The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1876-08-05 00:00:00

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our yonbon &ruspeubnu.

[We deem it right to state that we do not at all tires
tdeutify ourselves with our Correspondent's opinions.)

Tee: prominence given to the subject of Education,
.4 +ha warinns distributions of
pizes at the public schools, cannot bave tented to a.
tract the attention of the newspaper-reading public.
It is a question which is apparently of evergreen in.
; one, that, after thirty years of controversy,
does not seem to have become threadbare. The
quality of the ii a' ruction to be given at the universities,
the degree of education which should reflect credit
upon our middle-class schools, and the standard that
ought to form the guide of the elementary sehoels—•
all have long been the topics of keen debate. Some
eminent men have warmly protested against a too
great attention to claesical studies, declaring that
many a graduate who could tell the Lumber
of Arobons that used to rule in ancient Athens would
find it impossible to say how many county and borough
members respectively are returned to the present
House of Commons. They know all about the course
cf the Ilyssus, but would find it difficult to describe
the counties watered by the Severn. On the other
hand the supporters of classical education remind us
that if we cut off our youth from a close acquaintance
with the hittory and customs of a land like Greece as
was iat former ages, we deprive them of such
a chroniZea.)uf arts, refinement and civilization as
the world has seldom seen equalled. Where
such great authorities disagree, it is not easy for
the uninitiated public to form a correct estimate of
-ehat is really required in a model university career.
But when we go from the highest step in the ladder to
'he lowest—from the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge
to the school houses scattered so plentifully through
town and country—we see that whatever difference of
epiniaL may exist in Parliament as to the precise kind
f instruction to be given, all are agreed that the matter
is of immense na•ional importance and will admit of
no delay. Hence in the hot days of July, Government
bills of all descriptions, and dealing with vast and
varied interests, had to stand still while the Education
measure was being pushed through.

August suggests grouse, and both highland owners
and lowland sportsmen are just now rejoicing that the
moors promise well for the season. Rents have there.
fore been running up to fancy prices; and whether
the Legislature be orbs not prorogued by the Twelfth,
it is certain that the limited mail for two or three days
previously will be crowded to inconvenience. In
several recent years the sport upon the moors has
turned out anything but satisfactory, either to the
keeper who fancies that his credit is involved in the
quantity of game he can show, or to the renter who
discovers that he has paid a long figure for shooting
rights which are so barren of results. Many a
melancholy meal has been eaten at midday
when the turning out of the bags makes it clear
beyond dispute that the yield of the guns is a light
one. Joy f ill anticipations in the morning have now
given way to despondency, fatigue steals upon the
marksmen, and with a dragging pace they return home
to a dreary dinner. The weather may be delightful,
but to the genuine sportsman this is the more tan-
talising. It is to be hoped that the present is one of
those years which help to efface such sorrowful recol-
lections as those to which I have referred. The sports-
man no doubt belongs to a class which indulges long in
the pleagures of hope, and will put up with a great
deal of disappointment for the sake of one year of good
bags, but even his patience is likely to become ex-
hausted with an unbroken succession of bad seasons.
The Mansion House Banquet to Her Majesty's
Ministers on the first Wednesday in August is a sure
indication of the approach of the recess. Just tw nty-
six weeks have'elapsed since the opening of the Session
when the legislative year was full of promise. Between
the early days of February and those of August there
is a wonderful difference not only in the temperature,
but in the reflsctions as well as in the desires of mem-
bers of Parliament. In February the atmosphere was
piercingly cold, after the earth had been subjected for
months to the oblique rays of the sun. By the time
August his arrived the rays have long been sent
vertically down, and the very sight of an overcoat
hanging in the entrance-hall would only increase the
discomfort if a man suffering under the influence of
extren e heat. In Februlry our senators return to
work after six months of rest ; in August they look
forward to a lengthened recreation after six months of
highest -hos- on the 'part Tffih,- pfdlnOclert'r
August, when these expectations have failed to be
realised, the poor little measures, ruthlessly mas-
sacred by their authors, are scattered in an indis-
criminate mass upon the floor of the House. They
seem to flit like phantoms about the place,
In the dim dawn of the morning, or when the evening
is gloaming grey, as though reluctant to quit the
scene of their former existence. An imaginative
member may at times fancy that he beholds his legis-
lative bantling pass like a shadow before his eyes,
giving him a momentarily reproachful look for having
caused it to be numbered with the slain; but then the
maj,:rity of hon. members are not imaginative, and as
they sit down at the festive board with the Lord
Mayor the fate of the bills which they long nursed
and ultimately abandoned, causes no sigh of regret, no
feeling of compunction. Many a pledge is mentally
taken that the ghost of the departed shall be laid by
a good crop of succesFful labours another year; but,
unfortunately, it is too often seen that each session
brings its own work and its own troubles, and that
there is little chance of making up for past short
comings.

