NOTES OF THE MONTH.

Globe, Volume III, Issue 217, 18 February 1875, Page 4

NOTES OF THE MONTH.

The success or failure of the observations of the transit of Venus was known here on Thursday morning from the stations at Calcutta, Madras, Kurrachee, Shanghai, Cairo, Japan, and Siberia : and on Friday morning information had been received from Australia, Transylvania, Teheran, and Tashkend. The successes have been more numerous than the failures. At a good many Russian stations, at Constantinople, at Tashkend, at Alexandria, and elsewhere, the observations were mostly failures, from the state of the weather. But from the Indian stations, and Melbourne, Teheran, and Japan, the reports are, on the whole, very favorable. The wonderful rapidity with which the astronomers at home have heard so much of the result is a romance in itself.

The Dorsetshire clergy and laity who met at Blandford to discuss a letter of the Bishop of Salisbury on the Ornaments Rubric, came to a resolution to adhere to the surplice only (whether with or without the black stole we are not sure), as the only and sufficient vestment for all services of the church. The Bishop in his letter had expressed his grave fear that ultimate action in harmony with such a rule would lead to a “ wide and lamentable rent in the Church of England,” and hence the resolution was the more remarkable, especially as a meeting of clergy and laity at Bridport on Tuesday had resolved that it was desirable to leave things as they are. No doubt the Blandford meeting was not a very large or representative one. But its decision looks like rubrical common sense, which is a kind of common sense of which we have heard very little. The notion of any church gravely splitting up on a question of dress—nay, in earnest defence of elaborateness of dress—does look to us like a reduotio ad absurdum of ecclesiastical convictions. Could even clergywomen be so childish as to to believe seriously that they could not save souls without chasubles, or vanquish iniquity without copes? A curious trial, as to the right of an incumbent to refuse to administer the Communion to a parishioner who, in his opinion, bad “ depraved” the Book of Common Prayer, or “hindered” the Word of God, is to come before the Court of Arches, or some other Ecclesiastical Court, speedily. Mr Henry Jenkins was refused the Communion at his parish church, Clifton, on the 4th October last, the reason assigned by his vicar, the Rev Flavel Smith Cook, of Christchurch. Clifton, being that he had prepared for his own family use, and printed, extracts from the New Testament in which certain portions were omitted, and especially all reference to the agency of evil spirits and to eternal punishments. Mr Jenkins, it appears, is a strong believer in “conscience,” as the voice of God, and is inclined to get over difficulties suggested by Scripture language very easily, if his conscience does not approve that language. Apparently, he has recourse to a liberal interpretation. However, he denied, through the counsel that represented him before the Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol’s commission, that he does really reject any part of the Bible at all, though he may interpret some parts in a peculiar way of his own. And consequently the Commission decided that there is at least a case to go for hearing, The Twenty-seventh Canon gives power to the clergy to refuse for Communion “ depravers ” not only of the Book of Common Prayer, but of the Thirty-nine Articles—i.e., we suppose any who openly profess their dissent from those Articles, and argue against them. If such a canon is to be put in force how long shall we have lay communicants in the Church of England ? The Wesleyan and Church Missionary Societies question the accuracy of the figures we quoted from the Edinburgh Daily Review , but the gentlemen who write on their behalf appear to miss our point. Dr Boyce writes that the Wesleyans had indeed 31 missionaries in India and Ceylon in 1861, but had 30 in 1871 instead of 22, the number we quoted ; but he omits to say whether they were all Europeans. We purposely excluded both Americans and natives —including Eurasians—as beside our point, which was to discuss the main thesis of the Intercession Day, the supply of more men from this country. The Rev T. D. Harford Battersby again affirms that the European missionaries connected with the Church Missionary Society in British India increased from 116 in 1861 to 126 in 1871—a statement to which, we doubt not, the paper we gave as our authority will reply, as if correct it entirely vitiates the figures. We suspect the corrected figures include men absent on leave or for health. Mr Battersby’s statistics of native missionaries, however, have nothing to do with the question which is not the energy or success of the societies, but the number of competent Englishmen who now volunteer for mission work. The dispute as to the comparative capacity of the elder and younger missionaries, which Dr Boyce also raises, is one of opinion chiefly, though we admit that historians are apt to remember only the captains and forget the rank and file, while observers of to-day see chiefly the latter. Messrs Debrett, Lodge, Burke, Dod, Hardwicke, and the rest of the Peerage publishers must be interested in watching the negotiation now going on between the wealthy breeders of shorthorns and the owner of what ought to be called “ the Bull Peerage,” the “ Herd-book ” of England. This belongs to Mr Strafford, but the great breeders, for an obvious reason, want to buy it up. It ought not to be in any one man’s hand. Mr Strafford has kept it with rare fidelity and skill, but it is clear that as the bulls, unlike the Peers, cannot correct the proofs or send notes of their pedigrees, a dishonest or incompetent owner of the book could in a few years make a fortune by improper entries. They would ruin the book and the herds, but they might make him. The committee of breeders therefore offer £SOOO for the book, not, we should say, as outsiders, its value by one-half, and this is accepted by Mr Strafford, on condition that he may nominate the next editor. The committee, while acknowledging the merits of the gentleman named, reject this condition, and propose to buy Mr Strafford’s book if they can, but otherwise to keep a register of their own, —a curious evidence of the expenditure of energy and anxiety by which that “ work of high art ” a good beef-steak is now attained. Dean Stanley preached a fine sermon on Sunday before the University of Oxford, on the duality of man’s nature, and the unreasonableness of alarm at the scientific hypothesis of his evolution from a nature purely animal and earthly. He remarked that though the chronology of Genesis had

