The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1879-09-20 00:00:00

!Jur 31,l'anDtin (.I;arrespoiben',.-

fWe deem it right to state that we do not at all tiihi
e.entify ourselves with our Correspondent's opinions.l

and

In days like these, when excursions to Paris
other continental cities are so reasonable in price,
and when a return ticket from London to Brussels can
be had for about thirty shillings, even the working
man has ample opportunities of contrasting Sunday in
the British capital with the mode of spending that day
in foreign cities. Take, for instance, the central park
of Brussels, where the band plays, the Royal family
make it a point to show themselves, there are chairs,
ices, lemonade, newspapers, and cigars; or if it be wet,
the galleries and museums of the Belgian metropolis
are all open to the people. In Rotterdam and Ant.
werp, Brughes and Ghent, Am!ons and Lida, the
visitor from England i 3 always impresied with the
different way the people have cf spending. the Sunday.
This side of the Channel the air h not filled with
the music of bands, but the melody of bells,
swelling from a thousand steeples, and inviting

_
crowds of well dres3ed worshippers to prayer and
praise. The only picture :gallery opening in Lou-

don on SundAy----and that Only occasionally—is the

Grosvence ; the only one in the suburba is at Hamp•
t,n Court Palace, and at neither ia any money taken

at the doors. On the Continent the day is looked
upon as one for recreation if not for amusement; here
it is regarded as one for reßt. The quietude typified
by the dead calm of Nature is reflected in the way in
which the Sabbath hours are appreciated as a time of
relief from the cares oi the week which is past, and as
a preparation for that which is to come.
The weddings of Royal personages always attract
considerable attention, and the forthcoming mar-

riage of the King of Spain is no exception- from
this rule. Exceptional circumstances in his Majesty's

history have combined to increase the
_interest

with -which bis career is invested. He has not

yet completed his twenty-seoond year; yet he has
once been married, has become a widower, and is
now about to marry again. As the days of Court
•Dourning for the Infanta Pilar do not expiremetil the
tith of October, the nuptials have necessarily had to
be postponed to November, when the King's union
with the Archduchess Marie Christina of Hapsburg
will take place in Madrid. It is believed that the
Grand Duke Nicholas, and the Grand Duchess

Catherine of Russia will be present at the ceremony,
as sponsors to the Royal couple. Barcelona was at
first suggested as the probable scene of the marriage,
because King Alfonso landed there when he assumed
the Spanish Crown. The capital, however, has been
selected, and it is obvious that there are many reasons
in favour of the choice.

The neglect of swimming in England is an old com-
plaint, one that ought not to be made with such good
cause against a maritime nation surrounded by the

sea, and intersected by important rivers. Numerous
accidents occur every bathing and boating season,
which a knowledge of natation would prevent. The
past season has witnessed the usual number of fatalities
upon our coasts, due to ignorance of an accomplish-
ment easy of attainment inexpensive in practice, and
conducive to health. The London Swimming Club
has done a great deal to promote the art which it was
formed to encourage; and there can be no doubt that
if the public generally could lse brought to look upon
it as one of the necessary adjuncts of all good boarding
schools, swimming baths would very soon become more
common. A tuition tank would cost about £5O to
erect, and tanks of this kind would be quite sufficient

to enable children to learn the elements of the art.

-
As in riding and indeed all other kinds of exercises,

the younger the child begins to swim the better. The

great difficulty is in getting over the dread of the

-
-
water; but if all our school were provided with

plunge baths, children would become accustomed at
an early age to immerse themselves,
.and to obtain

confidence in an element is—which confidence is such

an essential of success.

