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LONDON CORRESPONDENCE,1

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LONDON CORRESPONDENCE,1 We do not identify oursblveg with our Correspondent'! opiniorm. Those readers of newspapers who, beyond everything else, are politicians, have enough mental pabulum of their own particular kind sup- plied them just now to satisfy the most exacting. What with the central organisation of one of the great parties in the State assembling in confer- ence at Nottingham one week, and that of another of those parties gathering at Manchester the next, there is abundance of miscellaneous political reading, even if there be ignored the party speeches delivered in other parts of the country by various leading men during the same period. As regularly as the commencement of every recess comes round, wo are all ready to declare that the people generally are surfeited with talk about public concerns, and that they will be quite content to wait until Parliament again opens for renewed acquaintance with it. But as the recess draws on. the weariness seems to disappear, the old longing to have some share in even seeming to- settle the affairs of t',e nation resumes its sway, and what to political leaders should be their holiday becomes their period of hardest work. This last consideration, however, is not one over which much sympathy need be wasted. There are rooted traditions to the effect that the fox rather likes being hunted than otherwise, and the truth underlying it certainly applies to prominent political speakers. Groan as they conventionally may at being called from their homes and their holiday to render service to their party's cause, none know better than them- selves how disappointed they would be if no invitation had reached them to make the sacrifice. The wholesome scepticism which a Teat many of us had entertained concerning the truth of the more unfavourable portion of the informa- tion which from time to time came from Africa concerning the fate of Mr. H. M. Stanley has now been abundantly justified. The latest com- munication from the intrepid explorer only amplifies the outline previously received of the astounding series of adventures he has gone through in the ultimately-successful endeavour to relieve Emin but it is thrilling indeed. That earlier letter of his. in which he described the march during the initial stage of the expedition, through a dense forest, which covered an area as large as France, will not have been forgotten but there are passages in the latest letter, not- ably those narrating the sufferings from famine, which are equally painful reading. Probably most of us will think that it is well from many points of view that this particular chapter of African travel has now been closed. Emin being safe—though, it is stated, partially blind as a consequence of his sufferings-there is no further necessity for desp itching expeditions to Central Africa for his relief and the fearful waste of human life which has taken place as the most recent consequence of attempts to open up the Dark Continent should be taken into account when the gains to geographical know- ledge or trading concerns are calculated. Africa was wont to be coloured black on certain old familiar descriptive maps: and all that was involved in that gruesome coloration promises to remain a long time with Africa still. Certain of the County Councils in England are just now engaged in a work which may have excellent results. All who have studied the question are aware that many of the smaller charities which had come down from olden time have disappeared within the last half century, and the poor, who were accustomed to be benefited by them, are benefited by them no more. What has been everybody's business has, in the old accustomed fashion, been nobody's business, and so this continual leakage has gone on without distinct check. One County Council at least has now set an example which is certain to be followed, for it has directed its General Purposes Committee to furnish each member of the larger body with a complete list of all the charities in the shire, together with a statement showing the founder's name,the object of the charity, the present value of the propert-tbemaiirerin it is applied, and the names of the trustees and those who keep the deeds. If all those particulars can bo obtained they will be of great importance; and particularly if they are compared with a similar return made for the whole ot England and Wales by order of Parliament just exactly a century since. This was a very elaborate docu- ment, and, curiously enough, though compiled in the years 17SH-S8. it was not ordered by the House of Commons to be printed until IS 10. There are later returns extant, notably those of 18^0, 1-3;3, and and a careful comparison of them all would reveal a very curious state of things. The launch at Chatham a few days since of H.M.S. Blake, the largest and heaviest un- armoured cruiser now afloat, is one more indi- cation of how our navy is steadily becoming more and more strengthened, in order that she may continue to well hold her own against the ileofca ^;ir0pe- is declared that not CrJy will the new vessel be able under stress to sail at a continuous speed of twenty knots an hour, but that no other cruiser in the world has any- thing like the amount of liori,orital protection she