NOTES AND QUERIES.
THE new Board of Works with its City representatives has the op- portunity of signalizing itself by pronouncing judgment on the Smithfield site question. Wonderful is the lack of invention in those who lay out plans of London. Smithfield market has been removed, the ground is left vacant, something must be done with it ; and the prevalent idea seems to be that itsmust be converted into a meat-market ! As if London City, driven from the idea of a live- meat market, could fall back upon no other invention than a dead- meat market. There is a splendid opportunity for recovering a great piece of open space and fresh air. If room is wanted for a meat-market, it may be found in the neighbourhood of Smithfield. There is the old Fleet Prison, where mutton might take the place of debtors; and there are numberless small streets around Smith- field, the opening of which would increase the value of the pro- perty. It would be an improvement to make these streets into a meat-market : it would be the reverse of an improvement to cover the open space near Bartholomew's Hospital with mutton, beef, and butchers.
The delays in the Metropolitan district post are a subject of general complaint which only partially finds its way into the public journals. The post is continually breaking its promise, especially in the short distances. That transit which is promised for two hours will take three or five. A letter posted at four a. tn. on Monday bears the twelve o'clock post-mark, and does not reach its destination till a quarter before three. We suspect that these de- lays arise principally from the labour of sorting ; and we have yet had no distinct explanation why one of the items in Rowland Hill's first plan, the preliminary sorting, has not been carried out. Mr. Hill proposed that in every receiving-house there should be an alphabetically-divided letter-box. In order to use this, the public should be provided with an alphabetical list of post-stations, and also it would be necessary to give the stations such names as the public would be willing to use. If London were divided into a given number of stations, distinctly named, with letter-boxes at all the receiving-houses for those stations, it is clear that the process of sorting would be minimized. The public would have to co- operate by attending to the alphabetical order, but it would be in- cited to do so by the penalty of delay for neglect.
For what reason is the Trevelyan-Wood correspondence with the Dean of Hereford now given to the world ? Potentates are always to be feared when they make gifts. When a public de- partment volunteers a printed statement, there is something at the bottom of it. The two letters which have been spontaneously published this week, and appear to have been as spontaneously written to the Dean of Hereford, are by Sir Charles Trevelyan and Mr. John Wood : the two officials address their correspond- ents as "My dear Mr. Dean" or "My dear Dean ": Sir Charles expatiates upon the blessings which will be effected when the pre- sent system of Civil Service examination shall have been at work for some time ; and Mr. John Wood, besides anticipating such a result, throws out a hint. The Dean has, for several years, selected candidates for office in the Excise from among the most deserving in the schools under his observation ; and he will confer an addi- tional obligation on Mr. Wood if in his visit to the Mechanics In- stitution at Huddersfield, he continue these selections. He may also, it is hinted, find that an occasional prize of an excise- man's place is likely to promote merit and stimulate exertion. Posts in the public service, therefore, are now placed regularly in the category of school-prizes. But what is the reason why Sir Charles and Mr. Wood give themselves this certificate ? What is the motive for the new bait thrown out, through the Huddersfield Institution and the Hereford Schools, to the exciseman class of the public ? It looks very like a new plan to make the substantial artisans and yeomen in love with the new system—whatever others may think of it.
Prince Albert has been allowed, we are told by the Daily .2Vews, "avowedly, to take part in the deliberations of the Cabinet.' Where was this avowed ? Nothing is more conspicuous in modern dis- cussion than the difficulty of ascertaining facts, even at the mo- ment of occurrence, much more some few months or weeks after the occurrence. It may be that the participation of Prince Albert in the deliberations of the Cabinet has been stated somewhere, but we do not remember to have seen it. It would be interesting to set this historical question right at once. • Was the late decision of Chief Justice Campbell against the com- pulsory observance of crossing on checks "exceptional," or not ? There was some doubt in the evidence, whether, in the particular case, the crossing was to " Dixon and Co.," or only—" and Co."; and it is thought by some that if this doubt had not existed, the Jury would have given for the defendant. But the present law rests not only on the verdict ; it rests mainly on the instruc- tions of Lord Campbell, that nobody is bound to exercise more caution in cashing a check because it is crossed. Various expedi- ents have been suggested—such as making the check which would otherwise have been crossed payable to a banker in the body of it; or that it should be drawn in the form of a note, with a penny stamp, payable at sight, and requiring indorsement. A third sug- gestion is, a law giving to the crossing an absolute power of pro- tecting the drawer—of course by restricting the payment to "bearer," unless it should reach the bank through another bank specified. We view these mechanical precautions with jealousy. A clever hand at such things could, no doubt, suggest many modes of " doing" the check-drawing public, if the cabalistic words "and Co.," between a couple of lines, were made to have a legal validity. Every new appearance of security introduces a new blind for fraud.
