The Sun.
London, England, 1869-08-06 00:00:00

111E7 ROPOLITAN GOS6lP—Thursday.

Now that the Irish Church difficulty is cleared off the
track of party politics, it is expected that the four or five
members on each side of the House who have steadily
voted against their respective parties during the last
session will return to the allegiance of their leaders.
Such, however, I hear, will not be the case with a young
man who sits for a borough in one of the home counties,
and who was considered but a short time since as the rising
hope of the Conservative party. He voted in favour of
the Suspensory Bill last year, and at the general election
succeeded in getting a colleague returned with him who
was in favour of the disestablishment of the Irish Church.
I understand he is to be affianced to the daughter of one
of our most popular Liberal statesmen—a proceeding
which will doubtless render his severance from the Con-
servative party complete.
It is high time that some inquiry were made into the
cost of working certain recent Acts of Parliament. That
of the Land Registration Act has been a scandal ever
since the time that the department wss founded. The
disproportion between the work done and the expense of
doing it is due, however, not to wilful extravagance so
much as to the smallness of the number of persons who
avail themselves of the Act, in consequence of the
difficulty which attends its operation. An inquiry
has been promised, and it is to be hoped that
Parliament will induce the Court of Chancery—which is
now the chief obstructive—to facilitate the putting in exe-
cution a law which ought to be of the greatest possible
benefit. The working of the Encumbered Estates Acts in
Ireland shews that it is the will rather than the way
which has been wanting in England. Another case for
inquiry is the Salmon Fisheries Act. At the present time
we are paying nearly £9,000 a year to inspectors of salmon
and oyster fisheries, and still the price of oysters, at all
events, goes up.

I hear that the Prince of Wales has accepted the office
of patron of the Masonic Craft of Scotland, which post
was held by the late King William IV.
Another of those alliances is announced between great
families politically opposed, which I referred to some time
ago. The Russells, the Villiers, the Percy s, and the
Campbells have already entered into union ; and now it
is stated that the young Marquis of Lansdowne is going
to marry the youngest daughter of the Duke of Abercorn.
The Marquis is in his 25th year, and was appointed by
Mr. Gladstone a Commissioner of the Exchequer, without
pay. Lady Maud Hamilton, his fiancee, is 29 years of
age. One cannot too much admire the wisdom of the
great peers in thus sinking political differences in order to
bind their ranks closer together, and so present a stronger
front against the attacks of democracy.
The appointment of ?dr. Lake to the Deanery of Dur-
ham has taken most persons by surprise. Not a few have
been compelled to ask who Mr. Lake is? As a theologian
he is little known. His forte is education, and the fact
that the preferment has been offered in succession to Dr.
Temple, one of the originators of the university local
examinations, and to Mr. Lake, who was one of the mem-
bers of the late Duke of Newcastle's Education Com-
mission, shews that Mr. Gladstone is inclined to attach
more importance to active work in which men of all
parties can unite than to the theological dogmas which
keep men apart. It is generally thought that the Premier
will before long have a considerable amount of ecclesias-
tical patronage on his hands. The Bishops' Resignation
Bill comes too late for poor Bishop Hamilton to take ad-
vantage of it. But there are four other sees, Winchester,
Bath and Wells, Exeter, and Chichester, in which the
measure might be turned to account should it become law.
Those persons who hope that Bishop Phillpotts will resign
are, I fear, destined to be disappointed. When, some fourteen
years ago, a bill was introduced to enable Bishops Bloom-
field and Maltby to resign, the present Bishop of Exeter
denounced that measure in the House of Lords, and pro-
phesied that his right reverend brethren would bitterly
repent of their act on their dying bed. He even went so
far as to intimate that for a bishop to resign the charge
which had once been entrusted to him was something
very like sin against the Holy Ghost. In other words,
the See was made for the bishop, and not the bishop for
the See. It is a little remarkable that, holding such very
strong views, Dr. Phillpott should avail himself of the
services of a bishop who has committed this very offence
twice over. His commissary, Dr. Trower, was formerly
Bishop of one of the Scotch dioceses, and then of Gibraltar.
Speaking of the Bishop of Exeter, I may mention a bon
mot which is attributed to him. A young lady was visiting
Bishopstowe, and made the remark that Torquay was very
like Switzerland. "Very," replied his lordship, "except
that there is no sea in Switzerland and no mountains in
Torquay."

