MISCELANEOUS.

Inangahua Times, Volume IX, Issue 1362, 15 February 1884, Page 2

MISCELANEOUS.

* In connection with the Lord Mayor's festivities in London last November, placards posted up at Clerkenwell called on the unemployed workpeople of London to organise huge meetings to denounce the servile revellers who feast while thousands of men, women and children are staryed to death. The bitter diatribe ended thus : "Many who will partake of this night's feast have fattened, grown rich out of the rents of the filthy slums which disgrace this city. Worse housed then the beasts of the field, starving and wretched, our poverty dealt with as a. crime, members of our class have been done to death within the workhouse

and prison walls." The police, it is said, prevented a Socialist procession with a black flag inscribed " Starva tion," approaching the Guildhall dur ing the Lord Mayors banquet. The Melbourne Argus stales, on the authority of its correspondent "The Vagabond," that the Rev. Mr Chalmers, one of the resident missionaries, who had recently been on a coasting trip to the westward of Port Moresby discovered a new river, and^ met with a number of cannibal tribes, who had never previously seen a white man. Mr Chalmers was well received by these natives, who showed him a large temple, •containing an altar and idols, with hundreds of skulls lying around. Cardinal Simeoni, the Pope's Secretary of State for the Colonies, has addressed a somewhat remarkable letter to the Sydney Express, a weekly journal founded by the late Archbishop Taughan. The Cardinal expresses a hope that the journal in qnestiou will continue to be carried on in accordance with the principles laid down by the late Archbishop, " opposing, indeed, the prevailing errors, and defending -the Church, but always in respect of -persons that are astray, keeping within the bounds of that moderation oi style -and charity of expression best calculated to soothe, not irritate, the wounds of the defence." The New York Tribune complains ■of 'the useless work and waste of ihe United States Government Print-ing-office. That journal says : " What with unecessary as well as necessary publications, the Government Printing •office is a remarkable institution. It -employs over 2100 persons, and during the last fiscal year Congress published 14,419,744 documents, ranging from the brief committee report of a single page to * The Nautical Almanack, and -the revised Medical and Surgical History of the War,' having respectively 500 and 1000 pages in each volume. TKe flood of matter that pours out from thia office is enormous. •Over 42,000 volumes of unfinished "work werq completed and delivered during the last fiscal year. The issue of the Congressional Record for the 'Second session of the Congress was '38,750 volumes. Sixty thousand ■copies, in all, had to be printed of eulogies upon the six members who olied during the second session; and an equal number was printed during "the first session. Some of these *••* eulogies' were volumes of speeches containing as many as 120 pages." An old lady named Charlotte Eliza Bruce, who avers that she is a granddaughter of his Most Gracious Majesty _ing George the Fourth, of pious and respected memory, waited upon some of the heads of departmeuts in Melbourne recently, to formally prefer her •claim -tovthe English throne. She -stated i.t hat she had been induced to «eek 'her rights at' this juncture by learning that the present occupant of it as not in the best of health, but as she is . •somewhat advanced in years, and not Tjeen doing much lately beyond cooking for several households in the suburbs she did not propose to burden herself "with the cares of State, but would •accept as an equivalent £1 a week, •paid in advance, for the rest of her life. "The old lady, who is respectably connected (as monarchs perspective in this -age should be) with some flourishing tradesmen in the south-eastern suburbs "was treated with all the attention and respect the nature of her claims demanded, and referred to the Treasurer, •with the suggestion that, he- might be •able to provide her with the equivalent ■sought out ofthe proceeds of the rrecent loan. In Sydney it is suggested that a mounted patrol should be established -in the surburban districts of well«rmed men, each with an appointed beat, and with power not only to arrest -all evil-doers, but to break up street•cornor knots, wherein every plot, from robbing a clothes-line to murdering a "woman, is hatched. Sydney is in a bad "way. The Public were last evening (says _ie Age 26th' ult.) treated to a novel •exhibition in the Athenaeum Hall; Two «elf-elected champions — Mr David Blair •and Mr T. Walker — apparently dying tto gain a little notoriety by strutting a brief hour before the glare of the footlights, engaged themselves to fight «. wordy duel over the ruins of Christianity. Mr David Blair has undertaken to Teiterate the claims of •Christianity, which Mr Walker called in question, to be considered as supernatural religion "in its historical <levolopment,in its sustained existence, 3_d in its action upon human society." At 8 o'clock the encounter commenced, when Mr H. K. Resdenwas elected chairman. The champions took turn •about in the entertainment. There ■was a large expenditure of declamatory rhetoric, much feeble and illogical argumentation, and of course much knocking of dust into each other's eyes from the covers of old books. However no very great damage was done on -either side. Each of the champions had his supporters and admirers amon" the audience, whose spirits rose in -proportion as the contest seemed to offer the victory. Mr Blair is the heavier metal of the two by a long way, and if Mr Walker succeeds in throwing Trim it will surprise both his friends and nis foes. We have seen the last of our distinguished visitors, the Earl and Countess of Rosebery, who, haviDg made an almost Royal progress through the Colonies, have left by the mail -steamer for England. It it true that we have made a great deal of Lord Rosebery, but then,*in return, he has made a great deal of u3. He has flattered us with a degree of skill which •we are only now beginning to appreciate. He has recognised our greatness, and, styling us the infant Hercules, has asked us to look with a c'«3-Qo;it eye on any shortcomings of

s our kinsmen at Home. He has been , filled with wonder at the ability and foresight displayed by Australasian • stestesmen at the Federal Convention. Mr Berry already in fancy sees him--1 self the surperior of Mr Gladstone, and s has patronised even the Earl himself, ■ offering to find him a seat for Colling- , ' wood or!>*eelong if he will cast in his ; lot with us. Young, wealthy, a noble- , man, and yet a democrat, is it t wonderful that we have all fallen before I his glazing tongue? Not the rugged • sterness of the president of the ) Trades Hall, the representative of , the working men, could withstand his i charm, and at his bidding this ultra democrat waited on him at Govern- ■ ment House, and recounted subsei quently with pride tlie particularsof the i interview, at which a real live lord had declared himself to be a democrat, i In Adelaide Lord Rosebery experienced his final lionising, and at the farewell banquet roared as gently as Bottom, the weaver.