The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1879-11-01 00:00:00

Our Ys:onhit 6orraponbatt.

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

The metropoiis is beginning to reawaken into a more
active life than that which it has manifested during
the past few weeks. In these matters the experience
of one year follows that of another with the utmost
regularity. No sooner has Parliament been prorogued
than legislators take wing; and so far as the capital is
concerned, there is for some time a suspension of that
active life which has been monopolised by London
during the previous six months. They are off to Al-
pine mountains, to Norwegian fiords, to Rhenish vine-
yards, and to Lonabardian lakes, doing their best to
enjoy the change and the fresh air which the recess
brings. Satiated with polities during the preceding
half year, they now endeavour for awhile to
forget there wee such things. By the end
of October, however, ten weeks have elapsed,
and political life in Great Britain begins to
move again. Cabinet Councils have recommenced,
and Ministers have to think of the legislation which
they intend to present to Parliament in the coming
session. Lord Mayor's Day is close upon us, and
there is some speculation as to what the Premier will
have to say to the Chief Magistrate of the City of
London. Provincial towns are busy with political
meetings, in some places assuming the character of
vast demonstrations, such as those which both parties
have both held in Manchester. The municipal elec-
tions in the corporate boroughs are also invested with
a certain degree of interest outside their own bound-
aries. In short, there is a general revival of animation,
both social and political, as we get into November.

The Prince and Princess of Wales have returned
from the Continent, and their presence is very
welcmae to the people of London in what is called
the dull season. Dull enough it is in the metropolis
in November—the month of which Tom Hood wrote
that there was "no sun, no moon, no morn, no noon"
—and when often enough a stifling fog, sweeping up
from the dank marshes of Essex, settles down upon
the heart of our national life, blotting out the light
and vitiating the atmosphere. The Prince and
Princess are welcome in London because, as his
Royal Highness expreseed himself a few months ago,
when he opened several toll bridges, they were alwaYs
too glad to do everything in their power to advance
the interests of the inhabitants of the capital. The
Prince's birthday, the 9th of November, will be spent
at Sandringham, where a distinguished company will
celebrate the completion of his 38th year by the Heir
to the Throne.

Years may come, and years may go, but the legs
terms of our forefathers go on for ever. What has
been known for eight centuries as the Long Vacation
has once more come to an end; and the lawyers are
assembling in their chambers in the Temple and in
the differ-eat inns—Lincoln's, Gray's, and Clements—
for the opening of the Courts on the 3rd November.
That is the beginning of the legal year, and a noteable
day it is. If the weather be fine—a consummation
most devoutly to be wished at this pericd of the year—
this ceremony attracts a considerable crowd in West-
minster Hall—for that ancient structure is still the seat
and centre of our legal life. The New Law Courts are
gradually rising on the north side of the Strand; and
in the meanwhile the business which is to be trans-
ferred to the new structure when completed, con-
tinues, as for centuries past, to be transacted in the
law courts which are scattered over various parts of
London. Some are in Westminster-hall, others in
Lincoln's inn, others again at Guildhall, Red-liori•court,
and Basinghall-street. If a country suitor wanted
to find the Admiralty Court, he would have to
explore one of the entrances to St. Stephen's-hall and
find his way up a winding staircase. The Lords
Justices of Appeal sit somewhere in one of the rooms
belonging to the House of Lords. So far, the dream
of having all the legal tribunals of London under one
roof has not been realised; but every brick added to
the stately Palace of Justice in the Strand hastens its
realization.

The Lord High Chancellor of England is the
most exalted of all Sur judicial functionaries. His
salary is £lO,OOO a year, namely, £6,000 as the
bead of the law, and £4,000 as Speaker of the
House c.f Lords. This is double the allowance
granted by Parliament to the Prime Minister, or to
an-; of her Majesty's Principal Secretaries of State.
The Lc, ' Chancellor is the legal adviser of the Cabinet,
In whica :::elect circle he has the privilege of a seat.
He ranks nest after the Archbishop of Canterbury as
the second subject of the Queen outside the Royal
circle. He has the distribution of a large amount of
the ecclesiastical patronage of the Crown, is the head
of the Court of Appeal, the keeper of the Queen's
conscience, and the custodian of the Great Seal. At
the beginning of Mislaelmas Term, at his private
residence, he receives the Lori Mayor elect, and con-
veys to him the expression of Her Majesty's gracious
approval of the choice of a chief magistrate which has
been made by the citizens of London. The city, it may
here be stated, is the only municipality in the kingdom
which goes through the form of submitting its Mayor
fcir Royal approval. The "loving cup," dressed with
flowers, is passed round; and the civic compeouy
having taken their departure, the Chancellor receives
the Judges, Queens' Counsel, and serjeants at break.
fast. Then a procession is formed to Westminster
Hall, where his lordship formally opens the Courts of
Law, and the legal machinery of the country is set in
motion for another nine months. On a fine day this
procession is very well worth seeing, and a crowd of
considerable dimensions assembles in Westminster
Hall to see the judges pass into their respective
courts.