Oxford has lost one of its oldest Fellows by the death
of the Rev. John Crosby Clark, B.D. He was educated
at St. John's College, taking his B.A. degree in 1805, and
afterwards became a Fellow. A large proportion of his
great wealth was devoted to ecclesiastical work. The site
of All Saints Church, Newington, burnt down a few
weeks since, was one of the gifts of the deceased.

Two remarkable instances of the success of co-operation
have just come under my notice. They refer to one of the
oldest and one of the youngest co operative societies. The
first is the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, which has
recently issued its annual report, a bulky volume of over
300 pages. During tie past year this society, like most
others of the kind, has been subjected to an unusual drain
upon its resources, owing to the great depression of trade,
caused by "over-speculation and ruinous competition."
Nevertheless, not only have all claims been met, but a
balance of £98,699 has been carried over. During the
year the expenditure was £109,810, of which no less a sum
than £64,979 was paid to unemployed members—a for-
midable item. The number of members is now 33,474;
so that as to both numbers and income this society is
a corporation of great importance and influence. The
other association is of far more humble proportions, but
its prosperity is a very noticeable fact, inasmuch as the
combination is an attempt to carry into agriculture the
principles which have been found so successful in manu-
factures and trade. About two years ago, a few gentle.
men interested in co-operation, and especially Mr. Morri-
son, M.P. for Plymouth, and Mr. Greening, formed an
al sociation for supplying farmers with agricultural
implements, seeds, and manures from the makers and
merchants without the intervention of agents. The
objects sought by the promoters were to obtain greater
cheapness and greater purity. The large implement
makers are accustomed to pay as much as £15,000 a year
in agents' commission. Of course this sum comes eventu-
ally out of the pockets of the purchasers. With regard
to seeds and manures, it has been long known that
enormous adulteration goes on. For instance, even what
is called emphatically "pure" cake contains from 5 to
6 per cent. of sand. It may easily be imagined
how impure the inferior sorts are. The promoters of the
Agricultural and Horticultural Co-operative Association
were told at the outset that the farmers were so dense and
old-fashioned that they would not make use of the advan-
tages offered to them. But though they are slow in some
matters, they
.are keen enough to see the benefit of
obtaining better goods at a lower cost. In order to make
the matter plainer to them, the association has adopted the
very wise plan of marking on every invoice, not only the
price of the goods, but the amount of profit made on that
particular transaction. Moreover, the totals of these
separate profits are sent to the members periodically ; so
that they know exactly what they are doing, and are
assured that these profits will come back to them less the
cost of management. The result of this system is that
the society has increased from 10 to 235 ; the capital
from £257 to £3,584 ; the sales from £10,342, to
£19,102 ; and the gross profits from £1,335 to £2,007. If
farmers generally do not, after reading these figures and
explanation, join the association, or, at all events, adopt
the co-operative principle, they are not the keen men
of business I take them for.

The limited liability principle has lately been put to
novel use in London. An attempt has been made by Mr.
Leicester St. Aubyn to start "The Family Laundry Com-
pany (Limited)," with a capital of £500,000 in £2 shares.
Some good names are on the directorate, among them Dr.
Lankester, the coroner, and Mr. H. B. Sheridan, AI.P.
It is stated that in the western, south-western, north-
western, and central districts of London there are 31,639
private residences, in which the laundry expenses range
from £3O to £l5O a year ; so that a total of £1,581,950 is
spent every year on this one item of domestic expenditure.
What is the return for this expenditure? Too often
clothes rotted by chemicals, swarming with vermin, or
infected with contagion. As to those families which wash-
at home, they can tell the miseries of " Washing-day,"
and would gladly be delivered from them. The idea
of the promoters of this company is to establish laundry
and bleaching grounds devoted entirely to family washing,
on a large scale, at a sufficient distance from the metro-
polis to be free from London smoke, and yet within easy
access. An endeavour will be made to use this associa-
tion as a means for giving employment to women.

