The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1879-03-22 00:00:00

Our Nonbon 6orrespatnl.

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

Before the incidents of the gorgeous Wedding scene
In St. George's Chapel, Windsor, are allowed to be-
come faded and dim in the memory, a few words upon
the Royal Marriage Act may not be out of place. It
is interesting to note that the form of registry under
this statute is still preserved. It was passed in the
twelfth year of George the Third's reign to prevent
the Royal family being apparently degraded by mar-
riages contracted by Royal princes without the
Sovereign's consent. Two brothers of the King—the
Duke of. Gloucester and the Duke of Cumberland—had
married widows who were not of Royal birth, namely,
the Countess of Waldegrave and Mrs. Horton. Nor
was the Act allowed to remain a dead letter. The
late Duke of Sussex married Lady Augusta Murray
in 1793, but the union was not recognised by the
King. George IV., when Prince of Wales, con-
tracted a private and secret marriage with Mrs.
Fitzherbert, a most charming widow, who had had
two husbands before she was tive-and-twenty years of
age. This was before his union with Princess Caroline
of Brunswick, whose domestic troubles afterwards
occupied so much of the attention of the people.
Those who read the accounts of the Duke of Con-
naught's wedding would have seen that the form of
registry so carefully adhered to was indispensable ac-
cording to the law of the land. The frrm xl consent of
the Sovereign had to be E ign ified under the Great Seal,
and declared in Council. This consent had to be
recorded in the licence and in the register, and entered
in the books of the Most Honourable Privy Council.
The Sovereign's consent was necegsary to make the
contract valid. Without ih, neither the religious
ceremony nor the civil union would have been of any
avail whatever.

As, previously to the Duke of Connaught' k wedding,
there had been no royal marriage in this country for
eight years, it is not surprising that a great amount
of interest was excited over an event so comparatively
rare. In particular, the contrast between the sur-
rounding circumstances of the marriage of the eldest
of the Queen's children and that of her seventh must
have occurred to many minds. When the Princess
Royal was married, on the 25th January 1858, there
was great indignation in this country at the menacing
language of the French journals with regard to an
attempt which had been made to assassinate the Em-
peror Napoleon on his way to the Opera, and which
plot, it was alleged, had been developed in London.
On the mor ing of the day on which the Princess
Royal's. wedding took place, the papers contained
a speech of Count Persigny, the French Am-
hassador in London, in which, whilst receiving
an address from the City Corporation, he had, in high-
handed language, demanded an alteration of the laws
of England relating to conspiracy and murder, with a
view to their being rendered more stringent in their

application to political refugees. On Lori Palmerston
making an effort to legislate in that direction, he
was driven from office, and • his Government, the
strongest of modern times, became a wreck—so

indignant was the nation at the idea of our laws being
altered at the dictation of a foreign Power. Such was
the state of our relations with France at one Royal
wedding—a wedding of remote days. The French
Empire has long since crumbled away, and the "Child
of France" is now sailing over the seas to witness the
struggle between civilization and barbarism which is
now being waged on another Continent.
The interest in the Zulu war has awakened the

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expiring energies of a moribund Parliament, and any-

_
thing like the storm which raged in the House of Cosia-
mons when this question was brought forward a few
nights ago has not been witnessed for years. It has
been felt for some time that the hand of Death is upon
the Representative Chamber, and that the paralysis of
approaching dissolution has descended upon the trans-
action of its business. Parliament came together
snore than a month ago, and, thus far, three little
introduced by private members, is the result of
its achievements. On Wednesday, when the House
meets at noon, the Speaker has to wait gene-
rally an hour before forty members can be got I
together so that he may take the chair. But the con- 1
test with King Cetewayo, and the circumstances which
attended the disaster at Isandula, stirred the languid
assembly to its dep the. The energy and, the excite-
ment seemed to bring back the time of its younger
life, when it was fresh from the polls; the scene re-

minded tha spectator of some of those tempests which
were the accompaniments of Parliamentary existence
forty years ago, when the voices of Sir RJbert Peel
and Daniel O'Connell were the only ones that could be
heard above the roar of Parliamentary strife. The
Speaker of that time frequently had to threaten that if
the members gathered at the bar, and who were chiefly
responsible for the clamour, did not return to their seats,
they would be given into the custody of the Serjeant-
at-arms, a draitic method of suppressing disorder
which is unknown to the present generation.
Some correspondents of a London newspaper have

