The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1878-06-15 00:00:00

err youborc Cornsponkut.

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

When invitations for a great European Congress
have b.en issued and accepted by all the Powers, it is
unnecessary to say that the event is one of very con-
siderable importance. It is not always that such in-
vitations are accepted, and this happened twice in the
experience of the late Emperor Napoleon. It will be
remembered that in the autumn of 1863 his Imperial
Majesty asked the Sovereigns of Europe to a Con-
gress for the purpose of discussing the disturbed state
of the Continent, this condition of affairs resulting a
few months afterwards in the invasion of Denmark by
Austria and Prussia. Earl Russell, who was then Secre-
tary of State for Foreign Affairs, declined, on the
part of this country, to take part in a gathering which
could have no practical result, and the project col-
lapsed. Four years subsequently the Emperor pro-
posed a Congress on the affairs of Italy and Rome, but
again without effect. It was felt that for a number of
Ambassadors Extraordinary and Ministers PIE nino-
tentiary to meet and to separate without settling the
matters for which they had been called together,
would be worse than not meeting at all: and this
was the line taken by Lord Derby some months ago,
when, as Foreign Secretary, he held that a Con-
gress would be of no use whatever unless there
was some kind of preliminary agreement respect-
ing the points of discussion. Now that such an
agreement appears to have been arrived at, there are
great hopes that the exalted personages at the Con-
gress A blt. w illbe enabled to adjust the differences
which come before them—indeed, were there no such
hopes there would have been no Congress at all. A
Congresz differs from a Conference in one essential res-
pect, and this is in the fact that the Minister appointed
at the ormer is empowered by the Sovereign to decide
for himself and upon the spot whatever may come
before Im, whereas at the latter it is necessary for
him to refer to the Government for instructions. In
this way the Congress at Berlin a very much more
Important gathering than the Conference at Constan-
tinople eighteen months ago. Some Congresses last
a long time. For instance, that which gathered
in Paris, at the close of the war with Russia, early in
1856, had its sittings protracted over three months.
Our representatives there were Lord Clarendon, then
Foreign Seeretary, and Earl Cowley, the British Am-
bassador at Paris. When at length the Treaty was
concluded, Lord Clarendon, feeling that it was not so
satisfactory in the interests of this country as might
have been desired, and knowing that he must expect
some adverse criticism at home, gave utterance to this
epigram: I have made a peace in Paris only to open
a war in LI indon." The people were, however, on the
whole, well content that the war was at an end, as the
peace rejoicings throughout the country len the 29th
May, 1856, conclusivel show&
Between the Bank Holiday at Whitsuntide and that
of Boxing Day there is as much difference as between
light and darkness. Whit-Monday, upon the 10th
of June, when the days are at their longest,
offers a delightful contrast to the 26th of December
when they are at their shortest. Trees, clothed with
foliage, wave in the light breeze of summer, no longer
standing out like so many spectres under the grey
sky, and wringing their gaunt arms in the wintry
wind. ihe 26th of December finds the holiday-makers
all within doors, gazing at nantomimic performances
amid the glare and glitter of the footlights, or comfort-
ably esconced in front of blazing fires. In June they
leavc the stifling, crowded city, and go out amongst
the fields as far as possible from town; a large pro-
portion seeking the sea air with which popular
tradition associates health and life. •Instead of six-
teen hours of darkness, there are more than as
many hours of light, and, so far as night is concerned,
there is very little of it at or near midsummer. Long
after the sun has disappeared in the western horizon,
twilight intervenes between sunset and the brief period
of darkness, and this soon gives way before the advance
of dawn in the eastern sky. A truly genuine time of
enjoyment is opened up before those who go out to
make holiday when Whitsuntide falls so late as it has
done this year, provided the weather is suitable for
recreation of an outdoor character.
London, so far as Whitsun week is concerned, sus-
pends for some days the engagements of its
fashionable life. Parliament has adjourned, and
most of the Lords and Commons are out of town.
These are between eleven and twelve hundred in
number, and the fact of their neither giving par-
ties nor accepting invitations during the vacation
makes the west end of the town dull for the
time. There are neither State Balls nor State Con-
certs at Buckingham Palace, for there would be very
few who would be in the metropolis to obey her
Majesty's commands. So far as Parliament is con-
cerned, the holiday is a much shorter one than at
Easter, and now there are no more before the pro-
rogation. The Legislature has now given itself all the
relaxation which custom allows, and there is nothing
for it but to set to work and pass the measures
deemed to be of essential importance. Judging from
appearances this will have been the longest session of
modern Parliaments; for even in 1856, when we were
at war with Russia, our senators were not assembled
until the 23rd of January, whiht this year the date
was the 17th, and even that, as Lord Derby has since
told us, was the result of a compromise, some mem-
bers of the Cabinet wishing it earlier. ludging from
appearances the legislative results of the session will
not be commensurate with its length. The political
habitues of the lobby do not hesitate to express their
belief in the certainty of a dissolution in the autumn,
seeing thst the present Parliament will then have run
through five sessions.

