The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1878-06-29 00:00:00

I- -•T

"Xonbon aorrtsponknt,
riVe diem 't right to state that we do not at all times
identJ/3 ourzeives with our Correspondent's opinions.]

The stately towers of Windsor Castle, so conspicuous
to travellers upon the Great Western Railway, have
looked down upon many a scene of grandeur in the his
tory of the royal family of Great Britian. There have
foreign Potentates been received by our own Sovereigns
with imposing State Ceremonials, and there lie buried
many of the kings and queens of England. There the
surviving relatives of the late King George of Han-
over preferred that his remains should be placed, along
with those Of the deceased members of that House of
Hanover, whose representatives have occupied the

throne of England for more than a century and a
_ _ _ _

half. It W 8.3 meet that the dead monarch should
rest amid the calm quiet which distinguishes
the • rural scenery of Berkshire, for it thoroughly ac-
corded with the spirit of his life. He had a beautiful
villa on the Trann lake, within the borders of the
Austrian dominions, and after he had been dis-
possessed of his kingdom, here he spent mueh of his
time, a peculiar pleasure consisting in going round the
lake in a steamer and stopping at those points afford-
• ing the most picturesque views of the scenery. Even
when he ruled over the Hanoverians, he resided mostly
at his rural villa of Herrenhausen, choosing rather
the quiet pleasures of a country existence than
the boisterous delights of a populous capital. To a

man with such tastes, who loved life's sequestered
vale, and shunned tha ignoble state of the madding
crowd, Windsor was a most appropriate resting-
place; away from the hustle and the commotion which
are the inseparable surroundings of life in a great city.
Her Majesty's return to Windsor comes appro-
priately enough between the celebration of the two
anniversaries of her accession and her coronation.

The latter is nOt made so much of in London as in
dockyard and garrison towns; but the accession is
always commemorated in the metropolis by the thunder
of a hundred guns sending forth the news from St.
James's Park upon the west, and from the Tower
upon the east. Both these events, taking place each
within a few days of Midsummer, give the cele-
brants the opportunity of spending the longest possible
day over the festivities. There is a large proportion
still amongst us who remember the rejoicings which
took place throughout the country on the 28th June,
1838, when Queen Victoria was crowned in West-
minster Abbey. There was an enormous multitude

in the streets of London, which enthusiastically
cheered the new sovereign. The magnificent ball
given in the evening by the Duke of Wellington at
Apeley House was remarkable for the presence of
Marshal Soult, the French Ambassador. It was by

no means the first time that Wellington and Soult
had met. A quarter of a century before, they as the
respective commanders of the English and French
armies, had fought in the Peninsula, and the
monument at Toulouse tells of one of their fiercest
struggles.. But in modern life men know how
to eutwina "war's chaplet of palm round the
altar of peace." They may resemble Marius and
Sylla, Scipio and Hannibal, CFesar and l'ompey, in
daring valour or military skill, but not in deadly
enmity. The Duke of Wellington and Marshal Sonit
were none the less friends after the battle, because
each had done all in his power to win it for his
country.

The older a Parliament becomes the greater is the
mortality amongst its members. In the first year of
the existence of the present House of Commons, there
were only four deaths, while since the beginning of
this year there have been nine. In the Parliament
called in 1865 there were 23 deaths, in the proportion
of 16 Liberals to seven Conservatives; in that which
was summoned in 1868, there were 55 deaths, in the
proportion of 39 Liberals to 16 Conservatives. Of the
nine who have died this year, six sat upon the Opposi-
tion and three upon the Ministerial side of the House
of Commons. As to the speculations respecting the
probable existence of this Parliament, there is an air
of listlessness about it which forcibly reminds the
lobby hilbitue of that which precedes a dissolution.
The existing assembly has seen five sessions; legislative
work is no longer that novelty which it was in earlier
days; and members to some extent grow weary and
languid in their attendance The House of Commons
has now run as many sessions as its predecessor, and
has arrived at the average age of Parliaments during
the present reign. This is the ninth of Queen Victoria,
and forty-one years would give an average of about
four years and a half to each. Some have been longer,
and others considerably shorter. For instance, the
aborted of the whole, summoned in 1857, and lasting
less than two years, was succeeded by the longest,
called in 1859, and running untillB6s, after an existence
asix years and two months. There were seven sessions
in it, and Mr. Gladstone, as Chancellor of the
Exchequer, introduced seven Budgets in succession.
This in one Parliament is a most unusual occurrence.
A,burst of summer weather has gladdened both town
and country; and, in the agricultural districts, where
the mown grass, instead of turning into hay, was being

converted into pulp by the excessive moisture, none
know better than the farmer how to appreciate the
. golden hours of sunshine. The people of the towns,
knowing how much they owe to the tillers of the soil,
• never fail to flock in great crowds to the agricultural
shows, which are so often held in populous centres of
lii.L.Afrv. In Bono respects the most noteworthy feature
of modern- agriciatara ia the enormous extent to which
mechanieal power is superseding band labour. For
• siVeral years past inventors have been bestowing par-
ticular attention to the wants of farmers, and the ap-
pliances produced have manifested much skill and
ingenuity. But this is not the only point of view
from which annual agricultural exhibitions are to be
commended. The competition stimulates breeders
and growers to continued exertion, and such shows
themselves are valuable educational institutions, which
exercise a healthy influence in town as well as in
country..

