Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1879-10-15
From Our Regular Correspondent
Our EuOpean Letter.
LONDON, Eng. Sept. so. 1879.

duuuaI" iuccllHS Is anu lllc iISlIopOlitdu
commissioner of police has presented hi:
annual report to her majesiy's secretary Of
.state. There is no necessary connection
between these occurrences, but the calm
and dispassionate observer will not fail 10
sec, taking the two together, that the ad.
vancement of science, or, rs l might
rather say, the endeavor to advance scien-
tiiic discoveries, is not attended with a
corresponding advancement of good NOR
ais or a diminution of the crimes of the
dangerous classes in this country. In
that process of evolution " which en-.
crosses the attention of many of our good
scientists, l fail to see the progress of a
rogue iuto an honest man. l hear of
" biology and protoplasm, with other
big names; but at the same time the fact
is painfully brought to notice not only Of
an increase of crime but also Of its
commencement at an age not found in the
criminal records Of former times. Bows
not more than eight years old are brought
into the dock of criminal court and
punished for their iniquities. Our philos.
ophers would do better, think, by en-.
deavorng to find out the cause, so as To
stop this downward progress, than by
their ponderous labors to discover what
providence has decreed they shall not dis.
cover, and to disclose the secret of "pro-
toplasm," which protoplasm will not re.
veal. Man has not miscrocopic eye.
The proceedings of the British association
are said to have been constituted of " the
cream and quintessence of tho latest
teachings of biological SCIENCE" but these
latest teachings are simply the teaching of
oldest ideas in new way. 1--WE are
still cropping round the old problems"
said the Times, in commenting upon the
associations meeting, (which in the
of knowledge fascinated the
intelligence and excited the curiosity of
Ionian sages." Those old thinkers put to
themselves the question-What is life, and
what is matter, and what is the informing
principle which runs through all living
thingsP 1--WE, too. when the world is
old, are still propounding with unabated
interest the same questions which 90
down TO the roots of our being; and
scarcely Il president of the British associ-
ton fails to moot in his address some of
the very problems which exercised De-
and Epicurus hundreds of years
ago. But the modern investigation is
different" While improbable discussion
is going on, crime increases, and children
become initiated in vice at an age when in
other times they would not have been out
of the nursery
While cotton-spnners are breaking and
spindes not flying, coal mines are burst
ing and death is destroying. We hear
from all sides the results of :" the war OF
no caution and the ruin of some riot "
amidst capitalists and laborers in industri-
al districts. Lancashire is going the way
of all flesh in her spinning, and
Staffordshire is doing ditto in her coal
mines. Meantime there are predictions OF
more banks breaking; but let us hope
with different difficulties and results than
the "West Of England Bank" whose
directors are just now convicted of false
balance-sheets and sent to the next sessions
for criminal prosecution, though each is
out on heavy bonds. The "art" of book
keeping now.aday by "single or double
entry b" is such charming faIsity to blind
the best of us in figures that the next
reform will be chow not to keep books"
but how to promote ready cash"
Agriculture is clearly losing pursuit in
England Two adverse circumstances
such as never met before have combined
to make it so-failure of crops at home
and enormous competition from abroad.
What is to be the remedy for all this ?
How loug will the climate prove adverse?
How far will the competition extend? The
former must, no doubt, mend sometime
Crops will grow again, no doubt rs well
as they did before; but will the imports
diminish in quantity, and so bring about
an increase in prices? or will they 90 on
increasing rs they have lately been, and sc
lower prices still further? l confess thai
all the evidences appear 10 lean to the
view that the competition in agricultural
produce is only beginning. New land
westward in America is being rapidly
broken up, taken into tillage, sown uni
versally with wheat, and producing re
turns which annually grow larger an(
larger. The surplus corn in America i.
thus increased, and the increase finds it,
principal market in Great Britain are be-
coming altered, and that force of circum
stances will at some near date compel {
radical transformation in the relation!
which ut present exist between tlIage ant
tenure in the United Kingdom.
The people of England, while they arr
proud of their prestige, are never theies!
getting tired of too much foreign war
Cabul is still calamitous subject; anc
the costs and consequences are seriously
weighed in the balance of public opinion
and public good. Such scenes of extrav
agance corruption and expense as mus
paralyze he industry and mar the fortunes
of the most industrious, spirited peopl,
that ever existed, is now seriously debated
by the landowner, the manufacturer, The
merchant, the mechanic, and everybody.
ALPHA.
Paris Letter.