The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1871-11-04 00:00:00

Our yonion Qt orrtsponknt.

Ve dem it tight to elate that we do not at all times
identify isurawlvea with our Correppondeut'd vpinionlal

llr. Glas!stone's speech, anticipated with great
interest throughout the country, contains, as might
have been expected, abundant material for discussion
among men of all shades of politics. I decline to
look at it from a party point of view, but it is
not a speech that can he ignored, seeing that on
the eame evening that it was delivered it was flashed
all over Europe and along the bedof the Atlantic. What-
ever opinions may he entertained of the oration itself,
most people must admire the punetuality with which
Mr. G ladstone came on the scene, the style of hie arrival,
and his refusal to address his audience except with Ws
hat if. Uncertain, perhaps, of his reception, he was
nevertheless determined to treat his constituents with
the conventional mark of respect. There was, too,
a delicate touch of respect in his assurance that this
was the first time since the general elezdon that he
had addressed, by his own choicu, an assemblage of
his fellow-countrymen. He Te 118 able also to make an
announcement which must have been gratifying to his
constituents, as it ts, indeed, to the country at large—
that Governmmit intends to put that noble institution,
Greenwich llospital, to a purpose which will "revive
and renew the traditions id that glorious profession
with which from the first it had been so long con-
nected." This seems to point to a seaman's hospital.
Out fact mentioned by the Premier is new to most of
Us, and a remarkable fact it is -that the present
administration is the first Liberal ministry which has
ever survived three sessions with a large majority.
There is matter for anxious speculation here. Another
noteworthy fact deals with a subject which many
people thought Mr. Gladstone would find it very diffi-
cult to treat—the reduction of Government establish-
ments. If his figures can be relied on —and figures,
like facts, are stubborn things, though somebody has
said there is nothing so unreliable PA facts except
figures - he certainly makes out a strong case for his
colleagues. Taking his speech as a whole, though
exception may be taken to many parts of it, it will be
ef service, to his party, and the vote of confidence is
" great fact.'

