The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1884-07-19 00:00:00

Cur folthun Contspoatnt.

IWe deent It right to state tftt we do not at all times
alentify 'ourselves with our Cottespondent's opiuitins.]

There is no part of London, or, indeed, of the
country, where any member of the Royal family
received with more cordiality than in the eastern part
of the metropolis. Beyond the City boundaries at
Aldgate there is a population of tearly a -million
souls, of which the dwellers in the 'ether portions of
the capital litmw little or nothing. They have heard
of Bow and Stepney, Mile-end and .liWtknal-green,
Spitallields and Whitechapel, Shadwell and Shore-
ditch, Thounsditch and Shackle-well, Limehouse and
Poplar, Wapping and the Isle of Dogs; but they
have very little notion as to how they would get
there even if they cared to make the experiment of
the journey. They know how to Teach Birmingham or
Manchester, Leeds or Liverpool, 'Exeter or Plymouth;
but to get to Cubitt-town,or Silvertown, all parts of
the east end of the capital, would not be quite so easy
a task, viewed superficiaty. Tot it is no uncommon
occurrence for the Primes •end Princess of Wales to
penetrate into the very haart of Bethnal-green, and
to be received with enthusiastic cheers by the toiling
workers there.
In the Whitechapel-road is the London Hospital,
the largest institution of its kind in the whole
of the metropolis, and the only one available for
supplying the wants of that enormous popula-
tion. Unlike Gufs,St. Thomas's, and St. Bartholo_
mew's, it has 'no rich foundation, depending

almost entirely cltpon annual subscriptions and

casual d.onationa. A Royal visit to a deserving
place of this sort -confers an immense benefit upon it
by attracting pntlic attention to-lt;-an-d-eliciting the
support required to enable it to contirne its bene_
ficent work. A-short time ago the Prince and Prin-
cess of Wales 'promised to pay the London Hospital
a visit on a snecified day, when an engagement
suddenly called the Prince to Paris a short time pre-
viously. IFe, however, returned to London at seven
o'clock in the morning of the day fixed, and at four in
the afternoon was at the hospital with the Princess.
. It is such it huge building that the perambulation of
the wards-occupied an hour. The most recent visit
of their Royal Highnesses to the East-end was at the
soiree at the Bethnal Green Museum last Friday
night, an institution which they opened on the 24th
June 1874.
The Bastille fete in Paris on each succeeding 14th
July is commemorated with all the vivacity so charac-
teristic of the residents in the French capital. It is
only five years short of a century that the people of
Paris, wearied of the unrelieved tyranny of the
Bourbons, rose in insurrection, and after a short
giege, captured and razed to the ground the great
State prison, which had for centuries stood in the
heart of the city as an embodiment of despotism
struck into stone. Anything more scandalous than
the system represented by the Bastille was never
tolerated in any civilised land. Men or women
could, by the payment of a sum to the State, on the
part of anyone having an antipathy towards them, be
immured within these gloomy walls for life, without
knowing the reason of their incarceration, and never
being brought to trial. It was a living tomb. The
incensed population made very short work of it when
they did get hold of it. There were only a few pri-
soners in the Bastille when its destruction was com-
passed, all of whom had long since given up any hope
of over again seeing the faces of their fellow human
beings. The site of the vast fortress is now called the
Place de in Bastille, with a column to commemorate
the eves memorable event.
The levelling of the Bastille was just nine years
after the Lord George Gordon riots in London, when
a fanatical mob attacked and burned Newgate. But
the people of London did not take long to have their
fling out, and to subside again into peaceful citizens,
Their conduct was in strong contrast with that of the
inhabitants of Paris, who, when once the floodgates
were opened, proceeded to the most extraordinary
excesses, ending only with the execution of the King
and Queen. In all the times of commotion known in
the metropolis, no attempt has ever been made to
assail the Tower, which, however, can scarcely be said
to have ever been even the faintest resemblance to the
Ba.stilla. It is true that some State prisoners con-
fined wit4in its walls were never brought to trial, as,
for instance, Sir Walter Raleigh, whose dungeon
where he lay thirteen dreary years, is shown to the
visitor. The Tower is a palace and a fortress as well
as a prison, and the ineidents of its existence are those
if the history of London, of Great Britain, and of the
umpire of which we are all so proud.
The increase of the cholera at Toulon and Mar-
seilles has awakened the sanitary authorities of
London to a full sense of the gravity of the scourge
which has fallen upon the shores of France and the
Mediterranean. Of course London is kept cleaner
than these towns, from which the inhabitants are
fleeing by thousands; at the same time when it once
obtains a footing it is not easy to dislodge it. This
was the case in 1866, when it made its appearance in
the Faat-end of London, probably having been brought
to thedocks by a ship trading with infected Oriental,
lands. • The dismay and alarm were then un-
miatakfxible ; yet there was no panic as at
Toulon. and Marseilles, and we have heard nothing of
people dying by thousands from London to escape
thiS terrible plague. The mortality was at its height
in the month of August in that year; but according
to the returns of the Registrar-General, from the Ist
of July to the 30th September no fewer than 20,000
persons, died in the metropolis from cholera wad its
attendant satellite dysentery. The abnormally hot
weather of the present summer, and the fact that
-cholera, has broken out on the coasts of our next
neighbour, has led to a thorough overhauling of .our
machinery of prevention; but those who are re-
sponsible for the public health have the fullest ten&
dence that their forces are strong enough to grapple
with so fearful and deadly a foe.
Mr. C2iatterton's declaration of 1869 that " Shake-
spere _spelt ruin " is a dictum of the past. The
Shakeeparean revivals at the Lyceum, under the
management of Mr. Irving, show that the Bard of
Avon can be made as popular now as when Shake-
epeaxe was accustomed to read his plays before Queen
lilizabeth in Middle Temple Hall. "Hamlet," "The
Merchant of Venice," "The Merry Wives of Windsor;"
'Much 'Ado About Nothing,' and now "Twelfth
Night" have crowded the Lyceum nightly, and as Mr.
Irving has : proved, American audiences are no less
appreciative than those on this side of the Atlantic.
Meanwhile Madame Sarah Bernhardt has been been
fillirg the Gaiety as Lady Macbeth, while " Claudian "
continuos to hold its own at the Princess's, "In the
- Bank?' at: the Adelphi, and " Princess Ida at the