possesses, so that like the British Army itself, she ought to be able to go anywhere and do anything. The tendency of the day is to build ships of this type in preference to con- tinually launching huge monsters which may prove, and often do prove, unwieldy failures. The old contest between guns and armour, which has been carried on with even weightier guns and even thicker armours, has now practi- cally been decided in favour of the artillerists, and a necessary reaction has, therefore, set in against the tremendous ships which for years it had been the fashion alone to build. Swifc and well-protected cruisers are now the order of the day: and how necessary they may prove for the preservation of all concerned, if ever we are involved in war. it does not require much effort of the imagination to understand. A blow struck at our naval supremacy might involve the loss of our commercial supremacy, and what that IOFS might entail it is painful to contemplate. Simultaneously with the launch of the Blake, particulars are forthcoming of one of the seven new warships, of which the Aus- tralasian Colonies L are partly undertaking the cost, in order that they may in this fashion contribute to their own defence. The arrangement between the mother country and the colonies, which was nn outcome of the Colonial Conference, held in London two years since, is a somewhat curious one. It laid down that Great Britain should undertake the cost of building, arming, and equipping five protected cruisers and two torpedo gun vessels, the colonies agreeing to defray the cost of maintenance of these ships up to the sum of L'H,00()yearlyint:me of peace, and in addition to pay England £ '••">/<00 annually for ten years as a contribution towards the expense of construction: and then came the promise that at^the end of the ten years named the seven vessels should become the mother country's exclusive property. It is this last con- dition that is the most striking, and it will be very interesting to see whether it can be practi- cally carried out, for, in the opinion of many, it will bedoubtful w he ther the A ustralasian Colonies. having ones become part proprietors of a navy, however small, will care to yield up even the semblance of ownership. Once more a project is to be laid before Par- liament for constructing an underground rail- way across London from north to south. A glance at any map of the metropolis will show that such a line is much to be desired in the interest of the travelling public, but the repeated failure of the promoters of all such schemes to persuade Parliament that they may be made ooth practical and paying conveys a wholesome warning against being in any way sanguine as to the success of any of them. Ic seems, indeed, to be generally agreed that it is hopeless to look for the construction of an underground line of the accustomed type in the position in which one is still required. In the first place, the cost o! construction would be almost overwhelmingly enormous: in the second, the inhabitants of the district through which it would pass would have fair reason tc) ob- ject to the street disturbance entailed during its making and in the third, Londoners are becom- ing so heartily tired of travelling through sulphur- laden tunnels, that it is exceedingly doubtful whether another could in any case be made to pay. The new scheme, it must be owned, seeks to obviate all these difficulties, and in a rather ingenious manner. It proposes to be constructed at so great a depth that interference with exist- ing buildings would be out of the question, thus disposing of a large portion of the first objection, and practically of the second; while, as touching the third, it would work the trains by electricity, and thus avoid the necessity for belching forth volumes of coal-smoke. These considerations are both novel and ingenious, and it will be in- teresting to see how Parliament deals with them. One thing is certain: the scientific evidence that will be called by both promoters and objectors will once more prove to the public the extreme value of what is still called ex- pert" testimony. A correspondence precaliarly appropriate to the time of the year is now progressing in a leading London newspaper, which seeks to solve the problem of short weight in coals. A benevo- lent legislative enacted a good many years ago that every coal cart should carry scales and weights so that the careful house- holder should be able to stand at his door and see for himself that he was having the proper quantity of the desired com- I modity. Unfortunately, as it turns out, the careful householder does nothing of the kind, and the very utmost precaution he ever takes is to count the sacks in which the coal is delivered. Innocent as he is. he is not aware that there are two methods in which he might be swindled on this point, one on behalf of the man and the other on that of the master. There are men who bring an empty sack with them and slip it care- fully in with the rest so as to deceive the counting householders: and there are masters whose sacks do not hold by any means the stated amount. It may be believed that dishonest folk of this sort, whether employers or employed, are few but that they exist, and that the public by them is largely robbed, no one with his eyes open can doubt. A. F. n.

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