The Sun.
London, England, 1871-02-16 00:00:00

THE SMALLPDX IN LONDON.

The Registrar General in his weekly bulletin of the
public health says :—The fatal cases of smallpox in Lon-
don, which in the first five weeks of this year had
averaged 151, rose to 211 !last week, sheaving a further
increase of 15 upon the previous week. The mortality
from smallpox varies with age. Thus in the last week
the annual rate per thousand in children under five years
of age was 10.7 ; in young persons of five and under 20 it
was 3.2 ; in persons of the age 20-40 it was 2.7 ; in men
and women of 40-60 it was 0.8 ; and after 60 the rate was
nominal. This has an important bearing on the ques-
tion, does the protective power of vaccination wear out
with time ? The persons who die in 1871 at the age
20-40 must have been born about the years 1831-51; while
those who die at the age 40-60 must have been born about
1811 31. Now it is not likely that the numbers born
in 1811-31 were vaccinated in any larger proportion than
those born twenty years -later ; the balance is probably
on the other side, yet the mortality at the advanced age
40- 60 was only one-third of the mortality at the age
20-40. The danger of dying from small-pox dimi-
nishes rapidly as age advances, which could not be the
case if the effect of vaccination wore out with time. The
facts of the the ten years 1851-1860 all over England bear
out this deduction.

His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales has
named Monday, the Bth of May next, for the anniversary
festival of the Royal Masonic Institution for Girls, at
which he has consented to preside.

The Archbishop of Armagh begs to acknowledge
with many thanks the receipt of the first halves of three
Bank of England notes, Nos. 61,556, 61,557, 74,870, each
for £2O, for the Irish Church Sustentation Fund, from a
member of the Church of England.

THE BUDGET.—The London correspondent of the
Irish Times says the means to be adopted by the Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer for raising the necessary addi-
tional taxation will be simply the increase of the income-
tax from 4d. to Bd.

It is rumoured that in the event of the resignation
of the Marquis of Lorne, as M.P. for Argyleshire, the
following gentlemen are likely to be named as caudidates„
viz, :—The Solicitor-General for Scotland; Mr. John
Pender, of Minard Castle ; Mr. John Ramsay, of Kil-
dalton ; Mr. J. Macpherson, of Airds; and Mr. James
Hunter, of Hafton.

Her Majesty's troopship Malabar will return to Eng-
land from Bombay vid the Suez Canal, and arrange-
ments have been made by which it will no longer be
necessary to embark and disembark troivs next season
at Alexandria, as the ships will pass through the canal
both on the homeward and outward voyages. The advan-
tages will be obvious in many ways.
We regret to have to announce the alarming
illness of the Earl of Milltown, at his seat, Russborough
House. His lordship is suffering from a severe attack of
congestion of the lungs, caught through a cold from hunt-
ing\with the Kildare hounds. Sir D. Corrigan and Dr.
Stokes are in attendance, and report slightly favourable
symptoms.

A. TELEGRAPHIC FEAT.—Mercantile nu.ssa,,xes be-
tween this country and India, over the lines of the Indo-
European Telegraph Company and the Indian Government
Cables, were instantaneously exc hanged direct, without any
retransmission, between London and Bushire, at the head
of the Persian Gulf, a distance of about 4,400 miles, and again
between Bushire and India, a distance of about 1,100
miles. The messages were thus forwarded between the
two countries with only one retransmission, a feat unex-
ampled in the history of the electric telegraph. Efforts
are being made to establish, during the summer months,
direct working without any retransmissions, the whole
distance from London to Kurrachee.

THE DOWRY TO THE PRINCESS LOIJISE.-011
Tuesday evening a general meeting of the committee ap-
pointed at the public meeting held, last week, at the Wel-
lington Music-hall, Brooke-street, Holborn, to organize a
demonstration against the dowry to the Princess Louise,
was held at the Hole-in-the-Wall, Hatton garden, Mr.
Hooper in the chair. Mr. Johnson said this ques-
tion had been brought on in Parliament sooner
than they anticipated ; it was therefore necessary
that immediate action should be taken. The
press had asserted that this movement had
been got up by a few working men, of Republican prin-
ciples. This was untrue, as he believed eight working-
men out of ten would si:01 a petition against it. He was
in favour of a great oi,ct. air meeting. Mr. Brightz
moved that a meeting take place on Monday on Clerken-
well Green. It was necessary that some steps should be
taken to elicit the opinions of the working classes. The
preiis had misrepresented the working classes. In one
parish the guardians could not get in the rates because the
ratepayers were too poor. Considering that the parents
of the young couple about to be married were wealthy,
and that so much destitution existed, the dowry should
not be paid out of the taxes of the country. Mr.
Johnson, Mr. Blake, Mr. Boon, Mr. Oliver, Mr. Weber,
and others addressed the meeting, and after some discus-
sion it was decided that a public meeting should be con-
vened on Clerkenwell Green for Sunday morning next.
It was suggested that a meeting should be called in Hyde
Park, but the consideration of the question was adjourned,
and the meeting separated.

ST. VALENTINE.-All sorts of stories are current
about St. Valentine, whose festival was kept on Tuesday,
as the Post-office authorities knew to their cost. The
following account of his saintship we abridge from Alban
Butler's "Lives of the Saints," vol. ii.:—" St. Valentine,
Martyr, was a holy priest at Rome, who with St. Marius and
his family, assisted the martyrs in the persecution under
Claudius 11. He was apprehended and sent by the
Emperor to the Prefect of Rome, who, on finding all his
promises ineffectual to make him renounce his faith, com-
manded him to be beaten with clubs and afterwards to be
beheaded. This sentence was executed on the 14th of
February, about the year A.D. 270. Pope Julius is said
to have built to his memory, near Ponte Mole, a church
which for a long time gave its name to the gate now called
Porta del Popolo but which formerly was known as Porta
St. Valentini, and in classical. times as the Porta. Flaminia.
The greater part of his relics are now in a church not far
from the gate. The name of Valentine is celebrated as
that of an illustrious Martyr in the Sacramentary of St.
Gregory, the Roman Missal of Thomasius, in the Calendar
of Fronto, and in all other martyrologies of this day. To
abolish the ' lewd, heathenish, and superstitious' custom
of boys drawing the names of girls in honour of their
goddess Februta Juno on the 15th of this month, several
zealous pastors substituted the names of this and other
saints in billets given on this day." Hence, probably,
arose the connection of St. Valentine with the Post-office
authorities by a gradual process which it is not difficult to
understand.

-
V. MOSES and SON'S
12.4 • •

OVERCOATS, 19s. to £5.

BOY'S OVERCOATS, 7s. 6d. to 455.

-ui MOSES and SON beg to remind the public
LA, • that the cheapness of an article depends entirely on its
quality, and they venture to say that their prices will compare
favourably with those of any other house in England.

v. MOSES and SON'S
-ci•

OXFORD COATS, 17s to 50s

CAMBRIDGE COATS, 19s. to 50s.

Jr ERTCH JACKETS, 15s. to 425.

SUTHERLAND JACKETS, 19s. 6d. to 50s.

B USINESS SUITS, 28s. to 608.

'V MOSES and SON'S easy and accurate system
juj• of self-measure enables them to execute orders by post
with the guarantee of a faultless flt.