To xhk Editob of thb •' Evening Mail." Sir,— -With a flourish of trumpeta the valiant warrior steps into the arena, equipped lor the fray, when perforce the enemy haa had to leave it. Query: Why did not Mr Oliver, seeing he is prepared to uphold the natural immortality pi the boo! on Biblical and physiological grounds accept Mr Aldridge's challenge and refute that gentle man's arguments before an intelligent public ? My impression is that if he could have knocked^ Mr Aldridge into a cooked hat, as the saying is, he would only have been too glad of the opportunity. His present intention, viewed in the light of the opportunity he has had, will scarcely be deemed straightforward by those who love fair play. But again: Seeing that Mr Aldridge delivered bis lectures on week^feniags, when Basmbere of various denominations could conveniently be present without interfering witfc their attendances at their own places of worship, and that he gave to all the privilege of queitioniag him, which meant that they were at liberty to wfuta fcni upset Mb argumenta if they could, —would it not ba fair and just for Mr Oliver to take a similar course and give to all an equal privilege? Speaking from his plat farm in the Church he will be " six feet above contradiction." Perhaps he knows that. <fco,, Fiat Justitu. A Southern p'aper accuses Sir George Grey of making a rash statement when he said the population of the earth would be numbered by billions. It goes on to s&y that a billion is a million millions. Sir George evidently used the word in the continental sense of a thousand millions. Ia his address Borne time ago, on the study of English literature, Mr John Morley stated that the average iieue of novels in English libraries was about ,70 per cent of the whole. In Scotland they have a better average in respeot to prose fiction. The Aberdeen report shows that the percentage of novels' issued there is 56. The highest reoordsd balloon osooafc w&b by Gl«i«her and Cox well from Wolv«rh»mp. ton, England, on Ssptember 5, 1862. Th«y r©«e to the height of seven miles. Accord ing to Glaisher, in 3500 balloon DBoensions I only 15 deaths hr.ve ooourred.
