The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1884-12-27 00:00:00

Our Tonkin Gorrtspoubtni.

[We deem it right to 'tete that we do not 0 ail UMW
jdentily ourselves with our Correspondent's opinions.]

r It is only a very few years since the birthdays of
two of our most distinguished statesmen, both of
whom had held the office of First Lord of the
Treasury, were celebrated in the closing days of the
old year—that of Lord Beaconsfield on the 21st
December, and that of Mr. Gladstone on the 29th.

The former was five years the senior of his illustrious
' rival, having been born in 1804, and when the end
came, in April 1881, he had completed his 76th year.
This Mr. Gladstone will enter on the 29th inst., for
he was born in 1809. When Lord Beaconsfield took
the Premiership for the second time after the general
election of 1874, those who for a generation
had been accustomed to the brilliant in-
vective of that statesman as Mr. Disraeli
could scarcely believe that he was seventy years of
age. Until within the last few weeks of his life there
was not the slightest falling-off in his extraordinary
intellectual powers. The same with his successor
now. Physically it is impossible for a man who has
Lived in the world three-quarters of a century to be
the same as he was thirty years ago. The crevices
of mortality make themselves apparent. But men-
tally the present Premier is quite as strong as he ever
was.

Visitors to the Strangers' Gallery of the House
of Commons, representing as they do the sovereign
people of England who have had to pay for the
costly Palace of Westminster, can neither see nor
hear so well as they would wish. They are a long
way from the Treasury bench, and are unable to dis-
cern many little things w.hich are apparent enough to
the occupants of the reporter's gallery, right over the
canopied chair of the Speaker. It was placed there
primarily because of its excellent position in command-
ing a view of the whole House, and fora more remote
reason because no stranger iv supposed to take notes
in the Speaker's presence. Ly placing the pressmen
over the right hon. gentleman's chair, the privHeges
of Parliament and the demands of the public were
both recognised. Those who have the entree to the
press gallery, looking down upon the Treasury Bench
see the Prime Minister often enough doubled up as
he sits and the very incarnation of a decrepit old man,
so far as appearance goes. But this illusion is
speedily dispelled when he rises to speak. If it is
merely in answer to a question he is not now at all
times so distinct as he used to be: he is lower in tone
and more conversational in manner; but when address-
ing the House at any length he is still distinctly heard
in every part of the chamber.
The Parliamentary recess is a convenient time for
the trotting out of crotchets, and one of the daily
papers has started a subject which was fully con-
sidered when the Houses of Parliament were built, has
been discussed many times since with no result, and
will have none now. Why it is asked
with 658 members of the House of Commons, should
the chamber be constructed to seat only 428? The
reply is because the whole of the members are never
present even in the greatest division on record, and
that practically the work is done by less than half of
the entire number. Very few subjects that come
before the House interest its entire body; a Scotch bill
does not concern Ireland; a Sunday Closing Bill for
Wales does not much affect Northumberland or Corn-
wall. It may safely be predicted that this contro-
versy will end as others have done, and that the
increase of twelve members notwithstanding, the
present chamber will go on for a long time to come.

