The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1884-11-22 00:00:00

-Our fonbon Corrtsratul.

(We deem ft right to state that we do nal at all Limes
*ldentify ourselves with our Correspondent's opinions.]

With a regularity
_which is seldom disturbed, the

Queen, accompanied by Princess Beatrice, returns
from Balmoral to Windsor in the closing days of
November; and after a brief stay at the castle, go on

to Osborne, there to spend Christmas. There is not
much in London to attract her Majesty or the Court
in midwinter, for so far as the capital is concerned,
there is no gainsaying the fact that it is at times is
these short days a very gloomy place. No doubt
some give the palm for murkiness and stagnancy
of atmosphere to some of the great towns in the
north of England, where the air is vitiated and ex-
hausted by the black smoke constantly being belched

forth from the manufactories; but even of these there
are many in these eastern parts of the metropolis.
and when the wind is blowing from that quarter it
carries the grimy soot flakes far away over the other
parts of the giant community where such visitants are
anything but welcome. Often in the winter for days
together not a single hour of bright sunshine is
registered at Greenwich. Hood's apostrophe to
November is familiar enough; it might be extended
appropriately enough to the two succeeding months.
As to wind, which, as in the days of New Testament
story, bloweth where it listeth, a good swinging
south-westerly gale is really a great blessing to such a
vast place as London. You can then see clearly from
one end of a street to the other, and the incipient
fog and the heavily-hanging smoke are for the tints
blown out towards the German Ocean.
But if there is no Court in London just now there
is the Parliament for a short time; and so West-
minster on an afternoon is alive with the movements
of our legislators, and the purlieus of Whitehall are busy
in the neighbourhood of the Government departments.
Even in these chilly days, when the breeze which
sweeps up from the Thames is charged with damp
and searching vapour, groups of persons assemble at
the corner of Downing-street to watch the Ministers
pass up to a Cabinet Council. Most of these are
known and recognised, the spectators speaking of her
Majesty's confidential advisers familiarly and affec-
tionately as "Duke," "Chamberlain," " Harty," and
so forth. These gatherings take place at the official
residence of the First Lord of the Treasury, so that
Mr. Gladstone has not to leave his house in order to
attend them. But the Premier is generally caught as
he walks down to the House of Commons at half-past
four in the afternoon. A long file of gazers is then

