The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1869-07-24 00:00:00

Eldropolitan 6ossip.

OW OCR ORA 00HICE3PONDWa.

remarks under this head are to be regarded as the em
press:on or ,ndepedident opinion, from the pen of a gentleman
to whom we have the greatest confidence, but for which WO
oeverthelebs do not bolt ourselves responsible.]

The house of Commons has indeed had some heavy
work on some very hot nights, and very warm debates,
in more senses than one, have kept alive the
public attention to the still leading topic of the
day. When the Irish Church Bill cause " down"
to the Commons, it was felt that the situation
was decidedly critical. Conservatives and Liberals
like agreed that the alterations which their lord.
ships had made in the bill were very extensive,
to say nothing of their character, and people were on
the qui vire to see what the Lower House would do.
What the Government wished the House to.do was

on seen by the speech of Mr. Gladstone and the same '
eveni m the temper of the House itself was unmistak-
ably shown. The Lords had so altered the preamble
o the bill that the funds of the Protestant Church
might be applied to religious purposes, but the Com-
mons have now rejected this amendment by 346 to
222; Mr. Gladstone's proposal to re-insert the worils
applying the surplas to "the relief of unavoidable
calamity and suffering," was carried by 246 to 164;
and the Lords' amendment, giving the clergy glebes
without payment, wee disagreed with by 326 to 237.
This w pretty well for one evening's work. But the
breach between the two Houses wee widened on the
following night, when the Lerds' amendment, giving
the Ulster glebes to the Church Body, was disagreed
with by 344 to 240, and the amendment for postponing
the appropriation of the surplus was disagreed with by
290 to 218. Taken together these re-amendments
certainly place the two Houses in tie decided antagonism
as can well be conceived, and at the time of writing
the important question is, will the Lord's submit?
All eyes, so to speak, are once again turned upon the
House of Lords, and perhaps it is more generally
hoped than expected that this long.vexed question of
the Irish Church may now speedily be settled.
It is said that great dissatisfaction exists in Mel-
bourne at the British Parliament being called upon to
reimburse the Duke of Edinburgh for the expense be
was put to for presents while in Australia. It may be
added that great dissatisfaction also exists here for the
same cause. We never know anything of this sort of
expense until the bill is presented to us, and then no-
body in the House of Commons appears to like to
object to its payment. Os dit that the House will
sooner or later be called on to pay the expenses of
the Prince of Wales's visit to Egypt. This is scarcely
fair. If John Bull is to pay all these bills he ought at
least to have a voice in the extent to which expense
shall be incurred.

Mr. Bright has been elected a member of the Athen-
team Club, but he also remains a member of the
Reform. Some time ago, Mr. Bright, Mr. Forster,
and Mr. Wentworth Beaumont, proposed the election
for a month of Mr. Smelly, the London Correspondent
of the New York Tribune. He was blackballed, and
thereupon the two former gentlemen withdrew from the
club. The Volacians were fluttered at Corioli, or
rather there was agitation at the great Liberal club in
Pall Mall, but the committee refused to 'sanction the
minutes recording this shabby blackballing business,
and this being virtually an apology to the three gentle-
men named, they have withdrawn their resignations.
It has been perhaps only a storm in a teapot, but it bee
some importance, because needless offence is thus given
to a leading American journal, and therefore to the
Americana; and in the present relations of the two
countries it is well to avoid even a slight occasion of
offence.

Those who take an interest in trades unions will re-
member that just before Mr. Hughes moved thesecond
reading of his Trades Unions Bill the Court of Queen's
Bench gave a moat important decision, on an appeal,
in reference to the funds of a trade society. Briefly
stated the decision was this: the secretary of a friendly
society, which was also a trade society, had mis-ap-
propriated funds, and, although the facts were not dis-
puted, the bench of magistrates before whom the case
was tried refused to convict because the society was
"in restraint of trade." The Court of Queen's Bench
upheld this decision ; and it followed from this that a
trade union might be robbed with impunity. Now, no
one can approve of such a state of things as this.
Without entering into the advisability or the undesir-
ability of trades unions, all will admit that robbery
ought to be punishable. The bill of Mr. Hughes and
Mr. Mundell brought trades societies within the scope
of the Friendly Societies Act in this respect, but that
measure cannot at this late period of the session be pro.
ceeded with. It is a good thing, therefore, that Govern-
ment has brought in a short temporary bill to make the
embezzlement of the fnnds of trades unions punish-
able as any other embezzlement. The measure, if
passed, is not to have force beyond the last day of
August in next year. This is significant. It shows
the expectation that the bill of Mr. Hughes and Mr.
Mundella, which will be re-introduced next session,
will pass, with or without modifications.
By the death of Lady Duff Gordon the world has
lost a lady of great learning and literary ability. She
was the daughter of the celebrated Mrs. Austin, whose
tales are among the standard "classics" of our
language. Lady Gordon was chiefly known as the
translator of a number of works of eminent German
and French authors. Unlike many a sensation novelist
of the present day, she probably wrote—