We have been accustomed to attach much value to proverbs and traditions in respect to physical phenomena, on the reasonable impression that they have been the results of cumulative observa- tion. "February fill dyke" has long given that month the repu- tation of being a very wet one. Such, however, is not the fact. By a table of observations at Greenwich, covering a space of thirty-five years, in a pamphlet lately published by Mr. Belville of the Royal Observatory there, it would seem that, on an average of that period, less rain fell in February than in any other month of the year. Our readers will perhaps be equally surprised to learn that the wettest month was October. We believe the same results were arrived at by Professor Phillips in East Yorkshire, and are given in his very interesting work on the rivers and moun- tains of that county ; but we have not the book at hand to refer to. As unexpected may be other results from the Greenwich table. It would seem that 40 per cent more rain falls in the latter six months of the year than in the former ones.
Average, First six months „ 10.39 Second ,, 14.39 Mean annual rain fail. .2478 The same sort of mistake was made with regard -to November, "the month of suicides ": statistics have shown that the greater number of suicides occur in the summer moths—lax business and debilitating beats being more intolerable than fogs.
Is fever a permanent institution wherever it is first established ? A correspondent of the Daily News quotes a private letter from Bermuda, stating that "the old Eclaire is showing herself again in the Rosamond; the hot weather having brought out the fever again," and the new baptism not having altered the constitution of the ship. Is it that the Eclaire has become infected beyond re- covery; or is it that the structure of the ship engenders fever whenever it is under a hot sun ? We believe there have been many vessels whose conformation has produced fever by the im- possibility of eliminating the bilge-water or bad air. It is hard that the sailors of H.M. ships should be made the vile bodies for experiments in the pathology of shipbuilding.
Why was the route of King Victor Emmanuel changed when he was received in Paris ? This is a subject still debated in Turin. The people were led to expect him by one route and the King him- self was led by another. He was sent off in state at his de- parture; but, it was thought on his arrival, and during his visit, that the manifestations of the public were not invited or even facilitated. Is it that the paternal Emperor, who judges for the French, did not wish to give occasion for popular admiration to burst out at the sight of the King who has told the people to judge for themselves, and has exercised his !paternal power to pro- tect them against the ultra-paternity even of the Church ?
It is useless to keep up discussions upon the Credit Mobilier systems, but it will be quite well to note the continued extension from the French centre. The Paris company is now about to es- tablish a bank in Madrid, advancing the Government 24,000,000 seals by way of guarantee.
There is also a mystery at Vienna. The Austrian Government gets up a Credit Mobilier—subscriptions for shares in the "Imperial - Royal Privileged Credit Institution for Commerce and Trade"; the 10th is appointed as the day for the beginning of the subsorip- . tions; the office is besieged with an immense queue at the doors, and soldiers are stationed to keep order ! On the evening of the 14th, issues a notice, abruptly announcing that the subscription "is at an end." The amount to be subscribed was only 1,500,0001.: _ why, for so small a matter, get up the dramatic scene of monetary emeute ? From Austria to Spain we observe that there is this raising of the wind on the Paris plan.
• A contemporary assures us that "the tendency of the Russian peasantry is the very reverse of vagabondage and squatting" ; and for proving the truth of this, we are told, "nothing breaks their heart so certainly as permanent removal from the tombs of their fathers." The tombs of our fathers are usually the last place at which we desire to be " permanently " lodged. How difficult it must be for Englishmen to judge for Russians!
It is dangerous to refer too much to pedigrees. Sir Arthur
. -Wardour proved something more than the antiquity of his family when he cited the name of his ancestor in the Ragman Roll. A claim was recently made to the public on behalf of a gentleman who is related to Defoe ; a very illustrious relationship. It is, however, curious to read in the chronicle of the Annual Register for 1771, page 65, another record of the Defoe family. "January 2d. The following convicts were executed at Tyburn pursuant to their sentence: viz. Mark Marks, for a street-robbery; which he denied to the last; Thomas Hand, for firing a pistol and wounding Joseph Hol- loway, with intent to kill; and John Clerk and Joseph Defoe, for robbing Mr. „ Fordyce of a gold watch and some money. This last is said to be grandson of the celebrated Daniel Defoe, who wrote the True-born Englishman, Ro- binson Crusoe,,Goioncl lack, and other ingenious pieces."
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