A BISHOP IN DISTRESS.
It is seldom that signals of distress are hoisted from the episcopal bench; but the signals in question have actually been hung out recently on behalf of the Bishop of Durham. One of the "friends of the Church" has made the melancholy calculation that the good Bishop is in such an impoverished state that, after making sundry deductions, the poverty-stricken prelate has scarcely more than seven thousand a year to live upon. Considering how bishoprics go in the present day, we are astonished how the prelacy of Durham can pay at the price, and how, in fact, the bishop can manage to do it for the money.
We shall probably be told next that it is a losing concern, and that the occupant of the wretchedly seedy see is about to give it up in consequence of his being "out of pocket." We recommend the Bench of Bishops to fraternise with the cabmen in making one common stand against the system of reduced fares to which both have been doomed in obedience to the modern principles of economy. The Bench may object to the association, but it is clear there is some affinity between the episcopal and the other class, for the cabman can drive his horse, while both cabman and bishop can drive a bargain.