Denton and Haughton Examiner, etc. — 1885-05-30 (Denton, Greater Manchester, England)

STANLEY'S NEW WORK.  Mr. H M. Stanley, the intrepid explorer, has just I published a new work on the Congo, which he considers a country the products of which are most valuable. He contends that Great Britain would derive great benefit from developing and taking advantage of the exhaustless resources of this fertile region. Then as to scenery, "what language," sAys he, "shall do justice to the glories of Congo scenery The Mississippi, the Hudson, the Indus, the Ganges, the Irawaddy, the Euphrates, the Nile, the Niger, the La Plate, the Amazon—l think of them all," he says, "and I can see no beauty on their shores that is not excelled manifold by the natural beauty of this scenery, which, since the Congo highlands were first fractured by volcanic caprice or by some wild earthdance, has remained unknown' unhonoured, and unsung." Those who are disposed to too readily criticise the actions of European travellers in dealing with natives will do well to read the account given of a difficulty with Gatula. Two men had been murdered by his people, and Mr. Stanley was called upon to avenge them, but shrinking from war in cold blood —he made peace on the chief paying an indemnity. A little later, in the year 1883, the steamers were fired upon for the first time during four years, and it became necessary to retaliate. The wounding of a chief brought proposals for peace, but notwithstandir ; the threat that on the arrival of a Krupp gun they would "all be blown up to the sky," nine days passed in negotiations before they could be induced to pay a fine of 800 matako, value £l5, as an indemnity. After much disappointment Mr. Stanley's idea of a Congo station was realised, and it is thus described: A well-governed community of soldier-labourers, impregnable and unassailable by Its discipline, and the mutual dependence of one upon another; the chiefs cool-headed, jealous, and prudent, but not too militarily stiff to chill the advances of the aborigines. They possessed sufficient bonhomie to be appreciated for their cordiality, yet just distant enough to repress vulgar familiarity, and prevent infraction of the social distinctions that must ever exist between educated intelligence, governed by Christian morality, and unsophisticated barbarism, too light-minded even to become the slaves to savage passion, or the partisans in factious strife among the natives. . . .  At Langa-Langa a perfectly clotheless tribe was discovered, the women of which, in the absence of any covering, it is said, "have resorted to marring that comeliness of which they might have boasted by scarring their faces and busts." The prediction is hazarded, however, that cloth will eventually win the day here; for the travellers were literally besieged for the very smallest refuse of clout-rag that they possessed, and a fat goat was given in exchange for two yards of bright-red handkerchief. A harrowing account appears of an Arab slave-raid, extending over nearly a year, and leading to the sacrifice of thousands of lives. Throughout his travels Mr. Stanley has kept a keen eye on the commercial advantages anticipated from the enterprise so liberally fostered by the King of the Belgians. He not only estimates the number of the inhabitants and the extent of their territory, but observes that in the forest of Lukolele there must be 460,000 useful trees, which, allowing only 40 cubic feet to the tree, would furnish over 18,000,000 cubic feet of timber. With its numerous statistics, special maps, copies of the international agreements, and graphic accounts of the country and people, Mr. Stanley's work may claim to be a full historic record of the foundation of the Congo Free State, from which such beneficient results for the African race are hoped for in the near future.  THE Revised Bible shipped by them per Cunard steamship Gallia, which sailed from Liverpool on the 9th inst., were delivered in Toronto and other cities of the Dominion by noon on the 20th inst. GEORGE TOWNSEND, hosiery manufacturer, has been brought up in custody at Leicester charged with forging a deed purporting to be a mortgage on certain property, whereby he received payment of £300.. The prisoner, it was stated, absconded, and was captured as he was leaving for Australia, end afterwards attempted to commit suicide. He had, it was alleged, obtained possession of a mortgage belonging to his sister, which he forged. He was remanded. . Tuz well-known linguist Professor kliitnier, whose 80th birthday has just been celebrated in Berlin, has received a congratulatory address from the Philological Society of London. Professor Daniel Schenkel, the most prominent representative of German Liberal Protestantism, died on Wednesday at Heidelberg. Tux Dee anglers and boatmen, with licensed nets, have experienced very indifferent sport with salmon during the past fortnight. On several occasions the rains have brought poisonous substances out of the Pickhill Brook, which enters the river near Holt, and the consequences have been that apparently fine fish --salmon, pike, perch, and trout—have been picked out dead or in the last stages of asphyxia. Other fish have been seen leaping out of the poisonous fluid in the futile endeavour to escape. If these repeated pollutions continue the waters between Holt and Chester will be denuded of fish.