The Sun.
London, England, 1868-09-09 00:00:00

CATTLE KILLED BY IMPURE WATER.

The Injurious and fatal results arising from tne use of
impure and bad water have recently been illustrated at Col.
wick, a village in close proximity to Nottingham. Mr. Thos,
Elnor, an extensive grazier at that village, a few weeks age
lost two valuable horses under somewhat mysterious cir
cumstances, and seventeen head of cattle pastured in the
same field were also attacked with a serious malady, of whicl
some of them died, and the others were so bad that it WSJ
necessary to kill them. A post-mortem examination
of the carcases made by Dr. Barlow, of Cotgrave,
veterinary surgeon, revealed the fact that all the
animals had greatly enlarged spleens, and it Ivas
conjectured that the same had arisen from the
effect of some irritant poison. The loss of cattle
under these circumstances being calculated to affect
the food supply of the town, and the case
having come to the knowledge of the Sanitary -Committee
of the town, Mr. Alderman Page, the chairman of the
committee, and Mr. William Richards, the sanitary
inspector, proceeded to Colwick, and having reason to
believe that the water the cattle had been drinking
was the cause of their death, obtained specimens for
the purpose of analysis. Three specimens were obtained,
one of them being taken from a pond in a field
in which the stock had been kept. They have
been duly submitted to Dr. Beckit Truman, Castle-gate,
Nottingham. Mr. Alderman Page deserves the thanks of
the town for dealing so promptly with the subject, as,
apart from the importance of the facts revealed by this
investigation to the grazing interest, the question is one of
great moment to the general public of the town and dis-
trict.—Nottingham Journal.

SOMERSET AND THE NINETEENTH
CENTURY.

A correspondent of a Bristol contemporary gives the
following particulars of labourers' wages in Somerset-
shire :—" I am personally aware of scores of farms where
the labourers' wages are not higher than 95., and
scarcely ever more than Bs.—and I have known 7s.—
out of which they have to allow 9d. or is. per week for
rent. A piece of coal is an unheard-of luxury for their
hearthstones ; it could not be purchased for much less
than M. per ton, without carriage. The fuel they use is
wood, gathered generally by the wife on her return home,
or purchased at so much the faggot from the farmer,
unless they may have been able to secure the top of a
tree, &c., &c. His grist corn he receives at Gs. per bushel;
but you may depend it is not of the best sample, and
the price is deducted from his wages. He works nearer
twelve hours per day than ten hours— any little overtime
being paid for by a pint of cider, and possibly a crust of
bread and cheese. The wages of women run from 6d. to
Bd. per day for nearly the same number of hours—not
starting so. early, perhaps, in the morning, but mostly
returning with the men, after which their household duties
have to be done, if done at all. They breakfast before
leaving ; but milk is mostly a luxury to the men—lucky,
indeed, if they can secure a meal of Swede turnips, mixed
with potatoes, and fried in a little fat ; and if the pota-
toes fall short, the former alone suffices, with a little
bread and a drop of weak tea, while the hunch of bread,
with a little cheese, butter, or raw bacon, constitutes
their midday meal, washed down, perhaps, with a pint
of cider. Fresh meat ! yes, the only sight they have
of that is at the farmhouse, when after extra hard work
they partake of the meal provided for them, hardly after
the manner of human beings for eagerness. My heart has
often ached when present at the fortnightly reckonings to
hear the following interrogations :—Joe ? Yes, sir. How
much coming to you ? Let me see ; you didn't work
three-qoarters of a day on Tuesday on account of the rain.
Half a day, sir. How much grist ? A bushel. Rent 2s.
Here reckons up, and bands the son of toil the magnificent
sum of 7s. 4d. to support his family for a fortnight. I
have known women proceed in the depth of winter, in the
cold, early dawn, to the turnip fields, clad in some cast-off
coat of the male sex, with the bisgay over their shoulder,
to dig turnips from the frozen soil. Ten shillings, with
ls. out for rent, is considered good wages near a railway
station of the Bristol and Exeter Railway, with the dis-
tinct understanding of no perquisites whatever. I have
heard farmers say that they are aware they rob the turnip
fields, but the farmers knowingly wink thereat, so long as
they do not rob to feed the pigs. To conclude, I know a
woman working on the same farm for years, owned by the
occupier, who arrived one winter's morning to dig turnips
at eight o'clock instead of 7.30, for which she was mulcted
one halfpenny out of her daily wage of sixpence."

Mr. Bright's speeches, edited by Professor James
E. Thorold Rogers, have been published by Messrs. Mac-
millan.

A meeting of " gentlemen willing to join in the
defence of British freedom, as represented in the person of
William Murphy," was held in Manchester on Monday, but it
WAS "strictly private." It is stated that Murphy was pre-
sent, and that the main object of the meeting was to raise a
"defence fund."