long been given up, it was not possible to go much further towards a true theory than the author of thatbookdid when he called the first man “Adam,” or than St Paul did when, following Genesis, he said, ‘The first man was of the earth, earthly.’ “To deny development was against all analogy, and would make man, of all creatures, the most miserable.” “ The materialism of the lecture-room,” like “that of the altar and the sacristy,” confines its attention to the manipulation of man’s physical nature; while true wisdom endeavors to rise through that to his true spiritual life, the principal of his eternal progress. In short it was the drift of the Dean of Westminster’s sermon that ‘natural selection’ is the fit antecedent of ‘ moral’ and ‘ spiritual’ selection—the kind of the selecting agency itself rising concurrently with the type of the result. This is fine doctrine, and timely doctrine too. “ Vert-Vert,” an opera bouffe, was recently placed on the stage of the St. James’s Theatre : the theatrical critic of “ Vanity Fair ” considered the piece stupid, the orchestra and singing bad, the ballet girls incompetent, too much undressed, and too attentive to their friends in the audience, and one dance called the “ Riparelle ” indecent ; and said all this in very vigorous English, Mr Pairlie, the licensee of the theatre, brought an action for libel before the Court of Common Pleas, which ended, on Tuesday, in a verdict for the manager of the paper, Mr Blenkinsop. The action turned on the character of the dance, and though several employes and Mr Fairlie and three or four independent witnesses deposed that they saw nothing indecent, the bulk of evidence was the other way, and the case was virtually settled by the testimony of the Marquis of Hertford. He had gone as Lord Chamberlain to see the opera, had “ decided that the ‘ Riparelle ’ was neither graceful nor artistic, but decidedly and purposely indecent,” and had condemned it as such. As the Lord Chamberlain is ex officio supervisor of the stage in London, and not in the least likely to strain his powers, there was, after his evidence, in truth, no case. The incident has called much attention to certain tendencies in London theatres, which every ten years or so require a sharp check, not only in the interest of good morals, but in the interest of good acting, which is driven by undressed exhibitions off the stage. As we have argued elsewhere, we believe this check can be better applied by £ competent Lord Chamberlain or Licenser than by any other of the many devices which have been suggested. For the seventh time within twelve months a seat is vacant for Stroud. After a trial in which Mr Brand’s agents were accused of buying votes, and the petitioner was charged by counsel with buying evidence, Mr Baron Pigott decided that although Mr Brand was innocent, and was deserving of much commiseration, still bribery had been committed by his agents, and the election must therefore be declared void. He endorsed Baron Bramwell’s opinion that the borough was not generally corrupt, so it will not be disfranchised, and as it .is a Tory’s turn to be elected, the Liberals will have the luxury of paying a few thousands to have him unseated on petition. The see-saw is amusing, but unfortunately the game not only foslers bribery, but perjury, and one wonders in reading the evidence why any voter in Stroud believes another on his oath. Nevertheless, the campaign must go on, for the general body of electors in Stroud are riot corrupt. They are simply idiots, who allow the reputation of their town to be ruined and themselves half disfranchised for the benefit of lawyers, rascals, and hot-headed partisans. The latest intelligence from India announces that the Ameer of Afghanistan and his son Yakoob have come to a compromise. The history of their quarrel is confused, but it would appear that Yakoob, who is a man of unusual courage, after resisting his father’s orders, ventured to Cabool without a British safe-conduct. His father there placed him under arrest, apparently to compel him to acknowledge his youngest brother, Abdoolla, still quite a lad, heir to the throne of Afghanistan. Yakoob did not yield, and such fears were entertained for his safety that Lord Salisbury formally announced that the Viceroy had given Yakoob no invitation, but an arrangement appears to have been made. Yakoob returns to Herat with two advisers— i, e., spies—and the brothers are to be equally honored and have equal salutes. That means that the quarrel as to the succession is postponed to be settled by fate, or if fate is indifferent, by a short and sharp civil war on Shere Ali’s death. For the present, however, a most inconvenient disturbance is averted.