The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1878-04-06 00:00:00

Our Noithon QTArttsponbtitt.

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

It is curious to note the differences of feeling which
surround the contemplation of a national calamity
according to the varying circumstances of the time.
Contrast, for instance, the incidents connected with the
foundering of the Captain and of the Eurydece. Both
took place at a period when the attention of the people
of Great Britain was concentrated upon foreign affairs.
The Captain catastrophe happened in is heavy squall,
near Finisterre, on the 7th September, 1870--
two days after the Revolution in Paris, in
the midst of which the Empire was dissolved,
and the deposition of the Napoleonic dynasty was
decreed. The glittaring fabric which had dazzled
Europe like a splendid vision dining nearly twenty
years had disappeared like a phantom of the
night; and whilst this was upon everbody's lips
here, we received the news of the loss of one
of our most famous ships of war. The troubles
of our neighbours were for the time forgotten, and we
had no memory then but for a great national sorrow.
It was at first feared that all on board—about 482
persons—had gone down with the ill-fated ship, but
it was soon learnt that thirteen had managed to escape,
and their story kept alive the painful interest attach-
ing to this calarnity. The capsizing of the Eurydice,
with happily 200 fewer men, took place at a time of
great national anxiety lest we ourselves should be
involved in the miseries which have so often des-
cended upon other nations. It created a pro-
found impression on the public mind, but unfor-
tunately other topics of momentous importance
crowded thick and fast upon it. Some men live,
and others drown, but the vast universe moves
.on irrespective of either. And thus it came to pass
that tutlan three or four days that a land breeze had
sent a rzallant frigate to the bottom of the channel,
the reargnation of the Secretary for State for Foreign
Affairs set the diplomatic world of Europe talking of
the newe ,t sensation. There was a panic upon the
Stock Exchange, excitement in Berlin, irritation in
St. Petersburg, uneasiness in Paris, perturbation in
Vienna; for, somehow or other, it was felt that the
withirawal of the Foreign Minister was the presage of
the country being brought nearer to war. And at the
very time that these fears were filling the minds of the
people, preparations were being made by the Metro-
politan Board of Works for the erection upon the
Thames Embankment of the Egyptian obelisk
know._ as Cleopatra's Needle, which was stand-
ing in the sunlit squares of a gorgeous eastern
city centuries and centuries before the utterance of
that prophecy so often quoted from Holy Writ that a
time should cocae when swords should be beaten into
ploughshares, and spears into pruning-hooks, when
nation should no longer rise up against nation, neither
should they learn the art of war any more. Countless
ages have passed since that prophesy was given to the
world, and yet Cleopataa's Needle, in its new home,
will look down upon a city in which war is the all-
absorbing theme of conversation. The nations, so far
from not learning war any more, have during the last
five-and-twenty years devoted all their energies to
producing the most efficient weapon for the destruc-
tion of human life.

The present Emperor of Russia was the last reign.
log sovereign in Europe who paid a State visit to
this country, and that was four years ago. The
King of the Belgians often runs over here, but he
never makes a State affair of it, and moves about
London arm-in-arm with the Prince of Wales with
not the slightest show or ostentation. The Queen of
Holland was here two years ago, on a private visit to
our own Sovereign, and the King of Denmark spent a
few days with us last summer, when he came to see
his daughter, the Princess of Wales. We are now
to have the Crown Prince and Princess of Denmark
amongst us for a short time. It is singular
to note how closely three children of King
Christian are associated with countries interested in
the present grave crisis. One daughter is the wife of
the heir-apparent to the throne of England; another
is the wife of the heir-apparent to the throne of
Russia; and one of his sons is King of Greece, whose
wife is the daughter of the Grand Dike Constantine,
brother of the Czar, and Admiral of the Russian Fleet.
With England and Greece united against Russia in
rase of war, here is a family complication which
might well cause anxiety and sorrow in the Palace at
Copenhagen.
• That kings and peoples, no less than private indivi-
duals, have their troubles, and that no lot in life is
free from occasional trial, is amply illustrated by
what is passing every day around us. Few
of us have forgotten the onslaught made by Austria
and Prussia upon Denmark in 1864, when the
Queen's son-in-law, the Crown Prince of Prussia, was
called upon to make war upon the father of her
Majesty's daughter-in-law, the Princess of Wales.
Incidents like these are extremely painful, and can be
known nothing of amongst private families. A +n
nations, all seem to have a turn in the direction of
trouble and disquietude. Seven years ago, when Paris
was in the hands of the Communists, and was being
besieged by the Versailles army—a siege which was to
end in fearful slaughter and the destruction of the
principal public buildings by fire—a newspaper pub-
lished in the French capital printed the following :
"The principal news from London is that the people
are in a state of great excitement over the result of the
University Boat Ram Happy Loudon ! " A few
years pass swiftly by, and now London is agitated by
feazs of impending war. The metropolis, it is
true, is not in the possession of unscrupulous rebels,
nor invested by an army composed of Government
troops, but there is a cloud upon its prosperity, and
throughout the land silent spindles and cobwebbed
looms, smokeless furnaces, and rusting machinery, tell
of the blight which has fallen upon our industry. It
is Paris that ought to be happy now, for within a
.month from this time the International Exhibition in
that city is to be opened by the President of the
Republic.

