a unanimous opinion on board that her spars hindered her more in a head wind than they helped her in a fair one." THE LONDON RIOTS IN 1886. I give the following extracts from "Haydn's Dictionary of Dates," as a small object-lesson of what a very small London mob can do when it means mischief. "Peaceable mass meeting of the unemployed in Trafalgar Square, joined by the Social Democrats with red flag led by Hyndman, Burns, and Champion, who, unchecked for about two hours (4 to 6 p.m.), from Pall Mall to Oxford Street, and neighbourhood, smash windows, ransack shops, attack and rob private carriages; finally dispersed: police organization inefficient (except by Superintendent Cuthbert); estimated damage £16,000, 8th Feb.; other meetings; rioting checked 9th, 10th Feb.; rioters sentenced to various terms of imprisonment. ."-March, 1886. "Riotous assemblage of the unemployed in Trafalgar Square dispersed 17th Oct.; meeting at Hyde Park dispersed by the police after severe conflict, 18th Oct.; again dispersed 19th Oct.; meeting in Trafalgar Square, about 2000 went to Westminster Abbey; disorderly, 23rd Oct.; quiet meetings 24th and 27th Oct. and since; arrests for seditious language, &c., 4th to 8th Nov.; meetings in Trafalgar Square prohibited, 8th and 18th Nov.; processions of disorderly mob dispersed, and meetings in Trafalgar Square prevented by mounted and foot police, aided by the 1st Life Guards; several severe conflicts with men using iron bars and knives; many seriously injured, chiefly police; Mr. Cunninghame Graham, M.P., a magistrate, and Mr. John Burns and many others arrested; moderate conduct of the police; Sir C. Warren's arrangements thoroughly successful, Sunday, 13th Nov.; many sentenced to penal servitude. . . ."-14th Nov., 1886. WHEAT-GROWING IN SOUTH AUSTRALIA. (FROM "SOUTH AUSTRALIA," EDITED BY WM. HARCUS.) I give the following extract from South Australia, by Wm. Harcus, to show the great contrast between wheat-growing in Australia and at home. The great drawback is, however, drought, which only too often ruins the season's crop.-R. B. M. "To this it must be added that South Australian wheat and flour are the finest produced in the world. This is seen by the fact that in London it brings the very highest price, and in the other Colonies it is bought to mix with their own cereal produce. "The cost of cultivating wheat in Australia is very small compared with that of other countries. Anything like scientific farming is rarely, if ever, attempted in the Colony. The old saying, 'Tickle the land with a hoe and it laughs with a harvest,' is almost literally true here. Virgin soil is ploughed up three or four inches deep, and often, without even fallowing it, the seed is thrown in, and, should the season be moderately favourable, a fair crop rewards the small labour of the husbandman. This goes on from year to year—anything like a rotation of crops is never attempted. There are farms in South Australia which have been annually cropped with wheat for twenty or twenty-five years, and yet last harvest they produced as abundantly as ever. Though the farming is what would be called slovenly in England, yet as a whole, and over a series of years, it answers the purpose of the agriculturist. There are many farmers who have grown rich in this way. Beginning on a small scale, with a section or two of eighty acres, they have, from the profits of one year, enlarged their freeholdings for the next, until several of them now have very large and valuable estates, which yield them a handsome income. "From the table published in this book, it will be seen that the average price of wheat is low, and nothing could enable the farmer to thrive, with his comparatively small average per acre, and the low price at which he is compelled to sell, but the cheapness of production. The expense of cultivation is small, and the gathering in of the crop, when it is fully ripe, costs a mere trifle. The greatest invention ever produced for the agriculturists of South Australia is Ridley's reaping-machine, which reaps and thrashes the wheat by one simple process. A machine of this kind could be used only where the climate is dry, and where the grain is allowed to ripen and harden in the ear. In some of the Australian Colonies the machine cannot be used, in consequence of the moisture in the air. In South Australia, however, as soon as the crop is fully ripe, the machine is put into the field, and the wheat is reaped and thrashed with amazing rapidity, and at a very small expenditure. It may safely be said that the cost of farming has been reduced to the minimum in South Australia." |