Among the many important subjects that will be
dealt with next session, will probably be those friendly
and benefit societies %Irish have been establish,d to
each an immense extent in the United Kiresdom, and
which exerts is, large an influence on the condition of
the working-classes. The Friendly Societies' Com-
mission hae been hard at work for a long time past in
various parts of the country, and must by this ime have
procured a large mass of evidence as to the management
and working of these societies. On the report of this
tagaMissital will no doubt he founded the Government
measure on the subject. It will be well therefore for
the officials of these societies, Ind indeed for their mem-
bers generally, to watch for any bill that may be
introduced to deal with such associations. It is
rumoured that the forthcoming measure will have a
centralising tendency, and will give the Home
Secretary a power over these societies that he hair never
Possessed before, and indeed a bill which the Govern-
ment brought in towards the close of last session and
hastily withdrew, affords some warrant for such a
rumour; but even if this be the case, which is by no
means certain, to introduce a bill is one thing, and to
pass it is another, while the intention of ministers may
only be to regulate these associations, so that they may
really become, what they now purport to be, friendly
to and for the benefit of the working chases, which is
certainly not always the case at present.
Had it not been for the news of the awful devasta-
tion at Chicago, the forest fires in America would have
excited far deeper interest in this country than they
have hitherto done. Recent adviees go to show that
the forest fires in Michigan and Wisconsin were
even more terribly destructive than the conflagra-
tion in the splendid city which so rapidly
succumbed to the flames. One letter says,
" All North-Eastern Michigan is in flames, and
has already lost 100 millions of dollars worth of
property by fire. North-eastern Wisconsin is also all
aflame." Another account says that over 1,500 men,
women, and children were burned to death in the
track of the tornado in Wisconsin. Great fires are
also reported elsewhere in the forest districts, and,
taking these fires as a whole, life and property were
certainly destroyed by them to even a greater extent
than in Chicago. Such being the case, help for the
suffcrere is a matter of course ; and while such large
sums are generously being raised to ell the devastated
city in Is r ."-• Soi.e.-out inhabitants of the
and v Magee of Michigan and Wisconsin must
not be forgotten.
Shams and delusions of all kinds have their day,
and unhappily the day of some of them is a very long
one. The important news that we receive from
America would tend to show that Mormonism, which
has lasted so long and which has exerted vs pernicious an
influence on society in the American continent, isat last
havingterritlesliflicultiestocontend against. The arrest
of the Mayor of Salt Lake City—for murder com
matted fourteen years ago by the orders of Brigham
Young—and the fact that warrants are out for the
arrest of the Mormon leader, may lead to the ultimate
discomfiture of Mormonism. At any rate the United
States legal authorities are at last making determined
efforts to put down the chief feature of Brigham
Young's system—polygamy. It is stated that a pro-
minent Mormon convicted of bigamy, has been sen-
tenced to three years imprisonment. Why this is
treating bigamy more severely than it would be dealt
with in this country ! The news from Utah territory
will now be looked forward to with great interest, and
all who have the welfare of "brother man" and espe-
cially of 'sister woman " at heart may indulge the
hope that Mormonism may in due time receive such a
heavy blow that it will never entirely recover from it.
The guardians of one of our largest and poorest
parishes have just come to the sensible resolution to
give Australian preserved meat a trial in the work-
houses under their control. Thie is the first decision
of the kind of which I have heard, and it is rather
surprising that it should be so. The more this sort of
thing is done, the greater chance will the poor out-
side workhouses have of obtaining meat of any de-
scription. There is all a large amount of pre-
judice against Australian meat, a prejudice mainly
founded on ignorance; and it cannot be too widely
known that this meat has greatly improved within the
last year or so. It 18 now cooked and packed in quite
a different way to that which was at first adopted, and
the result is a great advance on the resality of our
former supplies. By the way, when animal food is, so
dear throughout the country, do we avail ourselves as
we ought to do of our supply of fish? I read that the
other day upwards of 70 hogeheaas of pilchards were
sold in Cornwall for manure, at the rate of 9d. per
basket, alld that 400 hogeheads had been previously sold
at even a lower rate, for the same purpose. There must
be something wrong here. They would not pay for
earriage, it will perhaps be said. Well then, there
most be something wrong there. In the metropolis at
all events we want a great deal more fieh than we can
procure.
Whatever may be thought of the Nine Hoare' Move-
ment or of other movements, generally speaking, to
shorten the hours of labour, the efforts of mile ay tins
ployis to obtain a reduction in the length of their
working day is a matter in which the travelling public
are much concerned. Mr. Bass, M. P., hair done good ,
service to the country at large, as well as to railway
servants, by collecting a mass of facts and urging 1
arguments on this subject, and his exertions have been
followed by such concessions on the part of railway
directors that he may be regarded SA a railway re-
former. The Lancashire and Yorkshire and the
North-Eastern Railway directors have both reduced
the hours of labour of a large portion of their servants,
and the former line will, owing to recent arrangements,
probably ultimately result in a similar reduction on
the North-Western line. Meanwhile, a number of
men in the employ of the South-Western and the
London, Chatham, and Dover Railways have had a
meeting, and have preferred the by no means extra-
vagant request of a reduction from s'l heure to 54 per
week. Opportunely enough, Colonel Hutchiusen has
jest issued his report regarding a railway accident
whih occurred at Kensington last July. He shows
that this accident was owing to the mistake of a
signalman, and the Colonel protests against a man in
such a position remaining on duty for twelve hours at
a spell, with no titne to get his meals, except such as he
can snatch during very short intervals between the
passage of trains. Aiel the public generally will
heartily sympathies with the inspector's remarks.
Sulediantially the very same thing has been previously
said over and over again. It is only now, however,
that the public are becoming fully alive to the con-
nection between the unreasonably protracted labour of
ouch men ae engine-drivers, pointirmen, and signalmen,
and railway accidents.
Correspondence on communication between England
and France has been no prolific, and seems likely to
continue HO long, that it is highly probable that some-
thing will ultimately be done to nhorben that COMMllal-
cation and render it more agreeable; but prepomle with
this view are so numerous and so different, that what
that something will be, or when it will be effected, is
very denbtful. A railway bridge between Dover and
Calais is all very well on paper, but wind, waves, and
shipping show us that the projects, if carried out, would
result in numerous easualities. As to a railway tunnel
under the bed of the Channel, the feasibility ,rf such a
mode of communication may be said to have been
proved over and over again, but the enormous amounts
f money required does not appear likely to be forth
coming, especially while France continues so short of
ploney .1 flits i, at present. The mole objection may
be urgek: against the system of taking a train bodily on

board a steamer and transporting it across the Channel,
for the harbours on the French coast would require
immense Improvement to render this scheme prac-
ticable. Meanwhile a minor reform is suggested in
the earlier departure of the night trains for Paris from
Calais and Boulogne, and in the establishment of sleep-
ing carriages. The former we have a right to expect and
there would be no difficulty about it, but we have
scarcely a right to look for sleeping carriages on the
French Railways while we have nothing of the kind
on our own.

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