_The month of April is one which witnesses two
birthdays in the Royal family of Great Britain, and
the birthdays are those of Her Majesty's two youngest
children. Prince Leopold is 25 years of age on the
7th, and Princess Beatrice is 21 on the 14th. In May
there are three—those of the Queen herself, the Duke
of Connaught, and Princess Christian. In November
there are two—those of the Prince of Wales, and the
Crown Princess of Prussia. Of the six &cleat children
of the Sovereign, the Princess,Royal was married at
17, Princess Alice at 19, Princess Helena at 20, the
Prince of Wales at 21, Princess Louisa at 23, and the
Duke of Edinburgh at 30. Qf the three remaining
unmarried, the eldest is the Duke of Connaught, who
will be 23 next month. It is probable that this
twenty-fifth birthday of the Queen's youngest son will
soon hereafter be marked by his creation as a
Duke of some important place, so as to give him a
distinguishing title, with a seat in the House of Lords.
Prince Alfred was made Duke of Edinburgh at twenty-
two, and Prince Arthur Duke of Connaught at
twenty-four. Therefore, in point of age, and follow-
ing the precedent of his brothers, the time seems to
have arrived for Prince Leopold to have a territorial
designation. Without it he is not a peer of the realm,
as are his three brothers and his two uncles, the Duke
of Cambridge and the King of Hanover, the latter being
described on the roll of the Lords as the Duke of Cum-
berland. The fact of a man being a prince does not
necessarily make him a peer. Prince Christian is not
a member of the House of Lords, nor is Prince Teck,
Prince Edward of Saxe Weimar, or Prince Leiningen.
The distinction must be a special act of the Crown,
and under the Great Seal. ;And every order of the
peerage, from the dukedoms to tile baronies, must
have a tertitorial description—a fact which is often
overlooked by educated writers when they refer to a
despatch of "Earl Derby," or a speech of "Earl
Beaconsfield," as though Derby and Beaconsaeld were
the family names, and not the names of towns from
which the titles are derived. It would be just as cor-
rect to w. ,te "Duke Northumberland," or " Marquis
Salisbury." Returning, for a moment to the Queen's
three sous with seats in the House of Lords, it may be
added that they represent upon the roll Wales, Scot-
land, and Ireland, and that her Majesty has not yet
revived any of the titles borne by the younger sons of
King George 111., such as Gloucester, Kent, Sussex,
and York.

Canon Kingsley, when he was alive, wrote an de to
the fierce north-easter, when it was accustomed to
sweep down upon the land from its frozen home, and
it was during the passage of one of these unkindly
blasts over the country that a fatal illness attacked
him, and in the same season which carried off the
Count de Jarnac and Sir Arthur Helps. The bitter
winter weather which has succeeded the vernal equinox
i 3 one more illustration of the manner in which of late
years the seasons seem to have become reversed. In
old chronicles winter began at Christmas; this year,
after a long spell of mild and genial weather, it was in
full swing at Ladyday. Snow-storms, interrupting
telegraphic communication, azd impeding railway
traffic, piercing winds, cutting in the intensity of the
cold which they carried with them—such were the
acceasories of our entrance into the first week of
theoretical spring. March, which had come in with
lamb-like quietness, went out with the vehemence of a
lion, leaving behind it one of the saddest memories in
the sinking of the Eurydice which has been associated

with the month for many a year. However, we have
now bidden good-bye to it, and every week will now

give the sun greater power to repair the mischief which
the winds frordt.b.e,frigid zone have wrought.

A great nation, like he humblest tradesman, keeps
its balance-sheet, and in our own case, a weekly

return of receipts and expenditure is published in the
London Gazette. A more elaborate account is issued
every quarter, and it appears punctually to the day.
The most important of the four quarters is that which
terminates on the 31st of March, for that is the close
of the financial T6ar, and upon its results the Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer bases the calculations for his
Budget. The last week of the financial year is a
very busy time at the Treasury, and no sooner
has the quarter expired, than the figures are
made up, and the totals communicated to the Press.
The work is, indeed, performed with such celerity,
that within a few hours the information is known all
over the kingdom; and thus, although the recent
quarter did not end until Sunday night, the revenue
returns appeared in the papers on Monday morning,
with leading articles commenting upon them, and
pointing out the salient features upon which the
Minister of Finance would found his annual state-
ment. This is generally made as soon as possible after
the completion of the statistics, and to prevent any
unnecessary inconvenience to the commercial and
trading classes, whose interests must" to a certain
degree be affected by the fiscal changes wrought by
the Budget.