The Sun.
London, England, 1869-09-01 00:00:00

THE NATI.UN.AL T_EIIIPEI?.d.NC.E LEA GLIB
FETE.

The annual fate of the National Temperance League took
olace at the Crystal Palace on Tuesday, and was without
doubt a great success. The weather was most propitious
—a bright clear day, tempered with an invigorating
breeze—and the magnificent grounds were seen to
perfection. At an early hour London-bridge, Victoria
and other stations were besieged with an eager crowd,
many of whom were great in the grandeur of their regalia,
and a most observable circumstance was that in the
majority of instances the greater portion of the visitors
to Sydenham were accompanied by their wives and
-.lfildren. Cheap trains were run from all parts
)f the country, and by eleven o'clock both the
interior and exterior of the Palace presented a most
Eve/ appearance. At that hour a conference was
held, at which some excellent papers were read, and this
meeting was largely attended. At 11.30 there was a
cricket match between two temperance clubs, and
'a noon Mr. Mann's band discoursed some excel-
lent selections from the Handel Orchestra, which were
listened to by a greater throng than is usually the case on
great fete days. At one o'clock a monster meeting was
held in the concert room, at which Archdeacon Sandford,
the Rev, W. H. :M ilburn, M. A . , and other gentlemen were
announced to speak. Perhaps the great feature in the exten-
sive and well-arranged programme was the concert of 5,000
children of the Band of Hope Union, which took place
at three o'clock. After this there were open-air meet-
ings, a display of the great fountains, performances on the
great organ, and other entertainments too numerous to
mention. We give extracts from the papers read at the
Conference, over which Mr. Samuel Bowley presided.
The Rev. GEORGE MAUNDER read a paper on " The
recent ecclesiastical movement in reference to intempe-
rance." He observed that the Baptists had of late been
very active in the effort to stay intemperance. The
Society of Friends were also very active in
the movement. Though there had been no official
recognition of teetotalism, no doubt the weight
and authority of the Society of Friends were
on its side. One of the most important movements was
that of the National Church, a Committee of Convocation
of the Province of Canterbury having directed its attention
to intemperance. The report prepared gave, not only the
experience of parochial clergyman, but of many of the
most influential persons in the country. In thus acting the
Church had won great honour, and set an example worthy
of following by every section of the Church of Christ. As
to the Wesleyans, few men denounced with greater force
the drinking customs of the country than their founder.
From the presidential chair more than once a cheering
voice had been given to the great work of social refor-
mation, and at the last Conference a meeting seldom
equalled was held on the question, and he was glad to
state that a vast number of the younger ministers had
given in their adhesion to the cause.
Mr. T. A. SMITII was announced to read a paper on
" The medical use of alcohol," but owing to ill-health his
essay had to be read by Dr. Ellis. It commenced by
saying that if alcohol were used as cautiously as opium
and other dangerous poisons the question as to its use
might be left to the medical profession ; but such, as was
well known, was not the case. Alcohol was not used
in its purity like other poisons, and many medical
men recommended the use of beer, spirits, and
wine, but it was impossible that the prescriber
could know the strength of what he prescribed. In the
hospitals it was now the practice to recommend the use
of alcoholic beverages, whereas in former times they used
to bleed people. In 1867, in ten of the metropol tan
hospitals, £6,744 was spent in wine and spi r ts,
and a considerable amount was also expended
in malt liquors ; in fact, it had been said that next to the
butchers' and bakers' bills that for alcoholic beverages
stood pre-eminent. The London Hospital might be called
the " Alcoholic Hospital," as spirits were approved of
by doctors, nurses, and students alike. Dr. Gardner,
of Glasgow, at the meeting of the British Association at
Oxford, gave it as his opinion that too much alcohol was
used. But the chief evil that arose from medical
practitioners advising the use of alcohol was
that it seemed to give weight to the popular
idea that alcohol was good for them ; and as
the drink was liked, of course people soon found an
excuse to take it. From this it would be pretty evident
that in many instances doctors ordered alcoholic drinks
—which were such nice medicines—to please their patients.
The medical men who were in the habit of not recom-
mending alcoholic drinks were, at all events, as successful
as those who did, and they did not run the risk of making
drunkards.