The holiday season has arrived without bringing to
the middle and working classes any of those facilities for
going to the Philadelphia Exhibition which were con-
fidently yrcmi,lecl two years ago. For this there are
two or three very excellent reasons. When the Ex-
hibition was projected, in 1873, the trade of the United
Kingdom was remarkably good, every department of
industry was fluurishing, and labour was well em-
ployed and fully paid. What is the kind of picture
upon which we look to-day? The Board of Trade
returns showing month by month :the commerce of the
country to be fAling off, the short-time movement
spreading through the manufacturing districts, blast
furnaces blown out from want of occupation,
and the investors in all descriptions of securities cut-
aide the Government Funds complaining of the de-
preciation in their value, and the consequent reduction
in their incomes. Then again Philadelphia is a long
way off, and as the journey there and back, with a
moderate stay in the City of Brotherly Love, could
not be accomplished in less than five weeks, few work-
ing men can spare that time, and fewer still the money.
Many a holiday will be curtailed this year, or perhaps
wholly dispensed with, which last year cost a con-
siderable sum. It was in the month of September,
1875, that the announcement of the failure of the
Turkish Government to meet its engagements fell like
v. clap of thunder upon the stock exchanges of Europe,
and accelerated a depression in the quotable value of
foreign securities which had already set in. Many a
vacation rambler, when he took up his newspaper that
fine autumnal morning, saw that the comfortable divi-
dends of 10 per cent. which the Moslem had been
steadily paving were now at an end. The fact was
that the Turk had borrowed regularly in order to pay
the interest on his loans, and when people declined to
lend to him any longer, the interest naturally ceased.
The present cloudy state of the commercial sky will,
however, pass away, just as the dismal summer of 1875
has been succeeded by the brilliant one of the present
year. - _

Six years ago, during the Continental war, when the
spirit-stirring strains of the .German national songs
were shouted out in a wild refrain as the Teuton army
overran France, one of Arndt's composition?, entitled
"What is the German Fatherland ?'' met with especial
favour by the believers in the unification of the new
empire. In like manner, just as it was a matter of
extreme difficulty to decide how many heterogeneous
peoples made up in common Germany, so it is almost
now satiafactorily to define the meaning of
the term scattered so plentifully through the
Journals—" The Eastern Question." Certainly it is
a question which has loomed menacingly before the
eyes of our statesmen kr a long time. Generation
after generation has it troubled Cabinets and Kings,
Courts and Parliaments; it has been the cause of war
and bloodshed, and leas than a quarter of a century
ago plunged Eur,,pe into a fierce oonflict. The temper
of the enlightened public of to-day Is, however, very
different from that of twenty years since. Hope was
then entertained that the work of reform would be
carried out in the administration of the Ottoman
Empire, and we have all seen how that hope has been
realised. If the Turk could be less cruel to his
enemies after he has beaten them &lin, he would
be one of the best fighting soldiers in Europe. But
the recent atrocities in Bulgaria show the Moslem
to be imbued even now with the innate ferocity of
Tamerlane, and have caused a considerable proportion
of the British public to come to the conclusion that the
condition of the 06toman Empire is a scandal which
cannot be permitted to endure much longer. What is
to be done with it is one of the most perplexing
queries incident to the discussion a this "Eastern
Question."

The planting of trees in the streets of cities is one of
those tosteful arrangements in which the French have
long excelled. Contrast a Parisian boulevard with
any of the main streets of Llnd(,n—Holborn or the
Strand for instance, and the advantage in appearance is
immeasurably on the side of the French capital. Some
of the latest new thoroughfares constructed in London
have been supplied with trees, and in the course of a
few years Northumberland Avenue and the Thames
Nmbankment will be shaded with foliage. Let us

compare either of theve as it is to be with a line of
route which is very well known in the metropolis run-
ning direct from King's Cross to the Obelisk in St.
George's circus, Borough. There is a straight run of
at least three milts from north to south, right acroA
the river. How grateful would the perspiring war
farer have been for the shade o a line of trees as he
'-"-' -‘--- -- the roads
on one of those hot summer (lays which have
been so numerous of late Yet there has been
nothing whatever to break the force of the
temperature save the solitary tree in front of
Peabody's Buildings on the south side of the
water. At night, looking from the obelitk towards
Blackfriars Bridge, the perspective of lamps is a very
pretty sight; a perspective of trees by day would be
equally pictureEque, and quite as useful. It may not
be generally known that while the French plant trees
in the streets of their cities, underneath the shade of
which the people may sip cool drinks, fruit trees are
planted along the parish roads in the greater part of
Germany, and that many Communes keep down their
rates by the sales of the cherries, plums, or apples
which are the property of this or that particular vil-
lage.