Fifteen Irishmen have been charged at the
police court, Stockton-on-Tees, with riot and assaulting the
police. They were the ringleaders of a body cf Irish who
had got up a drunken row a day or two ago in the town,
and turned it into a bear-garden. Ten of tLem were sent to
prison for a month.

Among the persons charged at Liverpool the other
day with being drunk and disorderly was a woman named
Mary Herd. The bridowell-keepor, in answer to the usual
question, "Is the prisoner known?" replied that she had
been "up" 117 times. Sho was committed to gaol for a
month, and the conviction was ordered to be recorded.

A Monsieur B-, well known in Parisian life,
having recently lost every shilling at a certain sporting
club where play is carried on in Paris, went to the country,
where his sister lent him £l5O. He won all back again, and
got a considerable sum of money in hand. He then wont to
his hotel, to his bootmakor, and tailor, paid them, and made
arrangements to bo fed, clothed, and shod for ten years. He
ought to have been a Britisher for his originality.

The Leeds Express says Mr. J. S. Mill has written
as follows to Mr. Holyoake, of London :—" Avignon, Aug.
28, 1868.—Dear Sir,—l enclose a subscription of £lO to the
fund for defraying the expenses of Mr.Bradlaugh's election to
the House of Commons. I do so in the confidence that Mr.
Bradlaugh would not contest any place where, by so doing,
he would risk the return of a Tory in the room of a sup-
porter of Mr. Gladstone and of the disendowment of the
Irish Chureh.—l am, dear sir, yours very faithfully, J. S.
Mill.—Austin Holyoake, Esq."

At Caldon Lowe, Staffordshire, an attempt has
been made to level a rock by a monster blast. Tho rock
formed part of the limestone quarries of the North Stafford-
shire Railway Company. The rock had been perforated at
its base, a chamber five feet square having been formed at the
end of the tunnel. In this chamber 36 cwt. of powder was
deposited, and when the powder was fired the rock opened
and crumbled as if by magic. The blast was not quite so
successful as was expected, but a minor blast is expected to
complete the operation, by which, in all, some 14,000 tons
of limestone will have been dislodged.

The alleged murder of a police officer in Shoreditch
was inquired into yesterday by Mr. J. Humphreys, coroner,
at the Bull Tavern, Lever-street, St. Luke's. The deceased
is Charles Clay, the warrant officer at tho Worship-street
Police-court, who was alleged to have been murdered in
Norfolk-gardens, Shoreditch, while waiting to arrest a thief.
The jury returned a verdict " that the deceased met
his death by accidental falls, and that he was sober at
the time." The coroner read the verdict, and the
foreman said " Was sober at the time." Coroner :
I have read the words to you. Foreman—We wish it to
go in, for misstatements have been made, and therefore cal•
culated to damage. Coroner—l am bound to accept your
verdict, but lam quite of a different opinion. Officer,
dissolve the court. The proceedings then terminated.

The quarterly return of pauperism for the three
months ending June 1868 shows a decrease every week from
the beginning of the quarter to the end. The number re-
lieved in England and Wales in the last week of March
was 993,646, but in the fourth week of June the
total had fallen to 922,563; compared, however, with
other years the return is not reassuring. In 1866 the
paupers ,in receipt of relief on the last day of June were
841,489 ; for the same week in 1867 there were 884,823 ;
and for 1868, 929,563. The metropolis is charged
with the greatest number of that class of the com-
munity, described as "indefinite and non-productive,"
f. 9 per cent. of its whole population being included under
that category. Wales comes next with 6.6 per cent. ; the
South Eastern dibtrict follows with 6.4 per cent., and York
is the lowest with 3.9 per cent.

THE NEW ATLANTIC CABLE.—The Journal du
Havre says :—" The Transatlantic cable from Brest to
New York, an undertaking which appeared to commence
under such brilliant auspices, does not appear to go on so
well as the shareholders might desire. Great fear is felt
that the United States will refuse the concession—so far
as concerns that Government—to M. Erlanger, who has
committed the great crime, in their eyes, of having been
the banker of the Southern States during the rebellion."

A DANGEROUS VISITOR. ThO - authorities of
Trieste have issued a notice warning all persons to be
careful as to where they bathe, as at this moment there is
a large shark in the bay. One man has already been
bitten. He was smimming close to a bathing establish•
men% when he was seized by the thigh. He cried out,
and a rope was thrown to him, Lut before he could be
pulled from the water the voracious fish again made en
attack on him, breaking his leg below the knee. He was
conveyed to the hospital, but fears aro entertained that
tl3 140 ►'ill kugt,,to3l4 NPRtAed.