The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1879-07-05 00:00:00

Our liaoon earrtsporrbtnt.
(We deem it right to state that we do not at all times
kleatify ourselves with our Correspondent's opinions.]

The visit of condolence which her Majesty paid to
Empress Euginie within a day or two of the re-
ceipt of the news of the Prince Imperial's awful death,
reminded many who have not yet passed the years of
middle life, of the acquaintance made by the two
illustrious ladies in happier days. It does not seem so
very long ago—less than a quarter of a century—that
while the allied armies were prosecuting the siege of
Sebastopol, the Emperor and Empress of the French
paid a irisit to this country. It was on the 16th of
April, 1855, that they landed at Dover, where they
were received by the Prince Consort, and proceeding
in a special train to London, entered the Royal car-
riages at the Bricklayers' Arms Station and drove to
the Paddington terminus of the Great Western Rail.
way, between miles of cheering crowds. At Windsor,
the Queen, surrounded by her children, received the
Imperial guests with much splendour, and invested
the Emperor with the Order of the Garter. Their
Imperial Majesties were entertained at Guildhall, and
had a magnificent reception at the Crystal Palace.
Four months afterwards, the Queen, Prince Consort,
the Prince of Wales, and the Princess Royal went to
Paris at the invitaton of the Emperor and Empress,
and were entertained at a series of the most gorgeous
festivities. The Emperor lodged his guests in the
Palace of Versailles, where the ball given in their
honour eclipsed in the beauty of its surroundings
anything which had been witnessed there since the
days of Louis XIV. The Prefect of the Seine gave
them a splendid banquet at the Hotel de Ville, and
right imperially did the Emperor welcome them in the
Palace of the Tuileries,

A wise and sagacious writer has told us that the
world's glory passeth away—sic transit gloria mundi.
In a little more than fifteen years from that time, the
armies of France, which had increased their reputa-
tion in the Italian war of 1859, were in full retreat
before the advancing Germans; the Emperor was a
prisoner of war; Paris was besieged; Versailles was
the headquarters of the German Emperor; the
Tuileries and the Hotel de Ville were in ruins; and
the Empress, with her son, was an exile in England.
In exile and upon English soil, as the Great Napoleon
had died, so died Napoleon III: And while the
disasters of foreign war and the storms of revolution
had spared this country, the hand of bereavement
had fallen heavily upon our Queen. First her
husband; and, a few months ago, her married
daughter had been taken from her. The Empress
Eugenie also had lost her husband and her only
son had been killed thousands of miles away by
same of the most fierce barbarians which this earth
can produce. No wonder that her Majesty's visit to
the Empress was thus a sad one. If the two illustri-
ous widows had any reminiscences of the splendours
which had accompanied their meeting four-and-twenty
years age, first at Windsor, and then in Paris, the
result could have only been to show more strikingly by
contrast the present bitter and ineradicable grief
which has fallen upon the Empress Eugdnie. Without
distinction of party or of political conviction, England
and France have sympathised with her in this great
trial, for her son possessed a plenitude of good
qualities, and seems to have favourably impressed all
who came within the sphere of his influence.
Although there has been no such fierce burst of
heat this summer as that which last year characterised
the closing days of June, the arrival of what are
called the "dog-days" warns us that we are face to face
with the sultry hours of July, and are approaching
the end of the Parliamentary Session. Another five
weeks will bring to us the usual period for winding up
the business of the legislative year. That annual
occurrence known as the "Massacre of the Innocents,"
will once more be witnessed. The " innocents " are the
measures which, having been advanced to various stages,
have to be abandoned because there is no time to
pass them; and so they are figuratively slaughtered,
and cast upon the floor of the House. This year
the number of the sacrifices will probably be less
than at the end of some former sessions, because fewer
Bills have been introduced. The wave of public sen-
timent in the direction of foreign affairs, which set in
three years ago, has not yet subsided; and whilst it
continues comparatively little will be attempted in the
way of home legislation. A time will come when
domestic concerns will be once more uppermost, but
until it arrives it is clearly unreasonable to blame the
House of Commons for doing so little home work. It
would do home work fast enough if there was a public
demand for it.
The great show of the Royal Agricultural Society
at Kilburn has attracted almost as much interest in
the country as in London—of which Kilburn is one of
the pleasant suburbs. The last time that the Royal Agri-
cultural Society held its exhibition in the neighbourhood
of the metropolis was in 1862, the year of the world's fair
at South Kensington. The gathering took place at
Battersea, a southern, as Kilburn ie a northern, suburb,
The two places are miles apart, and practically the in-
habitants are as completely strangers to each other as
those of Manchester and Birmingham. Ask a resident
of Battersea whether he knows how to get to Kilburn,
and the chances are against his possessing the in-
formation. Inquire at Kilburn how you are to
reach Battersea; and a dubious shake of the head is
the reply. Facts like these forcibly illustrate the
vast size of London, and go far to explain the want of
unity of action which so often characterises the capital.
Still it is well to know that a satisfactory response was
made to the Lord Mayor's appeal for the funds neces-
sary to secure the success of this show, so far as the
efforts of man could make it successful. It is not in
the power of man to control the elements; and when
after so much labour and expense the remorseless rain
lays the show yard three feet deep in mud, he can only
mourn over it, for he cannot avert it. It is an indis-
pensable condition to the prosperity of an out-door exhi-
bition that there shall be fine weather; and unfortu-
nately, although science has made marvellous strides
within the past half-century, the ensuring of a single
fine day for any purpose whatever is a point which has
not yet been reached.
The agriculturists who, from all parts of the pro-
vinces, have assembled in London this week to take
notes of the Kilburn show, have had ample oppor-
tunities of talking over the vicissitudes of the past
extraordinary season, and of estimating the prospects
of the harvest. Half the year has now gone, and we
have entered upon its decline. In a few weeks the
fields ought to be ripe unto the harvest; and it ap-
pears that at present all that can be said is that the
hopes of a moderate yield are not altogether gone.
That is not much to be able to say in the beginning of
July; and in many counties the state of the crops in-
spires grave apprehension. Wheat appears to have
suffered much; for the most part it is thin and back-
ward, patchy and yellow. Grass has grown rapidly
dnring the past three or four weeks, but it made a bad
start, owing to the cold weather in the beginning of May,
and it is feared that it will be rank and coarse in
most districts. Long before this time we ought to
have experienced the delightful perfume of the hay-
fields; but throughout the greater part of the month
of June, when the sun's power ought to be most
keenly felt, ho has been hidden behind vast banks of
cloud. The south-west wind has brought a deluge of
rain from the Atlantic; the hill-side has been con-
verted into a mountain torrent, the valley into an
inland sea; meadows have been laid under water; and
towns have been flooded to the infinite damage of
property. A six months' winter has been followed by
a wet summer. Yet, as the Emperor Napoleon wrote
after the battle of Woerth —" All may be regained."
If July and August turn out well, the farmers will be
enabled to look more cheerful than they have been
enabled to do of late.

