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"fIIm -u •^jW^tBVggas*AlT'u *B Letters to the Editor. LETTERS on any subject of public interest are invited. It should be understood that we do not necessarily agree with the views expressed therein. Correspondents will oblige by writing on one side of the paper, and must invariably enclose their names and addresses, not necessarily for publication, but as a guarantee of good faith. THE SERFS OF HIE WAIN. SIR,-I have followed with interest, the latest development of the Iiirwain dispute, and am at aJloss to know which disgusts me the more, the audacity of the Federation officials or the timidity of the men. The men actually allowed an oracle of the Federation to tell them they had no right to hold a meeting without his consent, and obediently returned to their homes, where in the near future, if these pedagogues get it all their own way, the poor victims will have to fight the wolf of hunger. The tyranny of capitalism indeed! Lord Penrhyn or Sir William would never dream of exercising the tyranny exercised by the man who always prate of liberty of speech, etc. Ye men of ,Ilirwain 1 where is the spirit of your brave ancestors ?-I am, CADWGAN. SCHOOLMASTERS AND TEACHING. SIR,-The question of schoolmasters without classes has been discussed lately at the Aberdare Education Committee, and the importance of the matter is such that cannot be neglected. It is disgraceful to think of the ingenious efforts of some of them to while away their five hours a day in school at the small salary of X-200. If there is anything that will impress on the minds of the children the blessings of indolence—it is the aimless lounging of their masters at school-time. The active labour men on the councils would do well to see that there is no room for creepers in the educational system of the country. Professor Henry Jones said the other day that the most expensive article in the world was a poor schoolmaster. There are schoolmasters in the fullest sense of the word, yes, and but-Yours, R. R. RELIGION AND MORALITY. Sip.The signs of the times are that we are within few years of a general breakup of old systems of thought. The powerful forces that are working among the aris- tocracy of literature and science will be felt in the masses—and it is possible that the present indifference among the people is the loosening of the material of the old to build a new order of things. The critical spirit that has been hovering over the Western world the last forty years has made a remarkable imprint on the age. Beligion has felt it keenly. Wales has during the last few years shown signs un- mistakable that the Nonconformist ship is hearty laden with wordly matters, and some of them of questionable morality. The scathing article in the Genincn is no doubt, written by a minister, and expresses timely truths as to the state of things. Nonconformity is bartering religion for wordly influences to-day. Let us look around. Bigotry and ciiqueisrn are too much in evidence. Nonconformity is getting fat and comfortable on social con- nections, and morality is not held as an asset of the churches.—I am, &c., VOICE FROM THE CROWD. THE HOUSING QUESTION AGAIN. SIR,—We thought that question had been settled by the Aberdare District Council long ago. But then you see the election draws on apace, and there are axes to grind. But it is the wrong end of the stick they have got. Begin first of all by trying to make the people sober. Remove temptation out of the way-the pubs near the pit-head -and let the poor fellows have a chance. When some of them have to clear the publicans' score before the wages go home there is a big hole left. One shilling a day is the sum many spend on drinks, that is 24/- a month, the rent of a good house. Let some of the Councillors open their eyes and see for themselves. The rate- payers will have a word to say on this. Why should sober industrious men, who by economy have got their own houses be obliged to pay rates for the thriftless ? Some talk of two families in a house. Even in good houses that is done, simply because rents are so high. Builders tell us that building material has gone up 33 per cent in the last twelve or fifteen years. About that time a fairly decent house could be had for 10/- a month. That is now im- possible. Everyone is not earning colliers' wages, and can't afford big rents, so they must perforce sub-let. No one has done more on this question than Mr Arthur Chamberlain, J.P., Birmingham. By his exertions, some railway companies were induced to grant cheap railway fares to working men, so that they might have cottages and gardens in the suburbs of that city. This is his experience. He saya no man once having acquired a taste for drink will avail himself of a cottage in the country at, say, 5/- a week, if he can cram his family into a cellar or garret at 1/6 or 2/- a week. No we must educate the people into better ways of thinking. Give them a chance to be sober and clear their brains. Let the men join these clubs and become their own landlords. The possession of a house of one's own, puts a lot of stiffening into the backbone and makes a man hold up his head. By these clubs the difficulty will very soon be got over in Aberdare. If the Gadlys is to be closed and Hirwain shut down, what would the Council do in a few years with some streets idle on their hands ? No let the ratepayers have a word to say fir,st.