The North-Eastern Weekly Gazette. — 1888-01-28 (Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland, England)

COCOATINA. Sold by Chemists, Grocers, &c., in tins at 1/6, 3/-, &c.  even seem to know whore the disease has appeared. They are Oompletely without system, aad, as a matter of course, the disealir hati.iiisAelitarming progre§s.  Atr-sreen trial which has just been concluded in London illustrates the curious working of the criminal law. A man named Sera was tenant of a house in the Strand which was burnt down. The fire broke out on three floors simultaneously, and so rapidly did the house blaze that his two little sons were burnt to death. The man himself had only just gone to bed, and all the circumstances combined to provehis guilt. He was, accordingly, first put on his trial for the murder of his two sons, the death of the children being directly due to the crime of arson which he had undoubtedly committed. But the jury acquitted him of murder, though the law is clear that when a man commits a crime, and thereby causes another person's death, the criminal intention shall be held to cover the more serious crime. But the jury would not see it in this light, and acquitted him, believing, apparently, that he had not intended to kill the children. He has now been tried for arson, and convicted. Legally he was as guilty of murder as of arson ; but the jury, after the manner of many juries, would not blame him for the indirect consequences of the act. He is a great rascal, and his punishmeo —twenty years in prison—is thoroughly deserved.  THAT the "fool of the family" should go into the Church is a well enough known domestic formula in the mapping out of the lives of the young men of social position. A correspondent in a religious paper, who has been analysing the ordination returns of the Church, seems to think that the supply of this kind of commodity is hardly as great as it should be. The clergy are increasing at the rate of about 274 per year, and the increase of the population is about 300,000; this is, roughly, an average of about one new clergyman for every 1,100 new babies. Quite enough of both, will be the average verdict; but this amateur clergy analyist demurs. He deplores that there should be 100 less clergymen than in the previous year, and -Nests the awful heresy that perhaps the Church may be, like an ordinary mundane institution, "experiencing the natural economic results of the present destitution of the country ;"—in other words, that even the fools of the family are beginning to reflect that in the Church they can't get so much for doing so little as they formerly could. So much the worse for the particular individuals : but as for the rest of the world—well, Nature is hardly likely to stand still even because 100 less Establishment parsons are made in one year.  suggesi  A GREAT (NACU is to be raised about what I is known as the hire-purchase system: the I system of purchasing goods and paying for them by instalments, the ownership not being established until the whole of the money has been paid. The system is extending very rapidly, and a Midland Traders' AssociatioUdeelares that it applies not merely to furniture and machinery, but to every form of personal and domestic property. It has many friends because of its convenience; but it is a costly system in the long run, and it offers innumerable openings to fraud. The possession of goods on hire often deceives tradesmen to give extensive credit, until they find how they have been duped. Again, the goods are frequently pledged or sold, of course fraudulently ; and there is now hardly any description of property which may not be suspected. It is now declared that the Trade Protection Societies and Chambers of Commerce will take the matter up with the view of asking Parliament to compel the registration of all hire amtpur• chase agreements. There would be a loud outcry against this.