after this the flames were seen protruding under the slates of the roof, and in a very short time the roof fell in with a crash. The stables, and lofts adjoining shared a similar fate, and by seven o'clock there was nothing left but the walls and the smouldering mass of timber and machinery at the bottom. .A laden vessel lying alongside the quay had a narrow escape. The flames reached the vessel but the men kept the fire down until the tide rose and floated, her and she was taken to a place of safety. Fears were at one time entertained that Messrs Barker and Millar's timber-yard would have been reached by the flames, as there is only a short space between it and the mills; but luckily the wind carried the flames down the river. Had it been a point nearer to the south, the timber stacks would have caught. The damage is considerable. There was a quan- tity of corn in the mills, a cargo having been taken in on the previous day, and Mr Jones has lately added a lot of new and improved machinery. The mill is owned by Mr Mears, whose agent is Mr John Owen Thomas, of Carmarthen. Mr Jones estimates the damage at at least £ 4,000, which is partly covered by insurance. 8'( -q

THE ANTIQUE WAIST.—A century or two more and we reach the Lower Roman Empire where the classic costume still prevailed. It is said to be obliged to admit that we must travel all this way and so rarely find a fashion in waists that satisfies reason and taste. I believe it is said that the corset was not unknown to Rome but it is clear that the Greek and Roman women as a whole were quite convinced that the haman form was itself beautiful, so they made no attempt to disfigure it by compression or addition. Young girls were dressed simply, chastely, and yet elegantly in the flowing stola, slightly open at the the throat, and occasionally falling in two sets of folds. On the eve of marriage they were clad in a white robe called the regUla. After that event they wore the girdle, which the Roman matrons generally placed immediately beneath the bosom (xxiv.) Sometimes it was a band, and at other times a cord tied in a bow, over which thp V1' Ia.ar s upper parts of the dress fell Greeks, though not mfrequeisefull Among t^escnbed—for, ex- ample in A,ntl wyorn ag just d ced rather lower down occaitic^_it wag often pla-ound about the bosom by a „ „ the stda wa3 fright shoulder and under the left breast. £ 2,x,-the right arm liberty for action, and it was only for this object, or for speedy motion, that the waist-cord seems to have been drawn very tight. So little did the Greek and Roman women think of the waist, that in great numbers of draped statutes their mantles are so arranged as to hide it altogether.-Richard Heath, in The Magazine of Art." PREHISTORIC MAN.—The man of the Old Stone Period lived for the most part in caves, where he still can light on his blackened hearths, and the bones which he had split in order to extract the marrow. But the probability is that these were simply his winter abodes, and that, like so many other people situated as he must have been, the Palaeolithic hunters wandered about in the summer, camping in booths are boughs, or in skin tents, as the convenience of fishing, or hunting, or root and berry-gathering dictated. It is also all but certain that they sometimes roamed far a-field, otherwise it is difficult to understand how the cave-men of the Pyrenees were sufficiently familiar with seals and whales to portray them on the bones which we now find them, or how sea shells from the Mediterranean and Atlantic have travelled so far from their native shores. As for the people themselves, we cannot say very much about them, since few sculls or skeletons have been found. The famous Neander- thal skull, which M. Mortillet claimed as proof positive of early man being little better than an ape, was found in a cave near Dtisseldorf. But it is now admitted that it is well developed and capa- cious, and was most probably that of an old man afflicted with rickets, so that i fc cannot be accepted as a racical type, or—in brief—as of any special moment over the others whit; have been discovered in similar situations in Germany, France, and other parts of the Continent. The Canhstadt and Cro- magnon skulls, so named from the spots in which they were found, are believed from the juxtaposi- tion of the remains, to have been contemporary with the reindeer, the rhinoceros, the mammouth, and the cave bear with which they warred. From the broken condition of some of the bones, and the marks of injury upon them, it may be inferred that the men of that period like the more civilised ones who have inherited their hunting-ground, fought with even less cause for fighting.—" The Peoples of the World." Colonel A. R. Badcock, C.B., of the Bengal Staff Corps, has been appointed Chief Commissariat Officer of the Force assembled in Beloochistan, Colonel R. C. Clifford, being the Chief Transport Officer.