Weekly News. — 1891-07-16 (Blandford, Dorset, England)

HOLIDAY IN INDIA.  Describing a great holiday at Cawnpore on the last Sunday in May, a correspondent of the Times of India says the road to each bathing ghat on the Ganges was filled with a stream of natives in their gayest dresses going to or returning from the bath, which is the first religious duty of the day. Men, women, children, horses, and dogs were all in the water together, while on the banks were devotees engaged in prayer and other religious offices. Scarcely a hundred yards above the bathers, and at the edge of the stream, was a group of six large vultures and two long-legged scavenger birds. The vultures were pulling at an object which appeared above the water, while the other birds looked on. The object, on close examination, proved to be the body of a full grown man, who had very probably died of cholera on the same morning, and had been hurried to the river without the ceremony of burning. A hundred yards below the bathers was another fresh and unburnt body, stranded some three feet from the water's edge, with its attendant party of vultures, which were just beginning to feed. Half-way between this body and the bathers lay a partly burnt body that had been in the river for some time. It seems to be nobody's business to remove the drifting bodies from the neighbourhood of bathing places: the vultures rod the crocodiles are supposed to do all that is net. ssary. Bodies of persons who had died of snake-bite are also put in the river without burning, owing to a belief that the Ganges water may possibly revive them. Cholera is busy at Cawnpore at present, and as all the victims of this disease are put unburnt into the river, the people seem to be doing all they can for the spread of the disease. A single cholera body, dissected by vultures at the edge of the river, and immediately above a large crowd of bathers, is likely to send cholera germs very freely among them. The bathers not only wash their mouths in the water, but drink, and in mauy cases carry it home for consumption. An analysis of water taken from among the bathers on this occasion might have revealed some surprising truths regarding the sacred river, or, more properly speaking, sewer. that runs by the most important towns of the North-West Provinces. In India the sacerdotal character of a river does not resemble that of a priest in the matter of permanency. In a few years the Ganges will cease to be sacred, and the Goomtie will assume the title, with all its honours and ceremonies. It is satisfactory to think that what the Ganges loses in sanctity will be more than compensated by what it will gain in cleanliness,for, as no advantage will accrue to the dead by being thrown into it, their numbers will be considerably diminished.  News has reached Plymouth of a terrible murder committed recently in the city of Pacucha, Mexico, the victim being Mr. James Jefferies, an Englishman, who has resided in that country for about 20 years. Mr. Jefferies, who was an assayer, had lately been buying silver ores for exportation to Liverpool. An assistant, on going to his house, found the door open, and on entering he was horrified to find Mr. Jefferies lying dead on the floor. He was bound hand and foot, five of h. ribs and his breast-bone were fractured, a bed sheet was twisted round his neck, the ends being stuffed into his mouth and down his throat, and he had a severe knife-wound in his left breast. Robbery is believed to have been the motive for the crime. Several arrests have been made.  "Your name is Julia Miller?" "Yes,your honour.' "Tell me how old you are ? " "Twenty-five, your honour." "So! Well, now that you have given your age, we will administer the oath." Oh the size of the sighs a fond lover sighs When some flirt casts him off for a better,  Can never size up with the size of the sighs 01 the poor luckless one who may get her.  "Johnny! Johnny!" said the minister, as he met an urchin one Sunday afernoon, carrying a string of fish, "Do these belong to you ?" " 'e-es,sir; you see that's what they got for chasing worms on Sunday."