The splendid Transatlantic steamer Sarmatian,
which conveyed the Princess Louise and the Marquis
of Lorne to Canada eleven months ago, was selected
to bring her Royal Highness back, and it is understood
that the Princeee has come home for some months to
avoid the severities of the Canadian winter. The
newspaper special correspondents, who teat year ac-
companied the new Governor-General and his wife to
Canada, took with them everything possible to ward
elf the effects of hard weather. Overcoats lined with
e Teneive fur, and the warmest of wraps, comforters,
ar d rugs, were amongst the articles of their outfit.
When they arrived in the Dominion they found to
their surprise a considerable part of our great western
ecreit rie enveloped in a close and not very whole-
some etmoseheee known in these islands by the
trm Cl "muggy. The temperature was exception.
ally mild, in fact; and on their return to Eng-
land the speckle found our islands plunged into
an Arctic winter, It was far colder in England
than in Canada; for our navigable rivers were frozen
over; and the Thames above bridge was one mass of
ice. But there is no reason to suppose that the
appree.bing ,ason will be so mild in the Dominion
as its predecessor; and that is the chief reason why the
Princess Louise, by the advice of her physicians, has
come home fee a few months. It is not often that we
get it colder in the United Kingdom than in Canada
at this time of the year; and with all good wishes for
the health • f a deservedly-popular member of the
Royal family, it is hoped that the Princess Louise
will obtain the relief from the change of air which it
is the object of that change to secure.
The Metropolitan Board of Works, which has its
office in Spring Gardens, hard by Charing Cross, may
well be called the Parliament of London, so far as the
capital is concerned outside the civic boundaries. For
the city itself there are the Courts of Aldermen and of
Common Council—the Upper and Lower Chambers of
civic legislation. Bat the Board of Works has'
virtually the control of the interests, social and
material, of three millions of human beings, Last
session it promoted in Parliament a bill for the con-
struction of a high level bridge across the Thames be.
tween Tooley-street on the south and the Tower
on the north. The House of Common's Com-
mittee, however, rejected the scheme. A few
day's ago, deputations and memorials were re.
ceived by the Board of Works which represented a
very prevalent feeling in the east end of London, It
is a renearklable fact that one-third of the population
of the capital lives to the east of London Bridge, and
this vast trading and working community is put to
constant loss and inconvenience by the difficulty of
crossing the river, There is no means of doing so
except by a ferry; and what the east-end people corn.
plain of is that while they have had tO contribute to-
wards the liberation of the toll bridges higher
up the stream, they have no bridge at all, and a plan
laid before Parliament for supplying the undoubted
want is rejectea. AS commercial London grows,
the centre of gravity shifts towards the out more end
. .
more ; and it Is a somewhat incongruone fad. that over
a million people in the capital live upon the banks of
an ulabridged river, •
The wayfarer in Ludgate-hill, as he moves hither
and thither of an evening, may often hear the bells of
St. Paul's, which were put up twelve months ago,
bad been without them for 200
yafetaerrs. theThee;tlisee4ndal be
their chimes over a rich
and busy piece of the metroßctli34,,-
.The City engineer
has told us, in his report issued a few days
ago, that the roadways under -the control of the
Corporation cover an area of 468;000 square yards, and
the footways 328,000. The singularly riarge propor-
tion which the pavements bear to the cariiage ways
is accounted for by the numbers of courts and paved
spaces from which wheeled traffic is excluded, It
seems that within the past thirtyofive yearl4.
400 out of the 834 streets and thoroughfares of the-eftr
have undergone alteration. The little space in which'"
the Lord Mayor le King leas been practically "reeofiet
structed, The city is now at once the'newest as well'
as the oldest section of the metropolis, nor is, it with-

out its open spaces, of which the last and the most
attractive are the Temple Gardens.
When Parliament assembled on the sth December
lak.,t for its special pre-Christmas sitting, it was ex-
plained to the members of the Legislature that the
Afghan war—then in progress—was the cause of their
being summoned from their homes at that inconvenient
period of the year. When Parliament was prorogued,
mere than eight months afterwards, a paragraph in
the Queen's Speech announced the successful termina-
ti ai of the campaign and the conclusion of the Treaty
of Gandamak. Events have proved that a treaty
with a barbarian State is a very different matter ,
from one with a civilised Power. The Treaty of
Vienna, to which the representatives of the great
European nations set their hands and seals in 1815,
remained binding nearly forty years. The Treaty of
Prie, signe-i in 1856, lasted 21 years. But this Treaty
of Gandarnak, come to with the Afghan Ameer, was
virtually set aside by his people within three weeks
after its completion had been officially announced to
Parliament by her Majesty. Meanwhile, it is
satisfactory to know that our troubles in Zulu-
land are over for the time, and the disbanding
of the expedition is welcome enough to those
of the English people who ask to be excused if they
are unable to feel Much interest in a struggle which is
going on 7,509 miles away. Whatever the merits of
the war may have been, it would seem froaa the cap-
ture of Cetewayo, and the break-up of his powerful
military organisation, that the Natal colonists now
need no longer to live in chronic terror of savage
raids. Cetewayo seems to accept his fate with a con-
siderable degree of equanimity. It would be a strange
termination to his career were he shipped off to St.
Helena, the scene of the last years of a very illustrious
exile, whose military power, like that of the Zulu
king, had been beaten down by Great Britain.