. Le

Every week seems to &di to-ourinforinialieregpect-

ing the Island of Cyprus, described by some as a burnt-
out cinder, and by ethers as a Paradise of fertility.
The first impressions of the traveller, on approaching
the southern coast, are generally held to be disappoint-
ing. The bare, deserted, treeless aspect of the hills
behind Larnaca, the road thence to Nicosia, and over
a great arid plain to Famagosta, combine to make up
a picture which, before the rainy season sets
In, is suggestive of poverty, if not of desolation. But
after the autumnal rains have fallen, the appearance
changes greatly tor the better. a.ne great corn-e&e..:_e
spaces become green and the moorlands and plains
afford herbage and pasture for large flocks of sheep and
goats, while the ground is thickly studded with wild
flowers, chiefly narcissus, anemones, cyclamen, and
two species of lily. Although the eastern part of the
island is painfully destitute of trees and shrubs, this
does not hold good of other portions. There are scenes
of park like beauty which, with their sub-tropical
vegetation rival anything that can be found in the !
countries bordering on the Mediterranean. The winter I
climate of the south-west coast is described as warm t
and balmy; the fruit-producing capacity of the island!
is said to be almoit unlimited, while requiring for its i
development irrigation, a better system of cultivation.
And good roads for the conveyance of the produce to
market. The wines of Cyprus are of excellent quality,
and a great extension of the gro mth of the vine is
anticipated.
When Temple Bar was removed, it was proposed
that the structure should be set up on the Thames
Embankment; and it is now suggested that the dis-
jointed colonnade of Old Burlington House shall form
the main entrance gate to Battersea Park. Many of
London's monuments are doubtless destined to similar
transplantation. To the purely antiquarian mind,
the removal of objects of art, sculptural or archi-
tectural, from the spot in which their original designers!
placed them, does not meet with acceptation ; butt
circumstances often make the removal of many of
them imperative. The choice is not so much between
the retention of Old London landmarks and their
removal, as between their reconstruction in some con-
venient spot or their total demolition. It is a
choice of evils, but of these the least is chosen
when a venerable specimen of art, valuable either
for historical or an esthetic reason, is presented
to the metropolis, if not on its original site as
nearly as possible in its original form. The removal
of ancient monuments is one of the penalties of that
expansion which drives the inhabitants of London
farther afield every year in search of house and home.'
When a site like that of Burlington House was re-
ciAired for the University of London, the Royal Aca-
demy, and the Royal Society, with its kindred scien-
tific bodies, it was vain to plead the architectural
merit of the older structure; and although the
colonnade has no kind of association with Battersea
Park, it is better that the city should drive its land-
marks outward than that it should shrink within
them—a sure sign of languishing decay.
Although the rivalry between England and France
is at an end, so far as the strength of the navy belong.
ing to each country is concerned, and the competition
on the part of France now is principally with the Gel-
man army, we are occasionally reminded that our
nearest neighbour does not neglect her fleet. The
largest ironclad in the French navy, and the latest ad-
dition to it, is the Devastation, whieh is 327 feet long,
70 feet wide, and 25 feet deep, with a mean draught of
25 feet of water. The total displacement is 9,630
tons, or nearly double that of the Captain, which was
lost nine years ago this month. The engines of this
newest French monster are 6,000 horse-power, and
the speed is estimated to reach fourteen knots an
hour. She can carry enough coal to steam 2,800,
miles. The artillery consists of four 14-inch
guns, and two 10-inch guns in armour.plated
turrets, with eight light pieces besides. They,
iron-plates are about fifteen inches thick, with a back I
leg of thirteen inches of teak. The decks are
covered with armour. Twenty years ago, when th
scare of a French invasion spread through this country:
with the rapidity of an epidemic, and the volunteer!
foroee were enrolled to the Laureate's cry of " Rifle-I
men, form "the launch of such an ironclad as that;
herein described would have excited much comment,l
if not a great deal of apprehension here; but for-'
tunately these are not the days of panic, and France
is now about the last nation in the world from which
we should anticipate danger, so closely have the ties se
friendship between Briton and Gaul lately been,
cemented.
In what is called the dull season, when Parliament
is not sitting, and in default of stirring subjects 01
excitement at home, we turn to the politics of foreign
natione. The exclusion of Russia from
ent
m etthteTriniopl,e
Hance ha e commanded considerable
anti
more especially at a time when France is ma king every
effort effort to complete her military organiz ‘tion.
assumed that were a fresh struggle to take place b
tween France an i Germany, Russia would not agai
commit tbe blunder of allowing the former to -be
weakened for the further advantage of the House of
Hohenzollern, and that France would not be single-
handed, as she was in 1870, in such a conflict. The
friendly relations of the Czar and the Emperor of
Germany are as unbroken as in the days before either
uncle or nephew wore the Imperial purple; but the
political amity of the two countries seems to be at an
end, for the conclusive reason that the Teuton and the
Muscovite have ceased to have great interests in
00IIIMOD.

---
The signs of renewed vitality in our outward foreign
trade, after five years of almost unbroken decline,
have been attentively watched, and the fact that it is
chiefly in the iron industry that the improvement has
been felt ia especially welcome now that we are fairly
into autumn, with the winter before us. Production
has received that stimulus for which it had so long

waited; and, as a consequence, furnaces that were so
long cold have been re-lighted, and works that have
remained closed are resuming operations. The revived
demand has come principally from America, where
the Western States of the Union are in the
enjeyment of a high degree of prosperity, owing to
the vast extension of the grain exports to Europe,
and more particularly to Great Britain. There has
been only one cloud in the brightened prospect; for
when we turn from the foreign to the home trade we
are confronted by the fact that our own great agrie
cultural interest, after battling for years with bad
harvests and low prices, has had to contend with one
of the worst seasons that have been known for more
than sixty years. A hard winter is invariably followed
by an inclement spring and a wet summer. This was
so in 1814 and in 1855; but 1855 was nothing like so
bad as 1879, and we have consequently to go back to
the yea i before the Battle of Waterloo to find anything
like a perallel to the experiences through which we
have so recently passed. -
All tourists do not confine their rambles to our own
Wands ; and those who go upon the continent must
often have been impressed with the slow speed of the
trains as compared with the expresses in this country.
The Flyinkpatchman, on the Great Weste-n, makes
the ran from 'Paddington to Swindon, 77 miles, in an
hour licrisventy-five minutes; and the Flying
Seotchman Ca-the Great, Northern does the 73 miles
to PeterliorOugh at a similar rate of speed. But the
fastest Itislian trains go but thirty miles an hour;
but as the train crawls slowly from Genoa
to La Spezeia the traveller is consoled for
going at such a tedious pace by the reflection
that his breakfast at a small station buffet cost only
tenpence, wine included. This meal in the north of
Italy invariably includes omelettes, fish, fruit, and
pastry. It is far more pleasant, in Italy, to travel in
a third-olass than in a first-class carriage; for in the
lowlier vehicle one is pretty sure to fall in with some
soldiers or peasants, who will sing all the way, and
make one remember that he is really in a land of
music. As to the explorations, there are many towns
in which a coachman will convey you about in his two.
mule fly all day long for something like two shillings;
and if you want to see the churches, many an intelli-
gent cicerone will do the honOurri ior a very reasonable
gratuity as a reward.