Brighouse & Rastrick Gazette. — 1893-01-14 (Brighouse, West Yorkshire, England)

GREAT TEMPERANCE DEMONSTRATION IN LONDON.  What was termed in the programme a "Great Unite! Temperance Demonstration " was held at Exeter Hall on Monday night for the purpose of giving a welcome to Miss Frances E. Willard, the President of the World's Woman's Christian Temperance Union, and other American organisa• tions for the advancement of women's interest. Lady Henry Somerset presided, and nearly every association whose object is the amelioration of woman's lot was represented on the platfrom. The monotony of speaking was relieved by solos on the part of Madame Antoinette Sterling, by partsinging and choruses by a choir of the National Choi al Society, and by organ recitals.—Lady Henry Somerset, in opening the proceedings, said that it was fitting that Exeter Hall should have been chosen as the place in which to receive one who had been so prominent among reformers as Miss Willard. Wherever work was to be done on behalf el women that lady had taken the lead, and had succeeded in making the world wider for women and happier for humanity generally. She traced her ancestry back to the old Puritan fathers, and from them had inherited a firmness and undeviating love of truth which must ever be the basis of a reformer's character. 'The crucial test of Frances Willard's life was when she left the brilliant prospects afforded by her appointment as dean of the first college for women in America and gave her splendid service to the Temperance cause on behalf of members of her own sex. Canon Wilberforce, the Rev. Mark Guy Pearse, Miss Soondervi Powar (of India), Mr. J. G. Woolley, Mrs. Ormiston Chant, Mr. R. F. Horton, Mr. W. F. Stead, Mrs. Amy Hicks, and Mr. J. H. Raper, as representatives of different organisations, having each accorded Miss Willard a hearty welcome, Lady Henry Somerset presented her with a number of illuminated addresses from branches of the British Women's Temperance Association and kindred sociteies, and a banner from the British women members of the World's Woman's Christian Temperacce Union.—Miss Willard, in expressing her acknowledgments, said that she could not help being reminded of the words of Benjamin Franklin when signing a great historic document: "We have got to hang together, or we shall all hang separate." She owed much to her English ancestry, and had learned a great deal from English poets and philosophers, and from her study and experience foresaw a great future for women's influence. She had always been the friend of men as well as of women, and although she had not had the courage to speak in public on the right of women to vote, she did not hesitate for a moment when it came to the great drink question to speak on behalf of both sexes. Their interests were indivisible, for every Aoman was some man's daughter and every man was some woman's son, and those bogeys which some people attempted to raise to dissociate men and women were the worst remnants of old Conserva.tism. She dwelt on the importance of organisation in order to accomplish reforms, and concluded by expressing her thanks for the kindness and courtesy with which she had been received.  At Croydon, on Tuesday, James Peckham, of 4, Quadrant-road, Thornton-heath, a retired publican, and late proprietor of the II Tavern, Croydon, was committed for trial on a charzze of wilfully murdering his wife, Elizabeth, aged 71, whose brains he blew out with a shot from a doublebarrelled gun. With regard to the severe competition now going on at Constantinople between the English and German capitalists for the concession for a railway to Konieh, a well-known financier estimates that the direct loss to English investors trom the success of our German rivals would be £2,800,000, while the indirect loss would be incalculable. tne smack Christina, of Rothesay, was ,roceeding up the Clyde on Saturday during a tong easterly gale and heavy sea, she was driven iihore opposite Port Matilda. The captain and crew if two hands were taken ashore by the Board of Trade officials.