-Yours &c., SIMON. ABERDARE TOWN NATIONAL SCHOOL. SIR,-At the recent annual meeting of the Aberdare Liberal Club, Mr M. Watkins is reported in your paper to have made the following statements :—" Last Ash Wednes- day the children of the Town National School—children of Nonconformists among them—were marched from school to St. E Ivan's Church. The children were obliged to take certain collection boxes round the houses to obtain money for Church of Eng- land Institutions." After eliciting cries of "shame" from the audience Mr Watkins winds up with the remark, This was prose- lytising with a vengeance." These allegations were brought to the notice of the Managers by their Chairman at a meeting held on Friday evening last, and I was authorised by the Managers to state that Mr Watkins' statements are absolutely untrue,—I am, A. P. JONES, Secretary to the Managers. SIR,-Periiiit me to offer a few remarks upon some statements made at the annual meeting of the Liberal Club as reported in your last week's issue. The Rev. J. Morgan Jones asks How many sacrifices have they (Churchmen) made to maintain that school ? (Aberdare Town National). I will endeavour to answer that question. During the 43 years I have been head master the sum of £ 2,650 has been spent on enlargements and im- provements of the building and on the average £ 40 per annum (amounting in 43 years to £ 1,720) have been contributed by Churchmen towards the maintenance of the school. These figures I am prepared to prove. The two rooms adjoining the Metro- politan Bank formed the original school, I do not know the cost of building these. Assuming it to be j £ l,000—which is I think a moderate estimate—the total sum spent on the building is £ 3,650, without mention- ing the value of the site, given by a Church- man. Towards this sum, the total amount received in building grants from the Educa- tion Department was J6440 15s. See (Edu- cational Blue Book for 1874-5). No appli- cation for any building grant was enter- tained by the Department after Dec. 31st, 1870. It is needless to say that no part of the Annual Parliamentary Grant may be applied to the buildings beyond the cost of ordinary repairs. So the sacrifices made by Churchmen maybe thus represented :— £ s. d. Cost of original rooms (say) 1000 0 0 Expended since 1861 on build- ings. 2650 0 0 cl Annual subscription since 1861 1720 0 0 5370 0 0 Less Building Grants from Education Department 440 15 0 X4929 5 0 Mr M. Watkins' remarks as reported by you are distinctly—I do not say intention- ally—misleading. The school children were not "marched" to Church on Ash Wed- nesday. The service was announced during the day as for Church children. The scholars were dismissed at the usual hour and in the usual manner, and every child had perfect liberty to go home or to the service as he pleased. The children were not obliged to take certain collecting boxes round to the houses." Boxes for the Waifs and Strays were given to those children who applied for them and were intended for their own small savings. When it was found that some of them did call at shops for pence, it was strictly forbidden the next Wednesday. t As to the charge of proselytising I am confident the many Non-conformists I have had the privilege of educating in Aberdare, will acquit me of that. Mr Watkins him- self is one of my old scholars and has ack- nowledged to me the other day that no at- tempt was ever made to proselytise him.—■ I am, yours faithfully, JOHN WILLIAMS. MR L. N. WILLIAMS AND THE WORKING CLASSES. SIR,—The debate on the Housing question in the District Council should be an in- struction to the working men of this district. The Council have adopted the Act, but judging from the objections raised, it will prove a more difficult matter to put it into practice. Take the remarks of Mr L. N. Williams. He said, according to your report, that the Council by adopting this measure were asking the best class of work- men to pay rates towards erecting houses for the thriftless, and those people whom Will Crooks described as born tired. Now the only inference to be drawn from the above is that one out of every thirty of the workers having found it possible to acquire a shelter of their own out of their earnings, the remaining twenty-nine lack a shelter because they are thriftless. Now sir, this flattering imputation is untrue on the face of it, for there are men who do no useful work who own fifty houses., Of course Mr Williams would hesitate to say of these people that they were born lazy because they are so much more respectable than the common drudge. It is neither honourable nor dignified to misquote Will Crooks in that manner. Mr Williams makes a mistake when he assumes that the acquisition of house pro- perty by individuals is a reliable test of good citizenship. For instance, some men would send their daughters to the factory at the earliest possiole age to enable them to save money to buy a house though it so often means the physical and moral ruin of the girls. Others would regard it a higher duty to spend their surplus cash in imparting grace and refinement to their children by a liberal education. Mr Williams it seems would say the former were the better class because they fulfil his pretty notion of thrift. There are some of the workers who spend much of their earnings on beer. There may be a few idlers amongst them, but they are a few, and if Mr Williams' sympathies extend no further than the few who own houses I pity him.—I am, W. HARPER.
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...""" READERS AND WRITERS.
