The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1869-11-13 00:00:00

Ettropolitan

BF Mt OWN CORICESPONDEVE

film remarks under this head are- to'e regarded as the ea.
prissafim La independent opinion, from the pen of a genticivall
In /mon... nave the greatest confidence, but for which ba
covorthales, du nut hold ourselves respoliksiblesi

Your readers will doubtless be so well informed as
to the incidenta connected with the Queen's visit to
London to open the Holborn Viaduct and Blackfriars
Bridge, that there is little left for me to say. But it
was so noteworthy an event that I must allude to it.
It was altogether a pleasant and a memorable scene.
Almost everything seemed to depend on the weather,
and the previous day had been so wet and miserable
that, in our variable climate the very fact was
encouraging. And the long.to-be-remembered iith of
November was, for the time of year, a glorious day—
alm, only moderately cold, and sunshiny; it was in
fact "Queen's weather," and such a day in" dreary,
dark November" will tend to make this notion about
Queen's weather an item in the creed of Englishmen.
We have been so little accustomed of late years to
anything like a fete-like appearance of our solemn
metropolis that the appearance of the streets in the
neighbourhood of these two great works was quite
enlivening. "Men are but children of a larger
growth," and staid, middle-aged men -yes, and even
old men, love to see flags and banners fluttering in the
breeze, crowds of people patiently waiting to see some
expected pageant, and ladies waving their handker-
chiefs at the windows when the pageant comes. I
ever saw a more orderly crowd than that which
gathered on this occasion. Much of this was owing to
the line of route being so admirably kept, and much
owing to that line being so long, but from my seat I
could watch the behaviour of a mass of people congre-
gated at a point of special interest, and their conduct
was admirable. We seem to be improving in this re-
spect. There was no mistake about the reception of
her Majesty. Both in the preparations that were
made and in the cheering which greeted her that re-
ception was enthusiastic. The Queen looked in
decidedly good health; she appeared pleased with the
cordial welcome that was accorded to her, and she
evidently took great interest in the whole scene.
Doubtless there may be some grumbling curmudgeons
who object to all this rejoicing, who can see no good in
it, and so on; but there was good done in two ways.
It gave a large number of people a holiday on a
memorable occasion, and it created an immense deal
of work. Of course business was to a certain extent
stopped for the day in certain streets, and there was
little doing in the City, but this business was only
deferred, not abandoned, while the preparations for
the Queen's reception employed hundreds of men for
weeks. Very much has been said about the glorious
improvement that these two grand works will effect,
but not too much. The bridge is a splendid reform as
compared with its predecessor (which, within a few
days, was opened just a century ago), but the viaduct
reform is beyond all calculation. It is decidedly the
finest engineering work in London, the Thames em-
bankment not excepted, and the facilities it will afford
to the traffic of our great metropolis cannot easily be
exaggerated.

It inay reasonably be supposed that during the
recent Cabinet Councils Ministers have decided upon
the leading features of their Irish Land Bill, though
details probably have yet to be arranged, but nothing
appears generally to be known as to the character of
the measure. The Times has had some pretentious
and apparently semi-official or semi.inspired articles on
the subject, but the tone of those articles shows that
the leading journal is by no means certain as to the
proposals of the measure. We must be content to
bide our time, or rather the Government time.
Ministers are by no means likely to make their plans
known till the measure is actually brought forward
souse three months hence.
If the people remain without those facilities for
national education, of which we have so long been talk.
lug, it will not be for want of leagues and unions and
organisations to press their views upon the public. Not
long ago the National Education League announced its
"platform," and since this was done the National
Education Union has come before the public, the main
idea appearing to be to oppose what the League has said
and done. The League, feeling that religious differ-
ences have hitherto been a barrier to any system of
really national education, propose that there shall be a
system of secular education, supported by rating, and
which shall be compulsory; the Union, believing that
education without religion is an evil, propose to extend
the present denominational system and combine some
religious teaching with any instruction that shall be
given, but so that the consciences of parents may not
be offended. Thus we see clearly brought before us
once again the difficulties that exist in connection with
any system of national education. Rival partisans of
League and Union are asserting the alleged merits of
either plan, and the public mud judge for themselves.
The controversy will at all events have the advantage
of preparing the public mind for any system
of national education that ths Government may
next session introduce. That Ministers will bring in
a bill to provide the means of education for thutie that
otherwise cannot obtain it is tolerably certain. It is
one of those measures that the public confidently ex-
pect,

