The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1878-12-28 00:00:00

4t4e 3toarbage eburver.

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 28, 1878.

T HE OLD YEAR AND ITS MEMORIES

• There is to many minds always something. '
impressive in the departure of another of
those periods of time which mark the advanc-
ing stages of man's progress through this
world. We take but little or no account of
the flight of a day, a week, a month, or even
a quarter. These come and go, and the busi-
ness of life proceeds as usual, scant attention
being bestowed on the passing away of those
divisions of time. Days and months are so
much like each ether that their disappear-
ance is not noticed to any appreciable ex-
tent. Midsummer and Christmas, January
and December Saturday and. Sunday, the
first and last clay of the month—al] these
have been the same for ages, and century
after century has made no difference in the
record. The number of hours in the day,
the days in a week, the NI eels in a month,
and the months in a year, have witnessed no
variation from the time *of Julius Ciesar.
We live over and over again the same days
and the same dates, and celebrate the same
festivals, whether they be of a solemn or of a
festive character. Bat we can never live
over again that great division of time known
as a year. It is a landmark clear and dis-
tinct in our lives—another milestone passed
in life's onward journey ! In a few days
more we ihall return to January, as we have
often done before, but we never shall be able
to return to 1878 after it has left as. Before
it takes its final departure let us give a few
thoughts to its history and its associ-
ations.

One fact stands prominently out in con-
nection with any retorspective glance which
maybe bestowed upon the dying year. It cer-
tainly has net contributed to any advance
in the prosperity of the country. There was
a time, not very long ago—as the life of man
is measured—when the Chancellor of the
Exchequer was enabled to congratulate the
House of Commons that the wealth of the
nation was ineteasing by leaps and bounds.
That can be said no longer. Whatever may
be the can% of the depression in trade, it
voild be useless to shut our eyes to the fact
tilat tno eoannereial position of Great
.Britain is no longer
.what it was. Many
causes have bcen
.ass.igned for this result,
but the naked truth itself there can be no
doubt. Trade Avis bad
.at the beginning of
the year ;it is worse at its close. Every one
hopes and mirort believe, that the stagnation
is merely of a temporary character, that i
dnstry will coon recover from ts paralysis
and that thf.,, cloud will be chased away froth
the commercial firmament. The tone will
come, we are told, when the wave of adver-
sity shall recede, and the sunshine of pro-
polity again ezlighten and enliven the land,
when there hll be no more smokeless

chimneys, silent -mills, and tni.tte spindles in
our mannfact:_ring towns, and when the
'east furnaces, the ironworks, and the col-
resume that activity which cha-
iracteriged them five years ago, and idl of
tue ent,rgy and tile contentment of a greAl
644 PrOiVer9l6 PK** W, i. 440 044 *An

forward to the coming .of that time, and
when it does arrive, it may fairly be expected
that one useful lesson will have been learnt
from the season through which we are pass-
ing. It is the lesson embodied in one single
word— Thrift.. When the sun upon the
land, there is too much ground for believing
that an idea was abrQad that perpetual sum-
mer. was to be the order of the creation.
There were to be no more clouded skies ; no
more darkness or future tempest. All WILB
to be smooth sailing over a bright and sun-
lit sea. Consequently in too many cases it
is greatly to be feared that no provision was
made for that "rainy day "which the laws
of nature and the working of experience
teach us to occasionally expect. The proverb
telling us to lay up something in preparation
for that showery time must have occurred to
many during the past few months, and its
teaching is not likely to be lost when next
the opportunity arises for putting it into
practical operation.
.The mournful memories of the expiring
year will not speedly be forgotten. With-
out recalling them in detail there is one
which will, in each succeeding December re-
vive the recollections of a sorrow which.we
all trusted that the healing influence of time
would at length obliterate. That the hus-
band of the Queen should have been followed
to the grave by the daughter who nursed
him was sad enough, but that Death should
,have marched forth the conquerer on the
very day of the week and of the month, ex-
actly seventeen years afterwards, was a mel-
ancholy coincidence upon which the mind is
apt to dwell. Oar own Royal House is not
the only one in Europe which has had to
assume:the sable trappings of woe. The year
was only nine days old when the king of
Italy died—a monarch who had witnessed
the building up of his kingdom step by step
from the disastrous days of Novaro. The
days were at their longest and hottest when
the young Queen of Spain was taken after
a few months only of married life, leaving
King Alfonso a widower upon iis lonely
throne. The King of Italy in January, the
Queen of Spain in June and the Grand
Duchess of Hesse-Darmstadt in December—
such is the record of the losses amongst the
ranks of the crowned heads of Europe which
this year will leave behind it. Men's minds,
however, at such a time as this, are not
solely occupied with reflections of the past.
Whatever it might have produced, it cannot
be recalled, and it is the future which claims
attention. People will once more be wishing
each other" A. Happy New Year"—setting
their faces towards the coming time, and
speculating as to what 1879 may have in
store for them. We all hope that it will be
in more respects than one, an improvement
upon its predecessor, that it
:will sr- see
_ revived,
her commerce restored to its former position
of pre-eminence, her marts once more in the
full flow of prosperity, and her busy centres
of industry alive with the activity of a
flourishing people Let us, then, hope for
the best from the New Year, and trust that
when it, too, shall have taken its departure,
and joined the long roll of those which have
gone before it, the bells will ring out over a
brighter chronicle upon the page of history
—one upon which there shall be more of
light and less of shadow than we can now
discern.