READERS AND WRITERS. Mr. Barrie has been getting chaffed about his handwriting. Somebody describes it as "tea- chest caligraphy." But the hieroglyphics on the tea-chest can be read, if you know how; there are letters of Mr. Barrie's that nobody has yet managed to read. A correspondent tells of being at a Scotch gathering, the chairman of which intimated that he had received a letter from Mr. Barrie, apologising for his absence. I' "I will read the letter," said the chairman. But he never did. He had received the letter just as he was leaving home; had glanced at the signature, and gathered that the communica- tion would he a reply to an invitation he had sent to Mr. Barrie to be present at the meeting. On the platform he was unable to decipher more than the words "Dear Mr. So-and-So and "Yours truly, J. M. Barrie." He passed the letter to the reporters, one of whom has it yet. A letter of that kind is a joy for ever. It is always fresh, as it were. You can have a "go" at it every time the spirit of curiosity moves you. Perhaps you can have it "made up" at the chemist's as a prescription. Such things have been done. Personally, the worst handwriting I have ever had to deal with was that of the late Mr. James Payn. When he was editor of Cornhill I received occasional notes from him, and some of these notes are still unread. You see it never mattered very much when he didn't return the article! The annual Burns orgie is over for another year. 1 heartily wish the enthusiasts would find some other way of celebrating the "immortal's" birthday than by this swilling of whisky and stuffing with haggis. As Mr. John A. Steuart, the novelist, said at Glasgow last week, it is really appalling to reflect what Burns suffers each recurrent January at the hands of eulogists, spirituously over-primed. English people, remarking these things, not without cynical amusement, conclude that Burns anniversaries are merely occasions for Scotsmen to foregather and get "fou." I am afraid the English people are right. Your "common Burnsite," as Henley calls him, is a great trencherman, a mighty hero at the bottle. I was once at a Burns supper myself, but-never again! The time has really come to enter a protest against the convention which makes Burns mainly the poet of Bacchus-that insists on treating him as if he had sung of nothing but Scots drink and the maudlin delight of falling beside one's chair in a stupor of drunkenness. In this respect, as Mr. Steuart observed, a particularly cruel fate has overtaken Burns. If we are to make sentiments dramatically or impersonally expressed part of an author's private creed, then we must account Shake- speare a more ribald bacchanalian than Burns. Yet we never dream of treating Shakespeare as if he were a primary embodiment of Falstaff, eternally crying out for sack. True, Burns ranted a good deal about Scots drink-nay, himself often drank not wisely but too well. But why emphasise that side of his character, that branch of his art ? Let the Burnsite, common and other, see to it. In this connection I observe that the Scots journalists have been getting some humour out of Mr. T. P. O'Connor's hurried return from Scotland just before the flood of Burns oratory burst on the 25th. "T. P." was to have pro- posed "The Immortal Memory at Edinburgh, but he left his speech and bolted! He had come North, says an Edinburgh press- man, in blissful ignorance of the joys that nlake up a Burns Night dinner, and when he learnt that the orthodox bill of fare consisted of cockie-leekie and whisky, cod and whisky, haggis and whisky, more haggis and whisky, roast beef and whisky, plum-pudding and whisky, cheese and whisky, speeches and whisky, more speeches and whisky—whisky, more whisky—well, he thought it was time to be .moving! This seems jocular, but it is not exaggerated. That is just how a Burns Night is panned out in "bonnie Scotland." Novelists are getting really too learned for the average reader. Here we have Mrs. Coulson Kernahan presenting us with Greek, and in the Greek character, too, of which the average novel-reader may be presumed to know as much as an Income-Tax collector knows of the milk of human kindness. Why should writers put the dead languages into novels ? Fielding did it, but novel-readers were more learned in the days of "Tom Jones." Speaking of Greek, I see that a revised edition of the time-honoured lexicon of Liddell and Scott is announced. It will doubtless proceed on other lines than those indicated by the well- known academic quatrain: This book was written by Liddell and Scott; Some of it's good and some of it's not; That which is good was written by Scott, That which was written by Liddell is not. Such comparisons are always invidious, and they are particularly so after a career of success like the sixty-one years which have elapsed since the appearance of the first edition of this lexicon. "Consider the Children" is the title of a new work by Miss Honnor Morten. In one sense 1 think the children are considered far too much, and I am not sure that education has not done as much to spoil the modern youngster as the sparing of the rod. In the far West of England farm labour is scarce because after nine years of schooling the puny, cigarette smoking, sporting-paper reading youth is too conceited, even if he have the stamina,to work in the fields." As likely as not he will become a clerk or a shop assistant, bet, and then embezzle. In her painfully-interesting plea for children, who must attend school from the age of five to that of fourteen, Miss Morten shews how children are being converted into infantile machines. As some mothers are glad to be rid of