The general exodus from town which takes place at this
season of the year chews itself even in our criminal courts,
where the greatest difficulty is experienced in getting to-
gether the requisite number of grand jurymen. I had
occasion to attend at the Middlesex Sessions on
Monday, when I found that the gentlemen summoned
" all with one consent began to make excuse ;" and the
nature of the excuses afforded no little amusement. Bar-
risters and doctors were at once relieved, but others of less-
favoured professions were not so fortunate. One gentleman
claimed exemption on the ground of being a foreigner ;
the judge slid he was not obliged to serve, but asked him
to do so as a favour, and as an inducement pointed out the
advantage he would have of learning a little of the English
law, but the ungrateful foreigner retired from the court
saying he did not want to know anything of English law.
Another pleaded,ifirst,that he was 70 years old,; next, that

he was very deaf. The judge, however, thought he would
be able to hear in the small room used by the grand jury,
and this was shouted into his ear by the usher of the
court—when, with an importunity to be commended, he
further urged that he had a bad attack of diarrhoea ; but
all to no purpose, the judge was inexorable, although he
tried to comfort the unhappy old gentleman by assuring
him that the sessions would be short. Another
summoned was afflicted with sore eyes—another was a
Jewish Rabbi. Several sent their medical advisers or
medical certificates, and some were represented by their
chief clerks, or contented themselves by sending letters
through the post. I was fortunate enough to get my
friend excused, but many who did not put in an appear-
ance either personally or by proxy were fined £lO each,
and let us hope that they were altogether oblivious of these
interesting proceedings while they were exploring the tors of
Dartmoor, the fjords of Norway, or risking their necks
in climbing Mont Blanc.
Chesterfield House is not to be pulled down after all.
This old historic residence, recently the abode of the Duke
of Abe rcorn, has, I believe, been bought for £lBO,OOO by
Mr. Magniac, M.P. for St. Ives. This seems an extraor-
dinarily large sum ; but then the value of a site in May-
fair is enormous.

Londoners are rejoicing in the prospect of a further
clearance of their river. For some yea: s past the Thames
has been obstructed by unsightly piles near Hungerford
Bridge. These were erected in connection with the Pneu-
matic Tube, called the Whitehall and Waterloo Railway.
But the works have long been suspended through want of
capital, and now the company is to be formally wound up,
and the piles removed.

We are now at the darkest period of the literary year,
as anyone may see who looks at the advertisement sheets
of the literary journals. There are, however, a few items
of interest. Mr. Moxon has arranged with Gustave Dore
for an illustrated edition of Tom Hood's poems, and it is
to be hoped that the dead poet will be more in favour at
Dover-street than a certain eminent living one is just
now. The latter, who has recently transferred his copy-
rights to another publisher, might have seen his portrait
turned with the face to the wall if he had cared to pay a
visit to his old publisher.—Mr. Tennyson has, I hear,
had some consultation with Mr. Hawker, of,
Morwenstow, respecting the legends of the Saint Graal,
which that gentleman has made the subject of one of his
" Cornish Ballads."—Mr. Henry Kingsley has left his
residence on the banks of the Thames, and undertaken the
editorship of a daily newspaper at Edinburgh.—Mr.
Holman Hunt has at last actually left his beloved Flo-
rence for the Holy Land, and will probably be there for
some years.—" Kay Spen," author of " True of Heart,"
and well known in Plymouth, has another tale in course
of publication.—A new work, to be illustrated on wood by
some of the best artists in England, is in preparation. It
will be of unusually large dimensions, and the engraving
will be carved to a degree of perfection not hitherto ob-
tained. Hitherto, really artistic wood-cutting has
been on a very minute scale. In this book the
drawings will be about a foot square, and will
be engraved by the greatest masters of the art,
with as much care as is bestowed upon the small engravings
in the Christmas gift-books. Millais, Dumaurier, and
Ridley are among the artists engaged on the drawings,
and some idea of the pains taken to ensure perfection may
be gathered from the fact that althouel the volume may
not appear for eighteen months, many of the drawings
are already completed. The prices paid for the drawings
vary from £25 to £loo.—The book which is most in
demand just now is the Diary of Crabbe Robinson. The
libraries have had to increase their orders to the pub-
lishers, and even now are unable to meet the wants of
their subscribers.—Mr. Morley, the new editor of the
Star, is engaged on a life of Turgot.
There is some little controversy as to the most likely
appointment to that important post—the editorship of the
Atheneum. By some Dr. Doran is mentioned, others
think Mr. J. C. Jeaffreson will be chosen. I hear from a
very good source, however, that quite a different course
will be taken. A temporary arrangement will be made,
and eventually Sir Charles Dilke, who is perfectly familiar
with the work of the journal, will take the helm. It is
not unlikely that the Atheneum, will be enlarged and
materially altered next year.

MISCELLANEOUS NETVS.