The Rev. G. M. MuRPHY next read a paper on " Public
amusements and the drinking customs." They (the teeto-
tallers) were sometimes asked why they did not provide
other amusements ; but had he time he could prove that
the teetotallers had done more than anyone to produce
good entertainments. The rev. gentleman went on to
condemn the Derby Day, pigeon shooting, tavern rum) ing-
matches, &c., which, he said, were generally promoted by
"mine hosts " for their own benefit. The drinking at
public dinners was next touched on. Teetotalism was filing
at the chain of custom, and in time it must
go, and then persons would wonder how they
could have been the slaves of custom so long.
The music-halls were the curse of the age, led to dis-
honesty, insolence to parents, brutality, and drunkenness.
The great aim was to make the halls pay, and when that
was the case both music and morality generally suffered.
The songs were generally of a nonsensical character, but
the words gave no idea of the indecencies with which the
-ingers of them interpolated their performances ; and of a
necessity the frequenters of music-halls soon became
oblivious to anything of a high-class nature. The
National Temperance League had determined to send out
commissioners to visit these places and report, so that the
licensing magistrates would have no excuse to grant
licences where indecencies and immorality were rampant.

The health of the Bishop of Lichfield continues to
improve. The nervous prostration is gradually passing
away.

THE SUICIDE FROM THE CLIFTON SUSPENSION
BRIDGE.—The efforts employed to trace out the identity
of tke deceased have at length been attended with
success. The body has been identified as that of a young
man named Cousins, a pastrycook and confectioner by
trade, whose friends have long been tradesmen of Pristol,
and whose sisters still carry on business there. Ile had
been drinking heavily.

BITING A MAN'S NOSE OFF.—At the Rochdale
Police-court, Michael Hester was charged with biting off
the end of Martin Barrett's nose, While Barrett and
some companions were seated in a public-house at Whit-
worth, the prisoner and other men entered, and without
any provocation, picked a quarrel with Barret and his
companions. Hester, after striking Barrett several times,
seized him by the nose, and bit the end clean off, and
escaped. He was apprehended on Sunday night, and
when charged before the magistrates, pleaded guilty, and
was sentenced to prison for four months.
MISS FAITIIFULL AND MR. GRANT.—The Vic-
toria Magazine gives Miss Faithfull an opportunity of
saying a few words about the recent action for libel which
.he brought last month against Mr. Grant, editor of the
llorning Advertiser. It will be remembered that Mr.
Grant, in a recently-published volume on " The Religious
Tendencies of the Age," associated Miss Faithfull's
efforts for the improvement of the social position of
women with the Secularists, who disbelieve Chris-
tianity. Mr. Grant's mistake did not originate
rah himself, but was transferred from a London
paper. So far, therefore, he is not much to blame. But,
unfortunately, he declined to give Miss Faithfull the apo-
logy which she demanded. Hence she, having no other
ibject than to relieve her work from the discredit and the
damage that would be inflicted upon it by the stigma of
infidelity, brought an action for libel, and recovered
damages sufficient to carry costs, and Mr. Grant was pro-
nounced to have acted with honour. Miss Faithfull now
makes an emphatic declaration to the effect that she is
not only a Christian, but an attached member of the
Church of England.

TEE ART-GIFT.—The art-gift itself is only the
result of the moral character of generations. A bad woman
may have a sweet voice ; but that sweetness of voice comes
of the past morality of her race. That she can sing with
it at all she owes to the determination of laws of music by
the morality of the past. Every act, every impulse, of
virtue and vice affects in any creature face, voice, nervous
power, and vigour and harmony of invention at once. Per-
severance in rightness of human conduct renders, after a
certain number of generations, human art possible ; every
silt clouds it, be it ever so little a one ; and persistent
vicious living and following of pleasure render, after a c6r-
tain number of generations, all art impossible. Men are
deceived by the long-suffering of the laws of nature, and
mistake in a nation the reward of the virtue of its sires
for the issue of its own sins. Tile time of 'their visitation
will come, and that inevitably ; for it is always true that
if the fathers have eaten sour grapes, the children's teeth
are set on edge. And for the individual, as soon as you
have learned to rea-1, you may, as I said, know him to the
heart's core, through his art. Let his art-gift be never
so
great, and cultivated to the height, by the schools of a
great race of men, and it is still lint a tapestry thrown
over his own being and inner soul ; and the bearing of it
will show infallibly whether it hangs on a man or on a
skeleton. If you are dim-eyed, you may not see the
difference in the fall of the folds at first ; but learn how
to look, and the folds themselves will become transparent,
and you shall see through them the death's shape, or the
divine one, making the tissue above it as a cloud of light,
or as .a, winding.slae#,—The Qum?, of the Air, By John
Ruskilt,lALA