The concession by which the Government has
opened the Tower of London two hours longer on
free days, is one which will be highly appreciated
by all who care to pay a visit to this ancient
fortress on those occasione. Hithertol even on
Bank Holidays, the gates have been closed at
four o'clock in the afternoon, and considering that on
Whit Monday when hundreds of applicants were
sent empty away at that time, between four and five
hours of daylight still remained, it seemed a matter
for regret that a point could not be strained to keep
the place open a little longer, and thus prevent the
disappointment which fell upon the crowd without.
This has now been done, thanks to the consideration
of the Surveyor-General of the Ordnance. Places of
public interest and recreation may come and go; but
there is no diminution in the popularity of the
'rower. There is a mysterious fascination for the
'te gny battlements, its drawbridge
paop.a
moat, its prtcullis and its loopholed keep,
From tha days of the Conquest, when it was first
called into existence to overawe the citizens of London,
until the present time, flanked with busy marts upon
the land side, and with the ever-flowing river at .
ts
base, it has never failed to be an object of curiosity,
not Ili:mingled with a feeling of terror, in all ages,
and to the visitors from all countries. From France
and Prussia, hem the nations which claim their
capitals in Vienna and Berlin, but above all from the
United States of America, travellers have come to look
over the Tower, standing as it dee' like a grim sentinel
in the very heart and centre Or tlikditi of
The First Lord of the Admiralty, in distributing
the prizes to the boys on board the training ship
Conway, gave them seine very excellent advice, which,
if followed, cannot fail beneficially to affect their
future career. It will be denied by none that the
quality of its seamen is a matter of the greatest im-
portance to a maritime nation. The groat naval Tic-

tories which marked the close of the last and the
beginning of the present century, were won with the
aid of very indifferent material. The press-gang had
too often to go to work; men were seized by chance
In our seaports and made to do duty in the king's
ships; and-men-of-war were constantly stopping men
chant vessels at sea and taking from them their best
hands. If those left on board were insufficient
for the navigation of the unfortunate merchantmen,
so much the worse for them; his Majesty's service
and the safety of the realm were the first considera-
tion. The men-of-war's crews were at times of the
most heterogeneous description; and at times the
pressed men were palpably sullen and inclined to be
mutinous. What would Nelson have given for men
trained in sudh ships as the Conway, the Warspite, the
Worcester, and the Arethusa 1 Yet, with what he had,
he won imperishable renown. England's naval supre-
macy is still unassailable; but in these days of scien-
tific appliances it must be maintained by carefully
developed intelligence as well as by an Englishman's
inherent courage.
The controversy over London Bridge, which has
lasted for years, is by no means at an end. It has
lately occupied the attention of both Houses of Parlia-
ment, the Lords having had before them a bill for
widening the structure; while the Commons have been
considering a measure for constructing a new high
level bridge between the Tower and Tooley-street.
The opponents of the former declare that to widen Lon-
don Bridge would utterly destroy its symmetry, and
would be entirely useless without also widening the
approaches ; the antagonists of the latter affirm
that a new bridge would so interfere with the traffic
that it would tend to injure the trade of the
port of London. Meanwhile, week by week, it
becomes more apparent that London Bridge is in-
adequate to the accommodation of the enormous traffic
daily poured over it. Nothing like that continuous
stream of animation can be seen in any other city in
the world. Whether the fabric be widened, or a new
one built farther down the river, it becomes increasingly
clear that so Lathing ought to be done to relieve the
pressure upon this substantial structure, the last of
the bridges beneath which the Thames flows on its
way towards the German Ocean—forty miles away.