Cymro a'r Celt Llundain

Notes and News. THE Eisteddfod at Swansea bids fair to become a successful financial concern. The profits were about £ 1,200. LAST year the Carnarvon surplus amounted to nearly C700, and should this prosperity continue we may have a company formed in London with promises of huge dividends. THE Swansea gathering, however, was more than a financial success. According to Gwili the literary productions were all of unusually high merit. ARE our preachers all becoming bards ? Perhaps that is the cause of the decline in the Welsh pulpit. ONE of the leading Swansea papers gave a prominent report to the Eisteddfod, and headed its column thus :— SPORTING. EISTEDDFOD AT SWANSEA. FIRST DAY WINNERS. SIR JOHN PULESTON told a London Daily News representative that he was delighted that the Welsh National Eisteddfod for 1909 would be held in the British Metropolis. THE Welsh Football Association is pro- gressing. It has now 11,000 invested in consols. IT is marvellous what a fascination football has over the young men of South Wales in particular. Although August does not expire before to-day there were many practice games on Saturday last! SOUTH WALES coal is now so dear (26s. per ton at Italian ports), that the Italian Naviga- tion Company have been compelled to pur- chase 300,000 tons of American coal, which will be delivered at 21s. per ton. THE Holywell miracles" are again to the front. It is now said that a woman has been cured of blindness through bathing in the water at Holywell. It is deplorable, and a reflection on our present day education, that there should be people silly enough to believe in such nonsense. The majority of people who bathe at Holywell have never before used much water, and a cold water douche would naturally benefit them BY the way, an English journalist who writes notes in a Cardiff evening journal is very fond of ridiculing Welsh supersti- tion," belief in village ghosts, &c., but he never says a word about the poor ignorant people who come from England and Ireland to Holywell to be miracled." Shrewd South Walians know the reason why. THE Welsh National Eisteddfod at Swan- sea was a splendid success. It was un- questionably the finest Eisteddfod ever held in Wales. The sympathetic reports of the great gathering, in London newspapers, was most gratifying and eloquent testimony to the increased interest of the English press. DESPITE the unsettled weather Aberyst- wyth has been exceedingly well-patronised this summer. In fact, a local lodging-house keeper assured a KELT correspondent that, it was the busiest August he has ever ex- perienced. By the way, the opening up of the Devil's Bridge district has greatly added to the attractiveness of the Athens of Wales: that beauty spot" being now easily reached by railway from the town. The Cambria Daily Leader (Swansea) published a column in Welsh, daily, during the Eisteddfod week. It is strange that no Welsh daily paper publishes a column in Welsh regularly throughout the year. The Dublin Freeman's Journal, on the other hand, publishes a column in Gaelic every day, notwithstanding the fact that Gaelic is not spoken in Ireland to anything like the same extent as Welsh is in Wales. THE famous Royal Oakley Silver Band from North Wales gave a series of concerts lately in various South Wales centres and had capital receptions. The band also secured the principal prize in the Brass Band Competitions at the Welsh National Eisteddfod. BOTH the Grenadier and Scots Guards Bands have been giving concerts in Glamor- ganshire, the former at Mumbles Pie, and the latter at Cardiff and elsewhere. The playing of the Grenadier Band was particu- larly good and aroused much enthusiasm. NOTHING could have exceeded the delight of the Bretons at their reception in Swansea and South Wales generally. The way these honest and sincere Frenchmen sang "Hen Wlad fy Nhadau ought to shame the Mr. Lewes, Mr. Davis and Mr. Jenkyns of Wales. A CORRESPONDENT Writes Everybody is a socialist who has nothing to lose." Pwy all wadu y syniad hwn ? MR. TOM RICHARDS, M.P., has been telling the South Wales colliers that the King made Cardiff's Lord Mayor a Knight out of com- pliment to Labour." Nothing of the kind, The King knighted Mr. Crossman because he happened to be Lord Mayor during his visit. The King was honouring Cardiff as an enterprising city by knighting its Lord Mayor. It is doubtful whether the King was aware that Mr. Crossman was a Labour Mayor. Let us have the truth, however un- palatable it may be to some people. Ap RHEIDOL writes "A man may call himself a Socialist and an advocate of free- dom,' &c., and yet be, in his private life, a perfect tyrant." Yn ddiameu. SOME of the young lady visitors at New Quay have been holding Revival meetings on the sands, but the enthusiasm of the famous Religious Revival of two years ago is lacking. GEORGE BERNARD SHAW, the well-known socialist, and author of various plays, wit- nessed a performance of one of his produc- tions at Aberystwyth the other night.