The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1869-09-18 00:00:00

agetropolitan 6.assip.
IT CUR OWN 00111ZSPONDENI

(The remarks under this head are tone regarded as the es
pressesa .edepende t opinion, front the pen of &gentleman;
F. 1100.11 w nave the greatest confidence, but for which WO
11Plartheles, do not hold oursvlves respoulible.)

There has been of late something like a revival of
agitation for protective duties, and a number of people
calling themselves the revivers of British industry,
have been lecturing against fres trade. Without
nominally referring to these mistaken people, Mr.
Bright I think puts fairly the owe of free trade against
protection in a smart little letter to a gentleman who
Lad forwarded him a pamphlet on the subject. "If peo-
ple complain," he says," that too many customs' duties
have been repealed, will they tell us what duties should
be put on again—on corn, on cattle, or imported cot-
ton? If a foreigner will not buy cheaply from us, will
it mend the matter if we refuse to buy cheaply of
Lim ?" Many will be disposed to dispute Mr. Bright's
statement that wages have risen from 20 to 50 per
cent. Since IS4O, but few will deny the probable
truth cf Ids anticipations that the good harvest
will tend to restore health to the general trade of the
country, and when we have a sufficient supply of cotton,
Lancashire will recover from its present depressed con-
dition. The day has gone by for a return to protective
duties, bat it is much to be regretted that foreign na-
tiono are no moth behind us in free trade. If there
were free trade all over the world, the world would be
all the better for it, and increasing international in-
tercourse is gradually bringing about that desirable
end, though very gradually. Meanwhile our own
trade is certainly improving on the whole though the
improvement be but slow. Reverting to the wages
question, there are at least two classes who would
bitterly dispute the universal application of Mr.
Bright's remark—clerks and curates. Numerous letters
have appeared showing how painfully low are the
salaries paid generally to these classes; but it is diffi-
cult to see where the remedy is to be found. In one
case a memorial from the clerks in a London bank the
other day, received a crushing reply from the firm,
whose strong point—supply and demand—is unanewer.
able ; while as to the curates, their condition Las been
the subject of comment as long as any of us can re-
member and the remedy seems now as far off as ever.
What may be the state of health of the Emperor
Napoleon is a very difficult question to arrive at, but
there is one thing tolerably certain—that if Napoleon
reads a tenth of what is written about his condition it
is enough to make him ill.
A magisterial decision against the legality of noc-
turnal noise in London is satisfactory so far as it goes.
A young man brought before Mr. Hayman, at Wands-
worth, was charged with creating a disturbance late at
night. Thumb he had the benefit of a doutt and was
discharged, the magisterial dictum was that it was the
duty of the police to keep a neighbourhood quiet of a
night. "Loud talking niitl,t be carried on with im.
punity in the day-time, but at night when persons were
in bed asleep it couhl not be allowed." Hear, hear,
and loud cheers (in the day Vole). Only residents in
the suburbs trf London—fully half the population by
the way—can appreciate the great grievance of noise
in the roads and streets. Pianos going till midnight
are bad enough, but that cannot be stopped; barrel.
cr,tans grinding away till near midnight is a far worse
nuisance, but that, I suppose, we must endure till the
Commissioners of Police have the courage to curb this
nuisance within more reasonable bounds; but roaring,
blatant, dissolute fellows who on their return from the
music-halls amuse themselves by "singing," as they
call it, at the top of their voices at twelve or one o'clock
"in the tilly night," and idle vagabonds who blare
out horrid nobles apparently Ice: the mere purpose of
annoying an otherwise quiet neighbourhood—these
hnisuces ought not to be allowed, and certainly would
not be permitted in any continental city. The Times
recently had some correspondence from medical men
and others, showing that London noise had a most in-
jurious effect on health, and that it tended towards
serious disorders and even mental derangement, and
no one who has thought over the matter, after ex.-
i.eriencing what London nocturnal noise is, can dispute
that such a view of the matter is the true one.
A destructive fire broke out in the Strand on Satur-
day morning, and the reporter states in the usual
stereotype style, that " several steam-engines speedily
arrived, and they were soon got into work ing order,
but,"&c. On the other hand a correspondent living near
the spot states'' that after the alarm of fire bad been
given an hour and twenty minutes elapsed before a
drop of water could be thrown on the flames, owing to
the late arrival of the turncock." Perhaps the truth
lies la,tween the two statements, but in any case the
control of the fire-plugs resting with that important
functicnary the turncock is one of the curiosities of
London mismanagement. Common sense would dice
tale that the police and the firemen should all have the
means of obtaining water in case of fire, and that these
means should be always uniform; but then common
sense does not regulate such matters.
There has been a large number of more or less serious
t lies in London during the last few weeks, and this un-
doubted fact affords a peg whereon the Saturday
Perim hangs a remarkable article. Going back not
for weeks only, but for years, this journal says that
it is an article of faith with Itreigners in London
that many of the great fires which have occurred during
the last two or three years were the work of Fenians or
their sympathisers. We may reasonably doubt" it is
added, "whether this is true." I should think so.
Not a tittle of evidence is offered in support of so wild
a supposition; but two things, which have no connec-
tion, are put together—that the origin of many of these
tires has not been traced, and that the Fenian organi-
sation is secret—and the supposition is argued about am
if there were some truth in it. The recommendation
is that the police should make themselves acquainted
with the instruments and abettors of Fenianism ; but,
wlth all due respect to the police, they have not yet
shown themselves clever enough for anything of the
kind. _