drawn up in Palace-yard under the careful surveil-

lance of the A Division of police, which is always on
duty inside the Houses of Parliament when the Legis-
lature is sitting, and outside when it is not.
Archbishop Tait was in many respects such a model
prelate, that the efforts to perpetuate his memory
have been willingly responded to. He died less than
two years ago, and already a memorial bust has been
placed in Westminster Abbey. A recumbent effigy
has yet to be placed in Canterbury Cathedral, and the
Tait Mission Fund will endeavour to do good work in
that diocese. The uncovering of the abbey bust was
the subject of a simple but suggestive ceremony. His
successor in the see of Canterbury, Archbishop Benson,
Earl Granville, as representing the Prince of Wales,
Dean Bradley of Westminster, several bishops, deans,
and canons, members of the House of Commons, and
influential laymen took part in it. The remains of
the late Primate, like those of many of his prede-
cessors, repose in the quiet country churchyard of
Addington, in Surrey; while the bust is placed in a
venerable structure sown with the dust and enriched
with the monuments of philosophers and statesmen.
The relative value of by-elections has often been
canvassed; and there can be little doubt that a judg-
ment is arrived at which is often the result of an
aspect of the political situation which has been viewed
through coloured spectacles. There have been several
by-elections of late Radnor boroughs, Stirling
burghs, Scarborough, South Warwickshire, Hackney
this week, and next County Down. It is remarkable
that in this brief list every division of the kingdom is
represented—England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland.
Not only so, but counties and boroughs and groups of
boroughs. Leaving the respective parties to estimate
he value of the retnrns, it may be pointed out as an
Incontestable truth that the numbers polled at a by-
election are seldom equal to those recorded at the
gonerefl, At VI clicrflntion. ofPo.rlio.no,ent. thoro
political upheaving all over the land—a sweeping
tideway of popular sentiment which it is impossible to
create at any other time.
'Hackney, as is well-known, is a vast borough con-
stituency on the north side of the Thames, contigous
to the Tower Hamlets, from which it was taken by
the Reform Act of 1867. Before the enactment of
that statute the Hamlets of the Tower, as the series
of communities in the east-end of London are tech-
nically termed, formed one enormous constituency
of more .than 700,000 inhabitants, returning
only two members to Parliament. It was
then divided, and the new borough was
called Hackney. The late Sir Charles Reed,
Chairman of the School Board for London was one of
the first representatives of Hackney, and upon his
being unseated, through an informality, the late Pro-
fessor Fawcett was elected. Thus, in little more than
half a generation, two men of eminence, associated
with the political history of a new borough, have been
oa.lied to their rest, an experience which has been
escaped by many an older constituency.
There are several very excellent shows of chry-
santhemums to be seen in London just now. A great
source of pride are those in the Gardens of the Inner
and Middle Temple—those beautiful grounds over-
looking the Thames Embankment, and from which are
to be obtained a fine view of the ever-shifting pano-
rama upon the surface of the stream. The Templers
endeavour to make their exhibition of this pic-
turesque winter flower the best in London, and cer-
tainly no expense is spared upon the attainment of
this object. Then there are the specimens at the
Crystal. Palace, with the numerous other attractions
of that 'favourite place of popular resort. There is
also a show of Chrysanthemums at Finsbury Park,
quite the other end of the town as compared with
Sidenham and on the road to Muswell-hill on the
Great :,.TO'rthern Railway. For the residents at the
West-end there is the exhibition at the Royal
Botanic Society's Gardens in Regent's Park, one of
the best and most agreeable parts of London, which
those who can afford it select as a dwelling-place.
General Gordon must have had more than the pro-
verbial number of lives allotted to a cat. Long be-
fore' he arrived at Khartoum in the early spring,

hnge placards appeared in the streets of London an-
nouncing that he had been made prisoner, and since
he has held the far-off eastern city against the hordes
of Arabs by whom it was invested, he has been killed
by rumour two or three times a week. A mysterious
Arab is usually the bearer of this information.
Contradicted again and again the report yet seems to
possess the life or a centipede in its extraordinary
tenacity. A recent experience has been for a sten-
torian bawler tO appear in Fleet - street at
midnight, call out "Fall of Khartoum, Death
of General Gotdon," and sell at six times its
value an ordinary special edition of an evening paper
published at seven o'clock. Of course it contains no
intelligettee'of Ifie kind -called forth in tones sufficient
to awaken the soundest sleeper in that well-known
thoroughfare of newspapers, to say nothing of the
annoyanci3 inflicted upon the purchasers on finding
thartttei have been taken in by a petty fraud. It is
satisfactory to note that Sir Robert Carden has had
one of-these gentry before him at the Mansion House,
and;being an old offender in this way, the man was
sent to prison for fourteen days with hard labour.
A suggestion has been started for raising a memorial
to the late Postmaster-General. It has not, however,
escaped attention that the RoWland Hill Memorial
Fund hat succeeded to such an extent as its pro-
moters hoped and desired. The postal reform with
whicfi the name of Si; Rowland Hill will always be
associated was one which has had an immense effect
upon the commercial relations of this country; vet
the funds for the memorial have come in so slowly'
that a fresh apieal has to be made to the public and
to the merchant. princes of the city. Money is no
doubt tighter than it used to be: Still, the author of
the uniform penny postage has left behind him a
name which ought not to have required perpetuation
in a way which conveys the idea that the public
grudge' the sum necessary to keep green the memory
of such a distinguished public servant.
The chronicles of, prize fights, which begin to
increase, are not pleasant reading for those who had
hoped that the days of the P.R. had passed away.
It was expected that the march of intellect and the
development of_eflncaito.n would have had an effect
even upon the clas; which assembles upon such occar

aions, espOially when it is remembered that it is now
within a quarter of a century that Sayers and Heenan
met at Farnborough in what was described as an
international trial of strength, and when peers,
members of the House of Commons, and other
persons of considerable social distinction gathered on
a:fine spring morning to watch the incidents of that
pugilistic encounter.