" Not one immoral, one corrupted thought,
One line which, dying, she could wish to blot."

The Volunteer gathering at Wimbledon this year
began, continued, and ended well, with glorious
weather, good arrangements, and thorough, hearty
good-will on the part of volunteers and visitors. The
camping out may have been free from any positive
hardships, and may have necessitated only so much
roughing it as might have been agreeable under the
circumstances, but the training on the whole is gene-
rally admitted to have been highly beneficial to our
citizen soldiers. A large proportion of them have had
this fortnight as their annual holiday, and we owe
them therefore all the more thanks for their self-
denial.

Lord Monboddo maintained that man was only a
monkey without a tail, a kind of developed and edu. '
iated monkey; but it is now gravely stated by several
Indian journals, that a race of men and women with
tails exists somewhere in Borneo; and they suggest
that the Indian Government, the Bengal Asiatic
Society, and the Indian Museum authorities should get
up a scientific expedition to go in search of these tailed
human beings; while the /ndian Daily News actually
offers to receive subscriptions to carry out such an idea.
It is difficult to prove a negative, and our laughing at
the idea of men and women with tails does not prove
that such monstrosities do not exist, but we cannot help
laughing nevertheless.
_ .

I-have often thought, and sometimes said that in my
opinion hay might be made by artificial heat, but of
course having been pooh-pooh'd and laughed at for
such an absurd idea, have simply kept it to myself,
along with a number of others which some day may
perhaps benefit the world and make me famous ! I see
that Mr. Mechi, to whom the agricultural community,
and therefore the public, owes so much, describes the
process of making hay by blasts of hot air on the
grass, and he says that this has been successfully
carried out during two seasons. If this be of universal
application it will no longer be necessary to make hay
while the sun shines, but we shall be independent of
rain or sunshine. What the effect of this will be, who
shall nay ? If it make hay more plentiful it will
necessarily make it much cheaper, and incidentally
make cattle cheaper; but what are the poor hay-
makers to do? It will be remembered that when
reaping machines were first introduced they were burnt
by agricultural labourers, who feared that their occu-
pation would soon be gone. But, badly off as our
peasantry may now be they are certainly better treated,
and bettor paid, than before the era of agricultural
machinery. If artificial haymaking ever come into
vogue labourers will perhaps suffer for a time, but not
permanently; but the community will be the gainers,
and perhaps bay fever, now a most distressing com-
plaint, will almostdisappear. But this is looking along
way ahead,.

London is generally considered to rank first of the
cities of the world in its institutions supported by
voluntary contributions. The number of these inetitu.
tines naturally suggests a large amount of machinery
for raising these contributions and, in these pecuniary
hard times it is not surprising that the most persuasive
efforts to obtain money should be resorted to. Young
ladies collecting purses, which are to be presented to
some member of the Royal Family, appears to be the
latest novelty in so-called voluntary subscriptions.
This was found to be very successful a little time ago
at the ceremony of inaugurating an enlargement of the
Asylum for Idiots, and the same thing has now been
eucceeef ally carried out at the inauguration of some
new buildings at the School and Home for the orphan
daughters of sailors, at Hampstead. Prince Arthur
was the central figure in this inaugural ffite, and
"about 130 young ladies, all dressed in blue and white
—some of them so yourg that they could scarcely
toddle up the steps of the platform—deposited purses

_
of £5 each and upwards in the hands of the Price."
• No doubt all this was very pretty and interesting, and
as it was for a good object we must not be too cen-
sorious over the means used to obtain subscriptions to
the amount of £6OO, and the theatrical dieplay of them
when obtained. It might well be questioned, how.
ever, whether all this was genuine charity.
Mr. Brierly, the barrister, again! Every now and
then he appears before some magistrate or other,
charged with violent =dun. Most readers must be