Savo.
The political crisis promises to make the, recess a
voq, busy este if there is no hope of arranging the
. very serious differences which have arisen between
• the two Houses of Parliament, for they are more
• nitm.eplous than any which have been presented for
t3olution during half a century. Reform demonstra-
tions will again be organised, beginning in London
and sPreading through the large towns. That in
Hyde-park,.on the 21st, corresponds within a couple
of dap to that of 1866, which took place on the 23rd
July. That was-the night when, the police having
interdicted the gathering, a vast multitude assembled
in the weet-end streets, and the railings were
broker clown .iLI all directions. There is
now co prohibition, and therefore no incen-
,tive_to:disorder. At the same time there is no
doubt that the residents in the best part of London
would prefer -that such an immense concourse of
sPeetatore.gathered elsewhere than in 11,ydep1park.
The Wimbledon rifle competition has ouce more
tome round, and the volunteer movement Las now
69m14€4.4 the. twenty-fifth year of its er;sLence,
baving-had:itxiaeeption in Jane, 18.59. -What flanges
have been-Witnessed only in that short. space of tive.o !
The mfgi, ati potentate against whom the force wts
originally called -into exis' tence vele then the Bs*
powerful Sovereign in Europe. The Emperor of the
.French iti.sl just .beaten down Ale strength .of
Austria -air Magenta and Solferino, and stood
trpon a pinnacle from which ;le gradually
declined. People lost faith in hive when he
annexed Savoy fuld Nice, which seemed a strange way
of carrying out his professed &sire for Itali.an unity. ,
Rat the nw. Italian kingdom was not strong enough
to resist this demand. Very different was the result
vtlaen seven years afterwards the Zinperor demanded
compensation from. Prussia for the increased power
ychteh she had obtained at Sadowy. Finally came
the crash, and the remains of the once puissant!
MfMrayth have for more than a decade reited in the
land wiliz.th he was credited with an intention to
invade, bat which through that belief now possesses
an eillciens force for home defence which never
etscznee 92.1 c/2,,tmtlations of the Continental rovrem

DESERTION OF TURKISH SOLDIERS

IN EGYPT.

h telegram dated Tuesday, the Cairo corre•
spot:dent of the Deri4 News says: A large number of
s-rcalled. Bashi-batouks, most of whotn enlisted in

Egypt as Turks, on being ordered to proceed to
Assouan deserted here, having three days ago given
out publicly that they would not fight the Mandi, at
least withoset three months' advance to pay. Last
night only eighty were induced to go to the railway
station oil route to A.ssouan. Two jumped out of the
carriage in motion. Others fired out of the windows.
The result was that only thirty-three reached
Assiolt, the rest deserting with arms nod am-
miesition. The thirty - three who remained
faithful were Albanians, recruited by Zorab Bey
daring three months' absence in Turkey, when
enormous expense was incurred with ridiculously
small results. Another telegram jug received states
that these thirty-three have gone to hunt the remain-
ing forty-seven. For some reason this state of
affairs is even now spoken lightly of by the
authorities. It is in reality serious as a sign of the
times. The mutiny took place days ago, yet the
authorities seem to have been ignorant of it, or to
have carefully concealed it. _ _

The Mudir of Dongola telegraphs to-day that
General Gordon has anade a sortie as far as Waly
Bfschera, and repulsed the rebels without loss.
A merchant, arrived at Dongola from Berber, says
the town was taken by the rebels without any casual-
ties. M. Cuzzi has gone to Khartoum at his own re-
quest, and has not been sent by the rebels.
A telegram from Kassala 4:lated it May states
that Khartoum was still in Government hands and
that General Gordon was well.