"Trish Prosperity " the Spertutor makes use of a number of statistics of Professor Leone Levi's in which he shows that Ireland proportion to population, has made in the Inst thirty yours even greater progress than England and Scotland." Tt says Lot us examine first the Rally If we take the eight principal Irish railways ing the past half-year, we find that they thout exception, show an increased volume of trallic. The total gross receipts of these Tines show an increase of £36,906, or nearly 3 jer cent., over the corresponding period of $86. The average dividend on the ordinary stocks of the Companies has risen from 33 per vent. to 4 per cent. It is sometimes asserted that in the case of Ireland, increase in Railway Returns is not necessarily a sign, since it probably only means that the people have taken to idling their time away, and wasting their money in gadding about the country. An analysis of the returns shows, however, that this is not so. Though the passenger traffic has risen, it has not risen in frat: Ti we examine next the Banking large " proportion as the goods and mineral Returns, as published by the Registrar-General for Ireland, they will be seen to show some and cash balances in the Joint-Stock Banks very curious facts. Last June, the deposits
showed a decrease, as compared with the same date in 1885, of £17,000. Such was the immediate result of the mere threat of Home-rule. This June, the deposits and cash balances show an increase of £116,000. Such was the result of the assurance that the Union would be maintained. The balances the Post-Office and Trustee Savings-Banks show an increase of £246,000 over the corresponding period of last year. Their is now £4,832,000, the largest h the Savings-Banks' deposits in Ireland have ever stood. The capital invested in Government and India Stocks on which "dividends are payable at the Bank of Ireland, shows also the substantial increase of £295,000, or nearly 1 per cent. Taking next the returns as to the consumption of intoxicating liquors, we find still stronger facts to show that Ireland is not getting poorer.
The drink bill of the country is but the writer says that this may not mean an i condition; it may demoralisatis In matter of drink it is noted that while England, compared with last year, has reduced her consumption of spirits as a beverage "by 626,097 gallons and Scotland has decreased hers by 175,781 Sto.616 gallons, and where an Englishman gallons, Treland has increased hers' by drinks one bottle of spirits an [rishman drinks two. Instead of the save suing to raise the moral om dition of the peasantry, apparently went into th pockets of the publicans. "Childhood" is a sentimental article and "Harvest Homes" a humdrum one, but the letter describing the Doctor-Duke at Moran is very interesting. Duke Carl Theodore. of Bavaria, quite quietly and unostentatiously has been practising as an oculist and physician, and a correspondent of the Spectator gives a very taking account of the work he and his Duchess are ug. '*Anapology to Mr. Jacob Bright,"
Radical-faddist brother of the' ex-'Tribune of the people, isa clever and severe tide on a letter which one of the obscurities who fill the correspondence columns of the Spectator addressed to the Editor, finding fault with his having said that it was "hardly decent" in Mr. Jacob to show 80 publicly how utterly he separates him self from the policy of his brother. The apology, Mr. Jacob will probably think worse tin the original offence.
The Suturday does not lend itself to quotation this week. of failure which the Government's conduct of affairs has made general & the majority of its friends, it says that it is not little remarkable that the Government has succeeded in keeping a majority together during so long and exhausting a series of debates. It praises Mr. Smith's management of the House and Mr. Balfour's courageous conduct of the Trish measures. One retort of the Irish Secretary's is given which was fair and sharp He reminded an_ assailant, who had com: Es modern predecessors, that they in pared him to his disadvantage with all
their turn were denounced on the same egod grounds with equal violence. A good deal of space in this number is given to military matters in the articles Gumers or Wagyur fences" and. Army last named has special reference to the threatened loss of General Hauley's services. One of the telegrams which we publish to-day informs us that a Royal Warrant has been issued empowering the Secretary for War to retain the services of officers of distinction who would otherwise be retired. By this means, no doubt General Hamley will kept on the active list, and such instances of the stupid mechanical working of a rule avoided, as General Prendergast's retirement in the midst of the operations in Burmah, The same rule, adhered to in a hard and fast manner, might, as the Saturday points out, have led to the Commander in Chief in the field being obliged to surrender his command to a General who had that moment arrived from England, just when the enemy was developing formidable attack. "Indian Finance enters fully into the position of the Indian Government in money matters and shows very clearly that these have been brought inti an_ unsatisfactory condition, Later news of them, and particularly of the revenue from opium, will make affairs rather worse. An article on Bishop Ulla-thorne, the retiring Roman Catholic Bishop of Birmingham, recalls the time of the Papal Aggression, now almost forgotten, and_of the promulgation of the dogma of Papal Infallibility, There are many references to Cardinal Newman, perhaps the only convert to Roman Catholicism in not of that faith feel a wan interest. The whom any large number of Englishmen,
Bishop was thought not to share the wishes and sentiments of his Archbishop at the Vatican Council, and the Saturday thinks there can be little doubt that he shared the fears and doubts of Cardinal Newman, who addressed a remarkable letter to him on the subject and on the proceedings at the Council. "Cardinal Newman selected him as a type of a "straightforward Englisl aman" and the writer says that though. he cannot be called a great. scholar—j haps hardly a great theologian—Dr. theme is just the kind of man Leo, XUT would delight to honour, Some of his independence of character may have come from his beginning life as a midshipman.
The St. James's Gazette has a curious account of " Banking and Law in Babylon" founded on the tablets recovered some years since by Mr. Rassam. The Byibi family seem to have been capitalists and bankers for seven generations 2500 yours and s0 ago, and the tablets give a fair iden of their business and lawsuits, The writer says The business of the firm appears to have resembled very closely that of the native Jankers of Egypt and India of the present day. There are large transactions in merchandise wut foreign products as well as slaves and cattle; but their chief sources of wealth appear to have been two. In the first place they aulvanced either seed or the money to purchase. seed to farmers and peasants, receiving hack at ha me the amount advanced, with a liberal increment cither in money or kind. They also appear to have been the publican or tax-farm und to have collected both the taxes duc to the Government and the tithes "lue to the temples; and from the advance of mcnzy to needy taxpayers a very large profit was derived, the interest being often as high 30, 40, and even 60 per-cent.
And of the administration of the Law These ancient documents show that at a very remote period, as early as the days when Abram was leaving his Chaldean home, the jaws were administered by judges who sit in the city-gate, and there in the sight of the people dealt out justice, apparently of @ ver common-sense kind. The care with which the legal tablets are drawn up, and the frequent statements that the judges consulted tie precedents established by former eases, would lead us to suspect that the later Jewish: legislators were not uninfluenced in. the com-ion of Talmudic law by the code of their Loan brethren, In a flat number of the Pull 3 is one paper in which the impossibility of getting ladies to travel in special compartments is amusingly shown, We can't get, em to go into special compartments, the station master said to the interviewer, "the the thing can't be done." "On the' other hand gentlemen object to travel alone with ladies. Why, only this morning an ex nent Scotch Judge got into a carriage and found he would be alone with a Indy. He got out again, pretty quickly, I can tell you." The Station Master wound up his testimony by saying The fact is, ladies will go where they like,"
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.