effects they have left behind them. By your silence you are giving consent and approval, and helping the immediate manager to defraud his servant and rob him, — rob him of health, happiness, honors and honesty. I speak strongly of this social fraud, because I think it wants attention attracted to it, until it becomes well understood that an office that requires to be constantly open at night is thoroughly badly managed. I have nothing, of course, to say about occasional pressure on mail nights. There is a great deal of nonsense, remember, about all this pretence of hard work, constantly requiring night work, that wants exposing. I repeat it, and challenge contradiction; in every case where late hours have become the habit, it is either owing to miserly management or bad management. Once more, and in connection with this subject, I remind you of the social sin of late shopping on Saturdays, by which you defraud your neighbor, and rob him of his holiday. The free-thinking part of the community are, I fear, strong enough to keep the shops open in their selfish indifference to their neighbors' wrongs. I am sure that no servant of Christ, when once his or her attention is attracted to the question will go on repeating the sin. The wrong done to the shopmen of this town is of the same nature as that wrong done to the bank clerks; it is greater in the numbers of the sufferers, it is less as regards the effects, because it is only on one night, not every night, that it is perpetrated. The offenders will have to answer for their sin one day, when it will seem a very poor excuse to say that you never meant any harm, that you never thought of what you were doing, or you never remembered what the consequences might be. You cannot escape the responsibilities under which you lie with regard to your brethren."
Disturbance of the London Shipping Trade. — The following may be of interest as showing how the trade of the port of London has already been disturbed during the past month by the unsettled state of affairs on the Continent. The number of ships cleared with cargoes during April was 477, representing 233,626 tons. Of these 235 were British steamers, of 122,206 tons; 117 British sailing vessels, of 70,392 tons; 52 foreign steamers, of 27,092 tons; and 73 foreign sailing vessels, of 13,936 tons. The number of ships cleared during April, 1876, was 558, representing 269,444 tons, which comprised 290 British steamers, of 137,797 tons; 139 British sailing, of 79,120 tons; 65 foreign steamers, of 36,142 tons; and 64 foreign sailing, of 16,385 tons. These figures show a decrease of 81 in the number of ships cleared, and a decrease in the tonnage of 35,818. The disturbance is the more evident, as the clearances for the four months of the present year show an increase of 90 ships and 8,765 tons as compared with the first four months of 1876. The figures were: number of ships, 1,953; tons, 964,300. In 1876, 1,863 ships; tons, 955,535. The excitement in the shipping trade on the Tyne occasioned by the proclamation of war last week has subsided. The coal freights from the Tyne to the Mediterranean, which rose suddenly, have returned to their former conditions. Freights to Genoa, which ran up last week from £17 per keel to £22, are down to £17, and Carthagena freights have fallen from £l7 to £12 10s. Rates are still, however, a little above the usual price, but are kept down by the difficulty of getting return cargoes. Echo.
Lawyers' Bags. — "Middle Templar" writes to Notes and Queries of May 5: "It may not be uninteresting to note, for the benefit of the future antiquary, the actual existing use in regard to the above, a use which is minutely regulated by that lex non scripta of etiquette which no causidicus may with impunity transgress. Barristers' bags are either red or dark blue. Red bags are, strictly speaking, reserved for queen's counsel and Serjeants; but a stuff-gownsman may carry one if presented therewith by a 'silk.' Such presentation is a solemn business; the fortunate 'junior' is expected to bestow a guinea on the Q. C.'s clerk who brings the coveted distinction to his chambers, and is afterwards, in addition, fined for the honor by his circuit mess. It is an imperative rule that only red bags may be taken into court; blue bags are not to be carried further than the robing-room. I speak only of the practice of the Common Law bar; of the Chancery regulations on the subject I know nothing; nor can I say anything of the custom of the lower branch of the profession. As far, however, as I have observed as an outsider, every solicitor pleases himself in the matter, carrying a blue, red, or purple bag, as seems good "in his own eyes."
