was wrought into a symbolism of the subterranean passage of the waters of the Vyrnwy into the midst of Liverpool. Most sincerely do we hope that the climax of this pretty vision may be especially recollected, and that some day we may behold in our city a sculptured fountain worthy, as Lord Powis says, of the noblest ancient art, and typifying in a beautiful manner, plain to all intelligence, the emergence in the midst of our arid, struggling, physically unwholesome life, of the limpid stream which in its native mountains might well suggest to native poesy conceptions as delightful as those which the sweet things of nature prompted in congenial imaginations in early classic days. It was a most fortunate circumstance that the lord of the lands of Powis should thus be capable of casting a halo of classical romance over an event which must live so prominently in our history. The statistics which Mr. Hawksley preferred to those which were inscribed on the large invitation card, give an astonishing impression of the magnitude of the Vyrnwy scheme; and especially is this felt when we consider the enormous future provision for an as yet inconceivable population, which the great lake will by anticipation make. But for our part, we shall scarcely realise the fulness of the supply until we see around us in Liverpool, not only in constant house supply, but in fountains and abundant street and sewer cleansing, and in all sorts of ways which will appeal to the imagination and susceptibilities of the people, evidences of the intelligent and graceful association of the comforts of

civilised reality with the pleasures of feeling and imagination. Lord Powis's speech will effectually preserve in our annals a memento, if nothing more, of the feelings with which a mind of rare grace and felicity contemplated the commencement of the great Vyrnwy waterworks, and which were aroused in many other minds by his appropriate eloquence."

DINNER OF THE SALOP CHAMBER OF

AGRICULTURE.

Saturday, January 21st, 1882.

THE following report is taken from Eddows's Journal of Wednesday, January 25th, 1882

THE EARL OF Powis, who was received with cheers, said: The toast I have to propose to you is the health of "The Clergy and Ministers of other Denominations." I am sure you will not drink it the less heartily upon this occasion because it includes our excellent President. In a country parish the clergy are an important element. They associate with and unite all classes. On them falls the burden of the daily and weekly supervision of rural education, which is as important to the farmer as it is to the labourer, because the farmer finds that he must guide the plough with the head as much as, and perhaps more than, with the hand; and at the same time that he needs intelligent labourers to deal with complicated machines which are cheapening the labour of the farm. But above clergy and

all, in these days of School Boards, the ministers of all denominations where there are denominational schools perform a great work for the ratepayers in assisting in keeping down rates. If

you look into The Shrewsbury Chronicle of yesterday you will see there tabled a certain number of Board and Voluntary Schools, and that the Board Schools cost on an average £2 4s. a scholar, whilst Denominational Schools are maintained and managed for £1 128. Now, considering how many parishes there are in Shropshire that have not yet found it necessary to resort to a School Board, you may judge that if you wish to increase your rates the shortest cut would be to turn the clergy and ministers out of your schools.

But we are now menaced with a new code, which seems to puzzle all the uninitiated. Mr. Mundella enthusiast in the cause of education, and I dare say that as Mr. Mechi found making razors more profitable than farming, the Sheffield blades do not very much care whether the education rate is one shilling or two shillings in the pound. At all events, all local managers are very much frightened, and believe Mr. Mundella is going to lay increased burdens on all voluntary schools. For one thing, he proposes to abolish the cheap pupil teacher, and to force the smallest schools to have more highly paid assistants. I think that if Parliament were to pass a law or an article in a code that all of you were to be bound to keep nobody but grooms, and to discharge all your helpers, you would not expect to find that at the end of the year any very great economy had resulted in your stables. But I must say also that the clergy are entitled to your sympathies, because in some of those eastern counties

where the glebes are larger than they are here the clergy are suffering great distress from the badness of the seasons, for many of them are totally unable to let their glebes.

The other day I observed that Mr. Gladstone presided at a dinner of his tenants at Hawarden, and he told them that one of the subjects which would occupy the attention of Parliament next Session would be local government for counties. Now that is a phrase which is capable of an infinite variety of meanings. I have no doubt that before the Bill is passed through Parliament Mr. Gladstone will have prepared a great number of very unexpected surprises for all persons interested in that large and difficult subject. How cleverly he managed with the Malt Tax, when he first proposed to abolish that tax, or, to speak more correctly, to change it into a beer duty. How little did those victims of Sir Wilfrid Lawson's permissive legislation-the brewers and licensed victuallers-imagine that he was going to make Messrs. Bass and Allsopp pay a great deal more for beer than they had ever done for malt—and then, when he had taken up a question which had been warmly discussed among agriculturists ever since the day when Lord Darlington was the first member for South Shropshire, how little did the cultivators of arable farms expect, when the county was first divided, that he would open the mash tub to Indian corn and to every sort of nastiness that chemical science could invent, and would see the price of the best barley go down, down, down, like a