The Sun.
London, England, 1870-05-19 00:00:00

IMPORTANT MEETINGS.

NATIONAL SUNDAY LEAGUE. —The annual meeting was
held at Freemasons' Hall. The report stated that the
number of persons taken by Sunday excursion trains in
1869 was 13,000, the amount paid to the London, Chatham
and Dover and the London and Brighton Companies
being nearly £l,BOO. As the London, Chatham, and
Dover, the South Eastern, and the Brighton Companies
intend to run excursion trains on Sundays during
the the forthcoming season, the League would not run
their occasional trains. The Sunday bands were carried
out as usual by the League in Battersea-park, and by
East London friends in Victoria-park. During the win-
ter the League had carried out "Sunday evenings for the
people" on the original St. Martin's Hall basis. The re-
ceipts of the year from all sources had been 2,300 3s.
lid., while the expenditxre left a balance of £62 2s. 6d. in
favour of the association.
BAND OP HOPE UNION.—The annual conference took
place on Tuesday morning, in Exeter Hall. In the even-
ing the anniversary meeting was held in the great hall,
and was very largely attended, the buildinc, being insuffi-
cient to accommodate the crowd attracted by the event.
As at previous gatherings, the platform was appropriated
to the Band of Hope choir of 600 voices. Mr. Edward
Baines, M.P., occupied the chair, and was sup-
ported by Mr. Charles Reed, M.P., Mr. M. H.
Dalway, - M.P., and many well-known temperance
advocates. The Rev. G. W. APCree, the secretary, gave
an abstract of the report, which states that every year
serves to establish the importance of the work, its intimate
relations to the education, physical health, and morals of
the people, and of its ultimate spread throughout the
nation. The income for the year was £2,570 16s. 7d.,
and the expenditure £2,448105. 10d., leaving a balance of
2122 ss. 9d. The chairman referred to his own experience
of thirty-two years as proof of the advantages and
benefits of teetotalism, and mentioned that Dr. Living-
stone, Mr. Cobden, and many other distinguished men
had personally assured him of their conviction that the
movement was a right one, and that they had virtually
bean voluntary abstainers themselves, under the most
trying circumstances.

BAILWAY BENEVOLENT INSTITUTION. —The twelfth anni-
versary festival was held at the Freemasons' Tavern, Lord
Colville in the chair. The Duke of Richmond and many
other distinguished men were present. A donation of
100 guineas from the Queen was announced. In propos-
ing the toast of the evening, Lord Colville observed
that the enormous railway system of this country re-
quired an army of something like 300,000 men for its
efficient working. How that army did its duty might
be gathered from the fact that in the year 1869
only seventeen railway passengers met their death from
causes beyond their own control, that was, supposing
the number of travellers to have been no greater than it
was in 1867, at the rate of one in seventeen millions.
Unhappily the immunity enjoyed by railway passengers
did not extend to railway employes, as would be seen
by the dreadful catalogue of cases relieved by the society
which had been circulated in the room. The object of
the institution was to afford assistance to cases which
were beyond the aid of the companies. That assistance
it gave in the way of pensions or gratuities to members,
or their widows and families, and of education to their
children. The income from all sources in 1869 was
£5,396 ; there was an invested capital of £25,200, and the
number of men in the service contributing was 29,200.
Donations amounting to the liberal sum of £l,lOO were
announced.

GENERAL DOMESTIC SERVANTS' BENEVOLENT INSTI-
TUTION.—The twenty-fourth annual meeting was held at
the Hanover-square Rooms, Lord Ebury in the chair.
The report stated that there were fifty-four pensioners
now on the fund, seven of whom were receiving £2O per
annum each, and the remainder £l5 per annum. The
total number of pensioners elected since the formation of
the society had been 103, who had been paid the sum of
£10,500. Arrangements were in progress for the erection
of an asylum for aged and decayed servants. The registry
was working well, and gave general satisfaction to both
employers and -servants ; no servant being admitted on
the registry who is not a member of the institution. The
total income for the year had been £1,763 9s. 7d., and the
expenditure, including £BlB paid to pensioners, £43 in
temporary relief, and 2416 invested, had been £1,694 2s. 3d.,
leaving a balance of £69 7s. 4d.

Mr. Villiers has been elected chairman of the
Convents Committee.

The Levant Times states that Mrs. Lloyd's pension
from the Greek Government is to be £4OO a year.
-The marriage of the Marchioness of Hastings and
Sir G. Chetwynd, Bart., is to be solemnised the second
week in the ensuing moth.

The new Roumanian Cabinet has published its
programme. Its watchwords are to be " Morality, Le-
gality."

It is stated that the pay of the Commander-in-
Chief in Ireland is henceforth to be £2,000 per annum
instead of £4,000.

The account of the reception of the Rev. Mr.
Jackson at Ledbury is incorrect. The parishioners gene-
rally took no part in the proceedings.

Yesterday morning about 10.30 it was discovered
that Mr. Firth, photographer, of Dudley-grove, Padding
ton, had committed suicide by taking poison. He leaves
a wife and six children with one child lying dead.
James M'Donald, a young Irish labourer at Bolton
while crossing the railway was knocked down by a
goods train and had his head completely severed from his
body.