The exploit:_ of the "Australian Eleven" have been
watched with great interest since their arrival in this
country. In London, both north and south of the
Thames, their success has been remarkable. At Lord's
Cricket Ground they won a victorrover the Marylebone
Club which can be described as nothing short of extra-
ordinary; and in the following week they played the
Surrey Club a Kennington Oval, and won by five
wickets. Tne strangers were received throughout with
the greatest c, diality,land their triumph was welcomed
with overwherming enthusiasm. It was admitted on
all hands that they deserved all the appreciation they
received; at the same time some of the papers plainly
told our cricketers that it was high time they
bestirred themselves, and to show their friends from
Australia that there was still something to learn in
the old country. There can be no question that the
Australian Eleven is a thoroughly good one. This is
shown abundantly by their averages during their tour
through the Colonies against picked eighteens and
twenty-twos. Of the eleven now playing, three had
averages over 20 per innings. To have defeated
Marylebone, Surrey, and Yorkshire on their own
grounds is no small feat, and goes far to outweigh the
beating they received from Nottingham, which indeed
appears, according to late performances, to be this
year the strongest county in England, so far as the
excellence of its cricketers is concerned.
Blr. H. M. Stanley's book, "Through the Dark'l
Continent," is in great demand at the circulating
libraries ; for, often as the tale of African travel has
been told, this story of the exploration of the sources
of the Nile, around the great lakes of Equatorial
Africa, and down the Livingstone River to the
Atlantic Ocean, is largely read because of its vigorous
and picturesque style—one which is indeed essential
to the success of a newspaper correspondent if he
wishes to retain his constituency of readers. Mr.
Stanley's ourney was a marvellous one. On the 17th
November 1874, 356 negroes, bearing on their heads
some eight tons of cloth, beads, rifles, food, brass wire,
scientific instruments, boat sections, and ammunition,
filed out in a long -:cattered line on the coast opposite
the island of Zanzibar, began their long and toilsome
march across the dark and benighted Continent, and it
was not until February in the present year that Mr.
Stanley returned to England. The encounters with
hostile tribes, the privations which were endured now
from hunger an.t then from thirst, the prostrating
effects of sickne• e, the dangers inseparable from such
explorations whether in penetrating the gloomy
arches of dcnse forests or in rowing round the
vast circle of Lake Victoria, a distance of 1,000
miles, the adventures amid the mountains and
upon the plains upon the surface of great rivers,
and in the encampments of hopelessly savage bar-
barians—all these are dramatically placed before
Ole reader, Just at this time too, we have Capt. Sir
Geofge Nares's account of the Arctic Expedition, his
description of the frightful regions locked in eternal
ice showing more strikingly alongside the picture
drawn by Mr. Stanley. Sir George Nares tells us that
no human agency will ever penetrate the mysterious
secret of the North Pole, where the everlasting silence
cannot be broken by the hum of human industry or
the song of birds. But Mr. Stanley speaks of a
great and fertile land whose deserts are but a very
small proportion of its cultivable area, with a
magilificent soil, a splendid climate, and wanting only
the application of European capital to redeem it from
its solitude and its unproductivoaness. The Arctic
region-: can never be peopled; but a time may come
when Africa shall be reclaimed from the cannibal
and the barbarian, whin.; the flips of a commercial
marine shall take the place of canoes filled with armed
savages, and populated cities shall tell of the progress
of civilization in a land no longer dark, and in which
while every prospect pleases, man is no longer vile.
The second visit of the Prince of Wales to Paris this
summer in connection with the Exhibition has shown
how popular the heir to the English Throne is with
all classes o the French capital. The people every-
where talk of him, and his affability, frankness, and