their children, it is not surprising to read that in 1901 there were 3,137 children at school under three years of age. Just imagine! Little tots of three struggling with alphabet and primer! Talk about cruelty to animals! What about cruelty to children ? The result of this absurd system is over- stimulation of the undeveloped brain, dulness of sight and hearing, the spreading of diseases, and the manufacture of useless human machines. Specimens of the results so far as actual learn- ing is concerned, given in this book, would amuse the reader if they were not so deplorably saddening. The author tells us of a mother who complained of spite in one of the teachers against a child who "had to learn French when she could not read or write properly." In truth we have little to boast of in our education system. I have been reading the late Frank Norris's book on "The Responsibilities of the Novelist." Norris was a novelist who had gamed practical experience in the office of a New York publish- ing firm. 1 am struck with what he says about the reviewing of novels. He condemns over- favourable reviews as mischievous. His descrip- tion of the process is edifying. A pile of books is sent to a busy and underpaid reviewer, who is required to get through them quickly. It is impossible to aive them thorough consideration 8V no aT-cflis mnifcren 'or tne assistance bin reu oy the publisher's printed slip enclosed, which is practically a ready-made review. and of course eulogistic. Norris is quite right. Reviewers do avail themselves of these ready-made notices. But why ? Simply because the rates paid for the reviewing of novels will not permit of the reviewer doing the work as his conscience tells him it ought to be done. I have myself reviewed hundreds of novels at the rate of not more than three shillings each. A popular literary weekly pays five shillings for reviews of single novels. A sovereign for four novels How can any professional penman do his best at that rate ? We must accept the conditions and do what we can with them. When editors pay a guinea for the reviewing of novels the thing will be done first rate. J. C. H.
Aberdare Can't Doubt.
Aberdare Can't Doubt. Because nearly four years have passed since the claim was first made. And that is why every thinking person in Aberdare acknowledges that no stronger proof is possible. I have never suffered at all from kidney complaint since my cure by Doan's Backache Kidney Pills, about which I told you right back in Septem- ber of 1899-nearly 4 years ago," says Mrs S. Davies, of 7 Griffith-street, Aberdare. The good the medicine did me was lasting good, and I am indeed glad to-day to say how well I have kept. "Yet I cannot forget, even now, what I used to suffer before I tried Doan's pills. My kidneys were weak and ailing, I am sure, for I used to suffer from awful pains in my back and around my loins. There were also urinary disor- ders. It was very difficult to keep at my housework, for when I stooped a sharp pain darted through me. Only those who now suffer as I used to can know what these pains are, those awful pains in the back, but for their sake I am glad that mv testimony has been pub- lished in the papers, and has led others to try the medicine which has cured them. I shall recommend Doan's pills whenever I get an opportunity. I got the pills from Boots' Stores here." If you are ill, write and tell us your symptoms. Your letter will be treated r in strictest confidence. No charge will be made, and we may be able to save you from a world of suffering. Doan's Backache Kidney Pills are two shillings and nine pence a box (six boxes for thirteen shillings and nine- pence). Of all chemists and drug stores, or sent direct, post free. on receipt of price by the proprietors,— Foster-,McCellan Co., 8, Wells-street, Oxford-street, London, W. Be sure j ou get the same kind of pills as Mrs Davies had.
Mountain Ash Nonconformist…
Mountain Ash Noncon- formist Committee. The Mountain Ash Nonconformist Edu- cation Committee met under the presidency of the Rev. T. Anthony on Wednesday eve- ning. Amongst other matters of importance the following were discussed and decided. Re the County Council Election the Committee have agreed to heartily support the candi- dature of Ald. William Jones and Dr. JR. W. Jones in the event of their being opposed. Re the District Council Elections, it was unanimously agreed to facilitate and assist the return of Mr W. Millar for the Duffryn Ward, and Mr J. Powell for the Miskin Ward, in the event of their seats being con- tested. With regard to the Darren Las Ward, Councillor Evan Morgan having de- cided to retire owing to failing health, Mr T. Davies (Tailor) seconded and Mr D. Williams (Chemist) proposed, that the Rev. E. V. Tidman be the candidate for that Ward, and that the Committee pledge themselves to do all in their power to secure his return. It was unanimously adopted. The conference also supports the candidature of Mr E. T. Williams for the Penrhiwceiber Ward. It was also decided to send the following letter to the Progress- ive members of the Local Education Com- mittee :—" That this Conference of the Nonconformist Churches of the District, places on record its grateful appreciation of the splendid stand which the Progressive members of the Local Education Committee have made for principle and justice in the face of much opposition within and without the Committee, and respectfully urges the party to adhere to the same course in all future deliberations. Mr Tidman as Sec- retary works assiduously and is prepared to give any information that might be required
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