One of the many-sided views of London is obtained
in Christmas week by a visit to either of the great
term,ni. There is Liverpool-street, for instance, in
the eastern part of the metropolis, receiving its
enormous consignments of geese and turkeys from all
parts of East Anglia. Or take the Brighton stations
at London-bridge or Victoria, the South-Eastern at
Charing-cross or Cannon-street, the South-Western at
Waterloo; the Great Western at Paddington, the
Midland at St. Pancras, the North-Westernat Euston,
the Great Northern at King's-cross, or any other im-
portant means of access to and exit from the capital,
within a few days of Christmas, and a picture of
bustle and animation is presented equal in its way to
the ever-flowing traffic of Cheapside, or to the stream
of pedestrians and vehicles so constantly to be seen
upon the main bridges. These structures as being
the arteries of communication between the populous
northern and southern banks of the river—London,
Blackfriars, Waterloo, Westminster—are invariably
crowded, the former more than all, a fact which
shows in all its hideous deformity the fearful nature
of a crime having for its object either the destruction
or the weakening of a structure no less the ornament
than the pride of London.
If it be true, as surmised, that the fire at the
Windsor Station of the Great Western Railway on
Saturday was the result of another Fenian plot,
strength will be given to the approval with which the
public regarded the action of the Court of Common
Council in offering a reward of £5OOO for the convic-
tion of the perpetrators of the outrage at London-
bridge. It used to be said that heavy offers of
reward were of no avail against the terror excited by
the secret assassination laws of the conspirators, one
of which meted out the penalty of death to any of
their body who was even suspected of an intention of
betrayal. But when, on the Phcenix-park murders,
Earl Spencer came out with £lO,OOO as the money to
be paid to arq accomplice not one of the actual
assassins who would come forward with information,
it was very soon seen that such a vast sum had its
effect. An informer came forward, and although
he subsequently lost his life, the murderers of Lord
F. Cavendish and Mr. Burke were all brought to
justice within twelve months of the commission of the
crime.

The augmentation of local as well as Imperial
taxation is often a subject of debate in Parliament,
and is time after time practically brought under the
notice of the dwellers in the British capital. In
October the School Board for London was compelled
to add a penny in the pound on its rate, and before
the Mettopolitan Board of Works separated for the
Christmas recess it was reluctantly obliged to aug-
ment its rate by three-farthings in the pound. So
far as rmperial taxation is concerned, Parliament in-
creased the income tax by a penny during the brief
autumn sitting. These additions are most unwel-
come at a time of depressed trade and distress in
agriculture: The Metropolitan Board of Works
pointed out in explanation of its budget, that half-a..
million sterling had been expended over the new
street in connection with the Inner Circle Railway,
and that a costly process of deodorising the sewage
had been carried out in consequence of the long
drought and the hot summer. %Happily the recent
heavy rains render the last-mentioned expenditure no
longer necessary.
The last case which occupied the attention of one
of the superior courts before rising for their Christ-
mas vacation, illustrated anew the difficulty which
often arises in England in requiring a jury of twelve
to agree upon a verdict as compared with the Scotch
custom cf taking the opinion of the majority. Only
a week before there was a similar instance—days of
hearing before a high legal tribunal, costly engagement
of counsel on both sides, witnesses brought to London
and kept at a considerable expense, and each time
with the same unsatisfactory result—a disagreement
of the jury. It is possible that the legal reformer of
the future may seek to relax the stringency of the
present law to such an extent as to permit the verdict
of a majority of a jury to be taken in civil cases,
while requiring unanimity in criminal trials, the jury
to consist, of course, of an odd and not as at present
of an even number of men. In causes involving such
vast commercial issues as those placed before a jury,
a disagreement after a hearing extending over eight or
nine days, a barren result arising from a disagreement
is a most unsatisfactory termination.

, GOOD NEWS FOR TIIE AFFLICTED,—TO those who
carry on
.any operations requiring much hammering
or pou i
nding, a simple means of deadening the noise
of their work s a great relief. Several methods have
been suggested, but the best are probably these*. 1
Rubber cushions under the legs of the work-
bench. Chambers's Journal describes a factory
1
where the hammering of fifty coppersmiths was
scarcely audible in the room below, their benches
having under each leg a rubber cushion. 2. Kegs of
sand or sawdust applied in the same way. A few
i
inches of sand or sawdust s first poured into each
keg; on this is laid a board or block, upon which the
leg rests, and round the leg and block is poured fine
dry sand or saw dust. Not only all noise, but all
vibration and shock, is prevented, and an ordinary anvil
SO mouuted may be used in a dwelling-house without
annoying the inhabitants. To amateurs, whose work
shops are almost always located in dwelling-hou.- es, this
device affords a cheap and simple relief from a very
great nuisance,