The Byron controversy has now been carried on
ssyqae ad nauseam, and the public are as far err trim the
teeth as ever. The truth may possibly come out some
day, but at present, if there are any living persons who
can state that truth, as is asserted, they let line to do
so, and failing this all surmise and argue., nt from it
make confusion were confounded. As Slieridat I says,
''lt is a pretty quarrel as it stands; we should only
spoil it by trying to explain it."
The Builder raises a cry for more bridges over the
Thareee—whi-h would be a good thing for the builders,
but none the less a good thing for the public. It has
long been an unexplainable anomaly that we should
have no bridge below London Bridge, but I do not
think that your professional contemporary explains it,
It all depends," it says, 'upon the question as to
how much longer London Bridge is to be tolerated as
the commercial extremity of the metropolis." Yes,
but who is to answer this question, with our conflicting
systems of local self-government? "This being once
satisfactorily determined," it continues, "we may
speedily t?) have half a dozen bridges further down the
river, uniting the very busy and very populous localities
of Bermondsey and Whitechapel, Botherhithe and
Shadwell, Poplar auil Deptford, Greenwich and the
Isle of Dogs." All this is what we ought to have, but
which the absence of municipal government deprives
us of. But there are two monster difficulties (though
not insuperable) which are overlooked—the increased
traffic in the Pool, and the ridding wharves and ware-
houses, the Custom House, to. ; and the want of funds
and the absence of power to raise them. There is no
read in, at all events, why we should not have one
bridge below London Bridge except the very powerful
reason that it is nobody's businese to commence the
preliminary operations.
The summers of 181;7-8-9 have been remarkable for
their plagues of insects, and the question now arises
whether we have not partly brought these fractions
upon ourselves, by our systematic destruction of email
birds. That birds do injury as well as good to ferment
and therefore to the public, is universally admitted,
hut from all I have read on the subject, I believe that
the good more than counterbalances the evil. America
and Australia, both think so, and are rejoicing over
the gm d effected by the small birds that they have int-
l. orted from this country. On this and other grounds
I heartily sympathize with a correspondent who
writes t "The loss of our trees and hedgerows will of it-
self keep down the numbers of our small birds, and now
I ant sure the time is come when every endeavour should
be ntede to retain the comparatively few that remain
to us, When I was a boy the goldfinch was common
in i ur hedges within two miles of Islington
lid's), and might be bought for 3d.—preset price
about 2e. 6.1. but who now twee &goldfinch in freedom?
Cheffinchee were worthless because so common--now
rarely seen." Sea-gulls have been protected by Act of
Parliament, and game-birds must not be slaughtered.
till they have brought up their young ; but I suppose
our small birds are too little for the Lt gielature to care
for. De minimis non curet fez. It is painful how-
ever to read such remarks as those I have quoted and feel
how true they are. The suburbs of London used
to be at least semi-rural, and were the delight of
Cockneys accordingly; but every day trees, fields,
hedgerows, and song-birds are disappearing, and the
capture and slaughter of song-birds is not the least
of these unpleasant facts. The birds of the air are
everybody's property; in legal phraseology they are
" animal! Jerre nature ; but then they are nobody's
rroperty, and what right a birdcatcher has to go out
wall 'his nets and his traps, and bring home song-
birds to be immured in wretched little cages placed in
dirty, dingy houses in the lowest neighbourhoods, I
never could make out, What haa a linnet done, for

builders,

should