The application of the little kingdom of Greece for
permission to have its representative admitted to the
great. European Congress now sitting at Berlin, and the
granting of the request in a qualified way, recall the
history of a people which in name at least has existed
nearly four thuniand years. Tradition says that the
founder .f the Greek nation was a son of Japheth ;
but without actually endorsing this, it is certain that
some portion of it was in existence two thousand
years before the Christian era. Long ages before any
of the Powers now at the Council Board at Berlin
were heard of amongst the kingdoms and Empires of
the earth, Greece, including Athens, Corinth, Thebes,
Sparta, Arcadia, and Macedon, was as powerful in war
as she was enlightened in peace. They could boast of
such military commanders as Miltiadee, who overthrew
the PerAans at Marathon; whilst Themi-tocles dealt
with them upon the sea. They could be proud of such
philosoplier3 as Socrates and Plato centuries before the
Druids conducted their religious celebrations upon
Salisbury Plain ; the works of Homer and of
Herodotus are studies to this hour; they could point
to the justice of Aristides, to the bravery of Leonidas,
to the consummate skill and strategy of Xenophon, to
the wisd 3M of Solon, to the laws of Lycurgus, and to
the s.culpture of Phidias. St. Paul's visit to Athens
proved to him the pride of the people in their city, and
he has told us of his rebuke to them for praising an
unknown God. Yet a people with such an array of
splendid intellects gradually declined, and after having
been for centuries under the yoke of the Turks, was
again created an independent kingdom just fifty years
ago, and is now admitted to an important gathering
by favour and not by right. Never has there been a
more thorough exemplification of the truth that "the
world's glory passeth away 1"
The London 'season. has been characterised by one
or two novelties to which it is not out of place to refer.
We all know the exclusive spirit which for so many
long ages animated the Chinese, how they regarded all
other nations as barbarians, enclosed their vast empire
with a wall, forbade emigration, and lived to them-
selves as thou..da China were the world, undivided and
indtvisible. When other nations wished to have
commercial intercourse with them, the Celestials
resisted, and entrance into their ports had to be
made by force. During the last twenty years or so,
however, they have been more tractable, and have
not only admitted the European emba-sies to
Pekin, but have sent us their own legations as
well. As the Chinese Minister and his suite move
about London, their peculiar dress forms quite an
attra;tion ; and as they do not confine themselves to
the west end, but are often found eastwards as far WI
the Mansion House their figures have become now fami-
liar ones. The Legation is in Portland-place, and there
the Chinese Minister and Madame Kuo give parties
and receptions in the English fashion, the hostess
being attired as an English lady of rank. This is
another step in advance, and shows the desire of the
Chinese to move forward in a world which is a very
different place now from what it was in the days of
Confucius, their great philosopher. The other
novelty of the London season is an outdoor one.
Whether the Australian cricketers play at Lord's, on
the north side of the Thames, or at Kennington Oval
upon the south, an enormous crowd is certain to be
attracted to witness their play. Cricket seems to have
become more popular than ever since the colonists
were borne over so many miles of ocean to -enter
the list against ti.e batsmen and the howlers of the
mother pow4try.

A celebration of a remarkable character is proposed
to: be held in Italy next year.
.Eighteen centuries Will
paS,e4. au/ay since the 2 ;rd of August, 97,
when; bran eruption of Mount Vesuvius the cities of
Heretilaneoin and Yomptii were overwhelmed and
totally destroy ed, and more than 200,000 persons

perished. Amongst the victims of this awful
visitation was Pliny the naturalist, who fell
a victim to his intense devotion to science, and
lost his life through a too near approach to
the burning mountain, the better to chronicle the
terrible phenomena that formed the incidents of the
hour. There have been many calamities in the history
of the world, but few to surpass this, either in its fear-
ful nature, or in the magnitude of the catastrophe.
The sea has made sudden and treacherous incursions
upon the land; cities have been destroyed by earth-
quakes, and as in the case of Baalbec, have left naught
standing except the marble columns of the temples;
fortified towns have suffered through the adverse
fortunes of war; and whole empires have been obliter-
ated during the march of Time. But here were two
cities with a population double that of Brighton,—with
a splendid climate, a magnificently fertile soil, and en-
joying the health-giving breezes of the Mediterranean—
effaced on a summer day by a torrent of liquid fire. The
instantaneous nature of the eruption was obvious,
when fifteen hundred years afterwards the excavations
showed the marks of chariot wheels in the streets and
squares, and the skeletons of slaves at the fountain,
priests at the altar, maidens at the mirror, pla asure-
seekers on the promenades, merchants at their desks,
and tipplers at the refreshment bars. It was a des-
truction as complete as that which had overtaken the
cities of the Plain, in which, according to the chronicles
that ttll of the intercession of Abraham, ten righteous
persons could not be found. The people of Hercu-
laneum and Pompeii lived in lordly palaces when the
ancient Britons fled into Wales and Cornwall to es-
cape from the ltonaau armies; but their arts, their
commerce, their industry and their agriculture were
blotted out for ever by their absorption into a burning
fiery furnace. It will be both curious and interesting
to note the way in which the Italians, after a lapse of
eighteen hundred years, commemorate such an un-
paralleled disaster.