Most people, perhaps, have become rather weary of
watching the progress of events in Spain. For some
thirteen months the thvone has been vacant ; the crown
has been put up to the highest bidder, or the most
powerful one; rival factions and conflicting politicians
have I,an quarrelling with each other; monarchists
and republicans have been at open warfare: and
Spain still finds herself without a monarch, without a
stable government and without credit. The young
Duke of Genoa, who is now at Harrow, has been pushed
forward vigorously by General Prim, but Victor Em.
insulters nephew is said not to desire the throne, nor
dots the King of Italy desire it for him. There ap-
pear to be two alternatives, that the Due de Mont-
pensier should be chosen sovereign, or that there should
be no king at all, and that the nation should govern it-
self as a republic. In any case affairs are in a criti-
cal position, and the very uncertainty of what may
comae next renders the news from Spain unusually in-
teresting for the moment
Poor Guy Fawkes is, figuratively speaking, Inthe sere
and yellow leaf; he has seen his best days; he is
moribund, decaying, fading—going, going, and soon
perhaps will be gone. There was an utter lack of
spirit in keeping up the commemoration of "gunpowder
plot" last Friday. The boys who carried about the
ofigies scented smaller and dirtier than ever, and the
guys themselves were more pitiable, so that altogether
the whole affair was more contemptible than ever;
while, as far as I could judge, the suburban firework
displays were tamer than ever. So much the better.
It is high time that this stupid attempt to make fun
out of a lamentable episode in our history were aim-
fished.

Mr. Payne, one of the judges at the Middlesex
Sessions, is well known for his efforts in the cause af
temperance, or rather teetotalism, which is not exactly
the same thing. Ile used to be very famous for his
poetical " tail•pieces "—a few verses of poetry, not of
a particularly high order, which he would give at the
end of his speeches. I have not read any of these of
late, but, in default of this, I have just read a curious
little speech he made tx cathedra at the Middlesex
Sessions House. "If he had the making of laws," he
"he would have a gallery for the special use of
drunkards, in courts of justice, so that they might
listen to the details of misery and wretchedness caused
by this habit, not only to tht mselves, but the wives
and families dependent upon them." But Judge
Payne must be aware that drunkards know all this
before, and they have no occasion to be thus taught
by the experience of others. What they unfortunately
want is the moral power to overcome their unfortunate
propensity to drink, audit is very doubtful whether

ALr. Payne's crotchet would tend this way.
Juries who have to decide railway accident compen-
sation cases really have a very difficult task, as stveral
recent decisions prove. Juries, I fancy, do not take
sufficient pains to come at the truth in such ; in
many instances tht y appear to jump to a conclusion,
and nine times out of ten against the railway com-
pany. Lord Campbell's Act, I believe, will undergo
revision next session, and not before it is wanted. It is
very salutary in principle, but it affords scope for grea
abuse.

A curious bit of news comes from St. Petersburgh.
In that rich and pleasure-loving capital a ballet is
being prepared; the stage is to represent a pianoforte
key-board, and on this novel platform the celebrated
denacuse Lydia is to go through her fascinating par.
This will be more curions perhaps than the late Baron
Nathan dancing among the eggs; but what sense, what
beauty can there be in it?
Mr. Charles Dickens, they say, is engaged on another
story, which will come out in the old aerial form. But
cars our celebrated novelist renew the charm of his
former works, those well-known novels that came out
years ago, in monthly number*, in those familiar
green covers? He has written so much and so well,
he has gained such well-deserved fame, that whatever
he writes will certainly have a good reception and be
largely read; but if he have not written himself out
his later works show that he has lost some of his old
freshness of treatment and geniality of manner; there
is unhappily more formalism and mannerism about
him now than of old. But, nevertheless, we shall all
welcome his re-appearance.

Vice-C'hancrlior litalina Imo docl,l tlint the ex-
Verses or the tiverend (WA Gurney pro3e, ation shall bet,
55 Dr. Thom had prayed, bepelit out oh the estates in

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