The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1876-02-05 00:00:00

our funlmn CorrevinOtnt.

[We deem it right to state that we do not at all times
Ldentify ourselves with our Correspondent's opinions.]

The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council is a
tribunal which has been brought into some prominence
of late, as being called upon to decide matters of great
interest to considerable sections of the community.
But although it is so often before the public, compara-
tively few persons have a distinct idea of its functions,
the range of its powers, or its composition. Yet it is
a Court of Final Appeal whose interpretations of the
laws are fixed and unalterable. It hears and decides
appeals in cases of lunacy, from the Ecclesiastical and
Admiralty Courts, from the Warden of the Stannariee,
and the Courts of the Isle of Man, India, and the
Colonies. It meets in an apartment at the corner of
Downing-street and Whitehall; and, like all other
judicial tribunals in this country, is open to the public.
If you look in there when a great case is on, you will
see seven or eight elderly gentlemen seated at a table
covered with green baize. They are dressed in ordinary
attire, and not, as in other courts, costumed in wig and
gown. Should the appeal be an ecclesiastical one, very
likelryou may see one or_two prelate& there, for the
Ar:chbishope of Canterbury and York and the Bishops
of London have the right of sitting there. The
nominal chairman is the Lord President of
the Council, who is the fourth great officer of
State, and always a member of the Cabinet. But
as the Lord President is never a lawyer,
and as it is essential that the law should be laid down
by this committee without doubt or hesitation, the
chair is usually taken by the Lord Chancellor, who is
assisted by his predecessors in office, and such of the
chiefs of the Common Law and Equity Courts as may
be nominated for the occasion by the Lord President.
The appeal from any judgment of an inferior court is,
by a legal fiction, beard "by Her Majesty in Council,'
and all decisions of the Judicial Committee wind up
with the de.:..teration : " We, therefore, edvise Her
Majesty" to take the particular course recommended.
Some members of the court may dissent from it, but
this dissent is never expressed; consequently, to the
outside world, the judgments always seem to be unani-
mous. A Privy,Councillor, enjoys the distinction of
"Right Honourable," and, in a Royal proclamation,
' whenever one of this body is named, he is styled "our
right trusty and well-beloved counsellor." It may not
be generally known that to attempt the life of a Privy
Councillor in the execution of his duty is a capital
crime. It is looked upon as an attempt to deprive the
Sovereign of a vglued adviser; and upon Guiscard's
stabbing Mr. Harley whilst the latter was examining
him on a charge of high treason in the reign of Queen
Anne, an Act was passed rendering it punishable with
death.
Amid the never ending comments on the high price
of provisions, it is difficult for us now to realize the
fact that a time existed in our island's history when
wheat as food for 100 men for a whole day was worth
only a shilling, and the average price of a sheep was
fourpence, In the reign of Henry I. the price of wine
was raised to sixpence a quart for red, and eightpence
for white, in ordeithat the sellers might be enabled to
live by it. When wheat was at 63. a quarter, the farthing
loaf waslto be equal in weight to twenty-four ounces if
made of the whole grain, and to sixteen ounces if con-
sisting solely of white. And when wheat was is. 6d.
per quarter, as. it sometimes was, the farthing white
loaf was to Vieigh sixty-four ounces, and the whole
grain ninety-six. Fancy purchasing a 61b loaf of good
wheaten bread for a farthing! In the 29th year of
the reign of Edward I. the price of provisions in the
City of London was fixed by the Common Council at a
tariff by which two pullets were sold for three-half-
pence; a partridge or two woodcocks the same; while
a fat lamb was to be sixpence from Christmas to
Shrovetide, and the rest of the year fourpence. in the
fourteenth century, Parliament fixed the price of
a fat ox at £2 Bs. ; a shorn sheep 55.; two dozen
of eggs threepence, and the best wine 203.
per tun. An Act of Parliament passed in 3533 settled
the value of beef and pork at a half-penny per lb., and
veal at three-farthings. These must have been very
different days from our own times, and the contrast
between therulieg quotations then and those of Leaden.
hall and Smithfield-markets now, is a remarkable
illustration of the social revolution which has passed
over the land in these later times. For centuries the
country literally stood still, and provisions were very
little dearer in the reign of Queen Elizlbe,h than in
that of King John. It is since the people have mani-
fested their energy and enterprise to such a remarkable
degree that necessaries and luxuries have become dearer,
and wealth has increased.
The month of February is one in which people begin
to hope that they have bidden good-bye to the dreary
days of winter, or that at all events that no long time
will elapse before they will be enabled to do so. Every
week shows a difference in the length of the day, as
well in the morning when the dawn may be seen creep-
ing along the eastern sky as in the evening when the
shades of twilight linger in the west and seem reluctant
to depart. And as the longer the sun is above the
horizon, the more warmth is imparted to the earth,
those who look for early spring are not discouraged by
an occasional burst of cold weather which seems to take
them back again into December. Occasionally
a day of unusual brightness, chasing away the
gloom which has settled down upon the land for weeks
is, to use the chaste language of one of our poets, like
the meeting of Heaven and Earth—the budding of
the leaves upon the trees and the freshening vegeta-
tion telling of the season which is to come, when the
sun shall enliven the crowded city and the rural land-
sc_ape after many a night of frost, and many a day of
tempest. The month of February, which is one of the
two added to the year by Numa, 2,500 years ago, is so
called from the celebration of what were termed
Febrile in Ancient Rome, or prayers for the repose of
departed souls.
The new street from Trafalgar. square to the Thames
Embankment will now be opened in a few weeks. It
is to be planted on either side with trees, like the Efiti-i
bankment itself, and after the fashion of the Boule-
vards of Paris. The beautiful, as well as the useful,
Is thus to play an important part in considering the
improvements to be carrie.l out ;n the British capital,
and there is little doubt that this will in future be the;
case to a greater extent than in the past. Meanwhile
the Board of Works is pushing on with a new thorough-
fare connecting the east of London with the west, and
extending from Bethnal-green even unto Bayswater.
It will sweep away a good many of the worst of the
metropolitan rookeries, and as it is to be several miles
in length, the cost of its construction is likely to be
very considerable.
The fact that the challenge to row the Annua
University Boat-race has been given and accepted, re-
minds us of the preparations which are even now being
made for the celebration of the Aquatic Derby. The
contest usually comes off on the Saturday preceding
Good Friday, so that this year the Bth of April will be
the date. Such is the variable nature of our climate
that the race although governed by a moveable fes-
tival within prescribed limits, has been rowed in all
descriptions of weather. In 1872 there was a fierce
snowstorm, while in the following year the day was as
bright a summer one as could be wished for. Formerly
the competing crews were accompanied up the river
by a score of steamers, puffing and snorting, and filling
the air with coal smoke. The Thames Conservancy
Board now, however, only permit
_four steamers to
follow the boats—those containing the umpire, one
each for the universities, and the other for the members
of the press. So rapid is the pace at which the crews
get over the course that the steamers have to put on
full power in order to keep up with them, the rate
being an average one of twelve miles an hour. The
crowds which actually witness the race form but a
small proportion of those who take an interest in an
event which is talked of by millions of the population
who look upon it as a fair straightforward test of
courage and endurance, free from all suspicion of