recently beea urging the advisability of forming an
association f 4 r insurance against loss of sight. As this
is one of the most serious calamities which an befall
a human b.ing, it is not surprising that the subject
should have been considered worthy of discussion. It
Is stated that in the British Isles alone there are over
30,000 persons who suffer from total deprivation of
sight. With those to whom it is for ever " total
eclipse, no sun, no moon—all dark amid the blaze
of noon," the affliction in most cases involves
terrible consequences. The head of a family who
has had nothing but his labour to depend upon
becomes comparatively helpless. Unquestionably,
therefore, provision by means of insurance against
ioss of sight, ar.d the results likely to follow, would

be be a very wise precaution. Only a small premium
would be required to effect au insurance, whilst in
cases of blindness the advantages of a guaranteed
Annuity would be enormous. It is worthy of note that
comparatively few persons are born blind. Small-
pox, accidents, overwork, artificial light, and diseases
of the eye which arise from various other causes, are
chiefly, respcnsible for adding to the numbers of those
who are placed in permanent darkness. Very
frequently sight has been lost through carelessness,
or the want of proper surgical attention. That such
cases are not more numerous is due in a very great
measure to the admirable organisation of the excellent
ophthalmic institutions established in this country,
bearing the inscription : "Supported by voluntary
contributions."
The Lord Mayor has promptly opened a fund at
the Mansion House for the relief of the sufferers
through the calamitous floods in Hungary. Of any-
thing like this we have seldom heard. In 1875 there

were terrible inundations in France, when a suburb
of the city of Toulouse was washed away ; we hear of

them oceaaionally from Italy; but that a town of

eighty thousand inhabitants should be wrecked in a
visitati, n of one of the forces of nature, is a

catastrophe so widespread and so appalling as at once
to strike the imagination and to arouse the sympathy.
The descriptions of hundreds of women and children
climbing to the highest points only to be submerged 'at
last reminds us of Dr. Guthrie's graphic picture of
the scene at the Great Deluge, when, after the destruc-
tion of a vast quantity of human life, the ark floated
solitary and alone upon the waves of a shoreless
ocean. The obliteration of a community by the rising
water and the mighty rushing wind is an incident of
modern civilization which will appeal to the sym-
pathies of Europe. The Lord Mayor cf London,
whoevar lie may ha, and of whatever predilections,
has always stood forward as the almoner of public
charity in cases like- this, which touch the chords of
sympathy in entire peoples. The occasion is as urgent
as when a fund was opened at the Mansion House to
relieve the starving population of besieged Paris, or
the homeless citizens of burn,`, out Chicago; and
although we know little of Szegedin beyond its
name, the touch of nature which makes the whole
world kin will inspire foreign nations to mako an effort
to alleviate the distress which has been caused by so
great and irremediable a dbaster.
;Notwithstanding the interest commanded, by such
public qrtestiona as those which come before the 'Legis-
lature, a glance at the columns of the papers will show
that a considerable section of the population eagerly
discusses such topics as those which bear upon re-
ere Ition and amusement. The Cricket g2mon will soon
be here again, and Lord Harris's Eieveis, who have
net left Melbourne on their way to England, will be
back in time to relate their experiences of men and
manners in the Antipodes to such of their acquain-
tances as take part in the opening matches. They
eessm ta have had a pleasant time during their sojourn
at the other end of the globe; indeed, to the uninitiated,
and to the casual observer, the life of a cricketer
would appear to be one of the most agreeeable charac
ter, Who waa the primordial cricketer—the man who
defined the weaving of a hit at leg, or a catch
at point, and who had the genius to construct a scien-
tific game out of bats, balls, bails, and stumps? We
know who was the great original archer; for the Book
of Genesis has told us that Ishmael beczme an archer
3,600 years ago. Archery is A pleasant pastime (o this
day, although Ishmael adapted it to a very different
purpose. When, in the Russian war a quarter a a
century ago, our wounded soldiers in the hospitals at
acutari became convalescent they resorted to cricket,
Mu?sulmans who watched them being bewildered
their mental efforts to comprehend the game. It is
certainly one of great value in ensuring a quickness of
eye and a development of muscular power; and no
nue can wonder that it is such a universal favourite
amongst a people where such attributes are so highly
rized 7