Widnes Examiner. — 1890-10-18 (Widnes, Cheshire, England)

TOUCH AND GO." _— Several letters are unavoidably held over.  Young colliers are now-a-days being afforded opportunities which their fathers never dreamed of. At Haydock there is a Mining School, and on zSaturday evening there was a prize distribution to a creditable number of successful students. "More light" amongst miners means in the end more money and less .loss of life.  Here ie a tragedy in brief which may yet form the basis of a three-volume novel:—" ANew York correspondent writes :—Advices from England say that the aunt of Robert Cole, in Southampton, has left him a large fortune. The good news came too late, as Cole cut his throat on Monday in Louisville, Kentucky, in a fit of despondency over poverty."  There can be no doubt as to the approaching famine in the West of Ireland through the failure of the potato crop; but the " Times " for party purposes is doing all it can to minimise it. It is feared that if the people of this. country turn their attention, as they ought, to the distress in the sister isle, they will not listen at the same time to proposals for buying out Irish landlords. Nor should they.  The Chief-Constable considerately explained to the Warrington Magistrates, on Monday, how it became necessary in one case for a policeman to use his staff. He had been hardly used, and drew it and used it in self-defence. This is as it should be ; but how different from the way they have in Ireland! The Irish constabulary don't wait until they are beset; at a hint from a Removable they "go for" harmless people, and risk breaking their truncheons in breaking heads. But their days as bludgeon-men are numbered.  An inquest was held in London, on Tuesday, on the body of a suicide named Sydney Clay. He was a man of 36 years of age, who had had a sunstroke in India; but the immediate cause of the depression which led him to take his life was the loss, in the streets, of a pet dog. He loved his toy terrier, and, looking to the future,thought perhaps with the "untutored Indian" that-admitted to that equal sky His favourite dog might bear him company.  Mrs. Hannah Newbrook, widow of the late' "Sammy Buttercup" has again married, or, as " Sammy " would have said," hoo's clogged ageon.' This Lancashire metaphor is understood to have reference to a pair of clogs being soled for the second time ; but there is a word-hunter of our acquaintance who will have it that what is meant is that a wife is a clog, and that, on marrying a second time, she " clogs again." It is needless to say that the philologlist in question is "a crusty old bachelor."  The shorthand class in connection with the Warrington Recreative Evening Schools Association has made a good start; and it is to be hoped the pupils will stick to it. In the days that are coming, the clerk who cannot write shorthand will have to take a seat very much at the back. Shorthand is more generally useful than French or German; but, acquired along with one or the other of these languages, it is an immense advantage to -the young men who would rise in the world "from their dead selves to higher things."  Mr. John Crosfield has ceased to be an alderman of the Borough of Warrinf.T.,t?n.. He has sent in his resignation along with a shilling to cover the requisite fine; and there is reason to fear that several other of the older Aldermen will follow suit. The Council can ill afford to lose such men as Mr. Crosfield ; for he has had large experience, and is as far removed from petty tricks and self-seeking as light is from darkness. He spoke last year of resigning ; but was induced to defer his decision on the matter. Who will the Tory majority elect to . fill his seat F Can they rise above party and select the best man P•  The Emperor William means business as a Socialist. He is about to erect 4000 working-men's houses built in a suburb of Berlin, with the object of their becoming the r roperty of the occupants. The rent will not be large, but it will provide for a redemption of the capital. Further, at his suggestion, special workmen's trams are about to be run, at low fares, between the city and the outskirts 'Where the workmen reside. The Emperor evidently believes with Lord Rosebury that "the politics of the present and the future are the Politics of the poor."  Messrs. Dillon and O'Brien are to sail from France for America oti Saturday next. Meantime they are enjoying themselves in Paris, where  shadows" cease from troubling and constabulary are at rest. Q uestioned fry a correspondent as to the Government asking for their tradition, Mr. Dillon said :—" That would be a stop which would not have the remotest chance of success. I should hope they would be ashamed of such a thing.. England, for so long the champion a liberty, asking France to give up two British members of Parliament I believe we are the only instance of members of the English Parliament being political refugees in a foreign country."  There is no room to question the sincerity of the Salvationists in their mourning for the loss-of Mrs. Booth, whose unique personality, splendid preaching power, and womanly tenderness drew them towards her as the Mother of the Army. Good sense was shown in robbing death of some of its terrors by making the funeral comparatively-cheerful, The Salvationists could say with Gerald Massey:—  Strange glory streams through Mee wild rents, And, through the open door of death We see the heaven that beckoneth