The Herald of Wales. — 1889-09-07 (Swansea, West Glamorgan, Wales)

CAREER. to try at any rate to induce them also to accept the conclusions at which we have arrived at Pontypridd—not by appealing to your feelings, but, if I may say so, by argumentative placing of the facts before you. Our enthusiasm is greater than can be described. It is well-known that Pontypridd and the Rhondda Valley is the backbone of Welsh feeling in Glamorganahire, and it is to that district that you owe the great 811Ce8613 which attends your eisteddfod. If you eliminated the districts arising out of Pontypridd for your eisteddfodic gatherings, what poor and uninteresting gatherings they would be. We only take it here at this moment. You have from the neighbourhood of Pontypidd something like fourteen choirs competing. Gentlemen, consider if you eliminated the population out of which these choirs are derived, what would be the position of the committee of this eisteddfod at this present moment. Enthusiasm is a very good quality, and we as Welsh people have plenty of it, but our enthusiasm ought to take a practical shape. The people of Pontypridd have allowed their enthusiasm to cool down into concrete form, and- it appears to-day in the shape of a guarantee fund, subscribed spontaneously by the district, of £2,596. (Loud applause.) First of all, the character of the population. The population of Pontypridd is in the main a working population, but, as I said before, they are a population to go to swell the number of eisteddlodan. They are the population who go to form our great choirs; they are the population that have won for us prominence in choral singing all the world over; they are the population that no eisteddfod can do without. They are therefore the population that it is the duty of the National Eisteddfod to cultivate and to educate,—educate in other matters beside music. They are educatiag themselves ,in vocal music. Bring among them men of refinement, such as those gentlemen whom we have seen here to-day, and whose remarks were listened to with so much pleasure and appreciation by the population. We want you to bring these people to teach us something mere than we know now. We want Mr. Tarpin, Mr. John Thomas, Mr. Caldicott, to come and tell us some home truths. Facts are stubborn things. The gentlemen who asked me to represent them to-day have taken the trouble to collate a few facts and figures. Within a circuit of 15 miles of Pontypridd—iou know it is simply the centre of a large pop filiation, and not a suburbofromeplaceorothee(laughter). Pointy, pridd hi not a suburb of any tOirtl ;it is an old town with an ancient historyand other traditions, and has been in existence as king as the town of Swansea. (No, no.) Pontypridd has grown from it. centre, end it is now the base of a large population, numbering, within the 15 miles, 198,324, A, Swansea has taken that line, pursuing an umfavourable criticism, let me also return them in theirowei coin. Swanseacempares very unfaveurably by the side of Ponntplel in that respect. The population of Po dii 49 si,324,?withixt a radlu.a of 15 miles, an wsnsea is 245,474 in the same distance, which is 252,960 in favour of Pontypridd. Let us enlarge the area and go to 26 miles. We h.'nd in 1881 a population of 583,016 within 26 mils's of Pontypridd. The figures from that time rota now— and we have not magnified the rate—."e have taken at 658,439. Let us compare SVansea again. In 1881, in the 25 miles, the popula:ion was 350,356. We take the same proportiona,,e increase' and that is giving Swansea something, because Swansea increases at nothing like the same rate as Pontypridd—and we can give them 46,215, making a grand total of 396,571, or 261,858 in favour of Poutypridd. It made me smile somewhat to think that Swansea should their railway accommodation and There is only one main ibit  t"..eY  An inquest has been held before Mr: Clarke Aspinall, the Liverpool coroner, concerning the leath of Jane Schmidt, the widow of 170de-rick Schmidt, a colt= merchant. The deceased, who was 39 years of age, had for some time resided at the Isle of Man, but latterly with her snother, Mrs. Aim Wallace, at 39, Upper Baker-street, Liverpool. Her husband died about six years ago, and left her 2,000 or 3,000 dole., but with this she speculated a good deal in business, and lost the greater part of it. She was given to drinking, and for the past fortnight had been much dejected, prinei*ly on aocount of money matters. She commenced a drinking bout on Saturday week, and continued drinking the whole week. Unable to sleep, she obtained some laudanum. She asked her mother to obtain for her a larger quantity than a peuny-worth, but the mother declined. On ' Saturday:evening she half -filled a dolly-tub with water, and tried to put her head into it, but her mother prevented her. Mrs. Wallace went upstains, and on coming down again found her daughter with her head in a pan of water. She tried to pull her away, but was unable to do so. Mrs. Wallace went to call in some neighbours, and when she came back she fund the deceased lying on the floor:dead. The jury returned a verdict of suicide while in a state of temporary .insanity.  c number  talk about facilities.