The real mystery of " Edwin Drood " is now sup-
posed to be the substitutiOn of Mr. Fildes in the stead of
Mr. H. K. Brown (Phiz) as illustrator of the work.
London Figaro.

The Imera, a Greek journal published at Trieste,
recommends as a remedy for the present condition of
Greece to abolish the Constitution, and to put the power
into the hands of King George.

It appears from the return of Metropolitan Pau-
perism for the first week of May, which is published to-
day, that the numbers irf receipt of relief amounted to
140,500, or 40,500 less than at the close of February.

Mr. Zerah Colburn, the well-known civil engineer,
died at Belmont, near Boston, U.S-A., on the 27th ult.
Mr. Colburn was formerly editor of The Engineer, and
afterwards proprietor and editor of Engineering. He was
also the author of a number of papers read before the In •
stitute of Civil Engineers, of which he was a member. He
was in his 37th year.

Senor Madoz, the bearer of a letter from Marshal
Prim to Marshal Espartero, stating-that an important frac-
tion of the Cortes wished to elect him as King, and asking
for a statement of his views, has returned from Logrono
with a letter from Espartero, declining to accept the
proffered dignity on account of his age. The reply has
caused much disappointment in Spanish political circles.
THE SANITARY CONDITION OF PARIS,—The mor-
tality reports continue to chew an unsatisfactory state as
regards the health of the French capital. The smallpox
is increasing in fatality, no less than 179 deaths from that
cause having been returned in the week ending May 14.
The total number of deaths in Paris from all causes during
the week was 1,210. The mortality of London during the
previous week was 1,314, which, comparing the respective
populations of the two capitals, 3,214,707 and 1,825,274,
gives a very disadvantageous prominence to the Paris figures.
A. practical illustration of the value of the new
Torquay harbour in a pecuniary point of view has just
been afforded, which is of considerable importance to the
inhabitants. Hitherto only vessels of small tonnage have
been employed in the coal trade, owing to the depth of
water not being sufficent to accommodate ships of a larger
class, and the cost of the best coal has been at the rate of
245. to 255. per ton. On Monday night a large screw
collier having nearly 600 tons of coal on board entered the
new harbour, and lying alongside the quay in deep water
dischargedher cargo into the stores close by, from which
the best kind is retailed at 18s. 9d, per ton, creating quite
a revolution in the coal trade.—Western orning News.

PROMOTION BY BRIGANDAGE.—There was a poor
gendarme, who, for long, long years, aspired after the
rank of a corporal. He was a good soldier, brave enough,
and the least refractory in his company; but his only
patron was himself. So he deserted, and turned brigand.
Here he was able to display his talents. He was soon
well known to all the heads of the gendarmerie. They
tried to catch him, and missed catching him five or six
times. Giving up that game, they sent a friend to treat
with him. " You shall have your pardon, and, to make
up for your trouble, you shall be made a corporal to-mor-
row, and a sergeant in the course of the year." His
ambition was satisfied. He consented to be made cor-
poral, awaiting patiently his sergeant's stripes. He had
long
to wait for them. One day, his patience was worn
out, and he returned to the mountains. 'He had not killed
three men, before they made haste to make him a ser-
geant. He afterwards rose to be an officer, with no other
patrons than the persons he had put underground.—
Dicken's " All the Year Round."

A NEW STIMULANT.—It cannot be too widely
known that persons who object (whether for good or bad
reasons) to take or to administer alcohol in cases of prostra-
tion, or in those numerous morbid conditions of the
nervous system which are akin to the exhaustion of
fatigue or innutrition, may avail themselves of an admira-
ble substitute of a perfectly safe character,
against which neither the conscience nor the
palate will rebel. The substitute is nothing less than
Liebig's extract of meat, an article well known and in
generaluse in respectable households, and frequently used
in the preparation of beef tea, and for gravies, &c. As
ordinarily used, the extract is certainly not to be regarded
as a stimulant, except in so far as all nourishments are
stimulating ; but when made into tea of very' great
strength it is another matter. A teaspoonful
mixed in a teacupful of hot water (the water
need not be boiling hot), with a sufficiency of
salt to render it palatable, acts as an immediate
stimulant, being quickly assimilated, and affording an im-
petus to the circulation while actually nourishing the
tissues. The drink thus prepared is of a fine dark brown
colour, very nearly approximating to the colour of coffee,
and is extremely palatable. In its effect it differs from
alcohol ; it does not provoke the tongue to action, or dis-
turb the healthy action of the brain, but it gives warmth
to the whole frame, tone to the nervous system, and a
steadiness to the operation of the senses. It is,
in fact, one of the most valuuable of restoratives,
and especially useful, as above remarked, to those
who need the aid of alcohol, but have an objection to take
it, or to whom, perhaps, it may be repugnant. It is
proper to remark that a constant use of strong infusions of
the extract by-healthy people is not to be advised ; it, in
fact, might prove injurious, just as the excessive use of
alcohol must prove. In common with all other stimu-
lants, it must be used with caution, but many cases occur
in which it would prove a real blessing, and a safe sub-
stitute for brandy, wine, &c.—Dr. I\i'Dominnn, in
Gardener': Magazine.