The Sun.
London, England, 1869-08-19 00:00:00

THE PURCHASE OF GLEBES.

Towards the close of the session (a London correspon-
dent says) a project was matured in the form of a bill,
under the directions of the Chief Secretary for Ireland,
which it was not thought necessary to lay before Parlia-
ment this year, but which will, I understand, be brought
forward as soon as the Legislature reassembles. It is in
substance a plan for satisfying the arguments founded on
social disparity, of those who recommended glebes and
gardens being provided for the ministers of all the preva-
lent sects in Ireland ; but without incurring the inconsis-
tency and difficulty of concurrent endowment. The plan is
simply this, that persons suitably authorised and authen-
ticated belonging to any of the three chief denominations
should be enabled to borrow a sufficient sum from the
Public Works Loan Commissioners to buy a limited por-
tion of land for a glebe, and to build thereon a suitable
dwelling for theirminister orpriest, as the case may be. The
repayment of the principal by instalments together with
interest is to be regulated on terms as advantageous as
those granted by the Irish Church Bill to landlords bor-
rowing likewise from the Treasury the amount requisite
for the purchase of the tithe rent charge on their estates ;
that is to say, in the course of fifty years the glebes and
manses are to be held free of rent as the property of the
religious communion in the districts and parishes for
whose benefit they may have been purchased. The only
security, of course, that can be exacted for the money
in each case will be the mortgage of the house
and land, the trustees being necessarily exonerated
from all personal liability, saving that which all trustees
are subject to, namely, for the due appropriation of the
money.

The Wills County Mirror publiAcl a rumour, but
does not vouch for it, that Dr. Lush, the senior member for
Salisbury, has accepted the appointment of Commissioner of
Lunacy, and that consequently ho will resign his seat es
member for Salisbury.

The Liverpool Mercury Bays :—"Some men tL:ke
extraordinary pains to get themselves into trouble, s'mply for
the sake of enjoying a little notoriety. Mr. Jas. Balfe seems to
be one of the number. lie made his appearance before the
Liverpool magistrates on Tuesday, and his effete° was
that of creating a public disturbance and spouting a quan-
tity of seditious nonsense beneath the Duke of Wellington's
column. He evidently desired to be made a 'martyr' of,
and had his wish so far gratified that he was sent to prison
in default of finding sureties to keep the peace."

A NEW WAY TO GET OLD DEBTS PAID. —A
E tory is told in a Paris paper of a new Method for recover-
ing one's debts. The other day a crowd gathered in the
vicinity of the Oddon round a girl with a wooden leg,
whom a gentleman at an adjoining window was apos-
trophising with loud cries. It turned out that the
girl was a washerwoman who had gone to the gentle-
man to ask for the payment of her bill, and finding
that the money was not forthcoming she had seized her
customer's wooden leg, which was lying in a corner, de-
claring that she would not return it until she was paid.
A HARVEST FROM THE SEA.—.The recent heavy
sea storm and ground swell has had the curious effect of
washing up the cargo of the Comet, of Goole, which was
wrecked at the foot of the Castle Rock, Dunbar,
during the terrific storm in the middle of June. The
cargo, which consisted of barley, has been washed up
in great quantities, and the carrying and carting away
of the grain has caused a good deal of stir, especially
among the shore population. It is somewhat remarkable
that though the barley has been lying at the bottom of
the sea for two months, it was quite sound and crisp---
the antiseptic properties of the salt water evidently
preserving it from putrefaction. The collectors of the
grain, who have reaped a rich harvest, 'sold it to the
horse and cow-keepers in the town at from Gd. to is. a
bushel.

ANTIQUARIAN DISCOVERIES AT P.RESTONPANS.-
A few days ago the Rev. Mr. Struthers, Prestonpaus,
whose antiquarian tastes are well known in the district,
was fortunate in bringing to light a large and valuable
assortment of old Scottish coins, that have lain buried
beneath the earth for the last three centuries. It seems
that a few fisher girls, while passing along the highway
a little to the east of Bankton House (Colonel
Gardiner's old mansion), picked up from the margin
of an unenclosed field a number of what they
thought pieces of brass or iron, which, however, on
inspection turned out to be old coins of the Stuarts--
among others a gold noble of the reign of the unfortunate
Mary. Mr. Struthers was not long in learning the fact,
and going to the place where the coin had been found
made a careful examination of the ground. The field
had been ploughed deeper than usual this year, and he
was not long in uncovering a large number of coins,
that appeared to have been deposited for safety. They
were all in a heap, as if they had been originally
contained in a bag, which of course, had mouldered
away in the lapse of years. There were 114 coins
altogether, extending from tho reign of James 111. to
that Mary, one of the latter, a silver piece, which bore
the date of 1558, being in beautiful preservation, and as
perfect in its stamping as the day it came out of the
Scotch Mint. The gold noble referred to above was the
only one of that metal, all the others being silver—in
some case greatly alloyed. One of the most interesting
coins of the series is a silver piece of Mary's reign,
struck in commemoration of her marriage with the
Dauphin of France. It bears the date 1558, and in
addition to the monogram " with the
heraldic emblems of France and Scotland, contains the
following Latin legend on the reverse :—" Jam non sent
duo sect una caro"—" They are no longer twain but one
flesh." There can be but little doubt that the deposit was
made in the reign of Mary ; and as her surrender to the
Confederate Lords at Carberry-hill took pace in the ho-
mediate neighbourhood, it is no stretch of imagination,
but a very feasible conjecture, to connect the two things
together, and to believe that one or other of the faint-
hearted adherents of the Queen, seeing that her cause was
going clown, bad concealed the treasure under ground till
better times should come.