The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1879-05-10 00:00:00

Our Yonban 6oritspantitt.

[We deem it right to state that we do not at all times
identify oursel7e3 with our Cerrespendent's *pinions.]

Parliament has now arrived at a period which may
be described as mid-session. Excluding all considera-
tion of the winter sitting, which was summoned for a
special purpose, it assembled for the ordinary businees
on the 13th February, two days after the news of the
great disaster at Isandula had reached this country.
Supposing it to go on until the usual time of proroga-
tion—the middle of August—it will be seen that we
have now reached the halfway point. One recess—
that of Easter—has to be taken from the time which
has passed ; another—that of Whitsuntide—will be
allowed in that which is to come. The Commons,
which had ten days' holiday at Easter, do not expect
to have more at Whitsuntide ; and after that there will
be no more vacations until the final break-up for the
autumn. Then will close the sixth session
of the present Parliament. The question whether
it will see another is eagerly discussed ; but
thus far the Cabinet Ministers, who alone could
give an idea upon the subject, make no sign. It

• •
_ -
may, however, be pointed out that even a Inventh
- - --

. -
session need not exhaust the lifetime of this Parlia-

ment, the legal term of which will not expire for the
next year and ten months. The duration of Parlia-
ments is not estimated by its number of sessions, but

by its length of years ; and the seven years' life of the
Parliament now sitting at Westminster will not be ex-
hausted until the sth March, 1881. Therefore there is
no urgent necessity for a dissolution for some time to
come; and although candidates all over the kingdom
are being assorted to constituencies, there are men

well versed in politics who still hold to the belief that
there will be no appeal to the country this year.
Those who follow the news from the Cape will have
noticed that while the majority of the steamers touch
at Madeira, an exceptional few put in at St. Vincent,
one of the Cape de Verd islands. St. Vincent stands
En mid-Atlantic, between the northern and southern
oceans of that name, and it is the nearest telegraph
station to Cape Town, from which it is distant about a
fortnight's steaming. But although it is the nearest,
Madeira, two days further on in the North Atlantic,
is the most direct; and unless the intelligence borne by

the steamer is highly important, she does not turn
aside to touch at St. Vincent, but goes straight on to
Madeira. But there sae times when those two days
between St. Vincent and Madeira are of the greatest
consequence; and thus it was that the news of the
Isandula disaster and of the relief of Ekowe (pro-
nounced Ekowty) came 'pia St. Vincent. It was
essential that the tidings borne by the steamer
should be known in England at the earliest possible
moment; and no sooner had she come to St. Vincent
than a summary of her news was at once placed upon
the telegraphic wires there, and transmitted under
thousands of miles of ocean to this country. The
intelligence is being read in London before even
the good ship has completed coaling amid the wild
waste of waters at Cape de Verd ; and before she
has reached England seven days off, another steamer
has probably arrived at Madeira, and sent through
the telegraph wires there still later news. St.
Vincent may be estimated at seven days' steaming
from England, and Madeira at five days. The enor-
mous expense to which the papers go in order to furnish
their readers with full and early news from the Cape

may be gathered from the fact that the telegraphing
from St. Vincent is at the cost of 4. per word, with
no reduction for a press rate; from Madeira it is
2s. 6d. per word. It is not uncommon for the London
papers to contain two or three columns of telegraphic
matter from either station upon the arrival of a
steamer. Each journal has its special representative
at both places to meet the boats; as according to the
news they bear it is quite uncertain whether St.
Vincent or Madeira will be the point selected as the

first port of call. The gentlemen of the press much
prefer Madeira to St. Vincent, which latter is de-
scribed as a mere coaling station, lonely and sterile in
the midst of the mighty Atlantic; while Madeira bears
a name suggestive of a delightful climate and a ferti-
lity of soil which produces some of the finest wines in
the world.

In allotting the work of a newspaper special, how
little can human foresight often estimate the value of

his field of labour! Seven or eight months ago, when
the news of the difficulty with the Ameer of Cabnl
reached us, the memories of the former war with
Afghanistan bade us prepare for serious fighting.
The correspondents were despatched in hot haste; but
from beginning to end of the campaign it may be said
that the British troops have been marching against
invisible foes. Scarcely a thought was bestowed upon
South Africa, where events were impending that have
excited more attention than anything which has
happened since the Crimean war. Consequently,
when the invasion of Zululand took place in the
middle of January, no graphic pens were on the
spot to describe the incidents of a war which will live
long in the recollections of Englishmen. No sooner
did the fell import of the Zulu difficulty present itself
than more than one of the Specials was ordered at
once from Afghanistan to Natal, and amongst these
was Mr. Archibald Forbes, the world-renowned corre-
spondent of the Daily News. But the journey is a
very different one from that between London and
Manchester; and besides, Mr. Forbes had left
Afghanistan, had journeyed to the far-off shores of the
Caspian, and was exploring the mystic regions of
Burmah. No very long time will, however, now
elapse before the public will be reading his letters from
South Africa. He will tell us what Zululand is like when
the British army pen etrates to Kin g Ceteway o'is war kraal
in the rocky fastnesses of the interior. By the way, in
connection with this subject, there is no doubt that
the public are glad to see the bestowal of the Victoria
Cross upon so many of the gallant fellows who took
part in the defence of Rorke's Drift on the 22nd of
January, and by their heroic resistance saved the
colony of Natal from invasion.
Mr. Theodore Martin's fourth volume of the "Life of
the Prince Consort," is, as its predecessors were, one of
the most interesting books of the season. One period
with which it deals—the Indian Mutiny—will never
be forgotten by those who passed through that trying
time. It is now seen how anxious were the Queen and
the Court over the safety of our great Eastern Empire,
and how earnestly her Majesty pressed upon the Ministry
of that day the urgent importance of taking prompt and
effectual military measures. It is just two•and-twenty
years ago that the mutiny broke out; for it was on
Monday, the 11th of May, 1857, that Colonel Finnis,
a brother of the then Lord Mayor of London, was shot
in the back by a native soldier upon the parade ground
at Meerut, and within a few days the whole of the
Sepoy army rose against our authority. Ever since
the conquest of India by Lord Clive at the battle of
Piassy in 1757, there had been a tradition amongst the
Hindoos that our possession of that country was to
last exactly a hundred years, and that at the centenary
of Plassy Hindostan was again to be ruled by its own
people. We had just come out of the war with Russia,
and the sowers of disaffection amongst the &port had
taken care to magnify the few little reverses we had
experienced, and to conceal our triumphs. Haw the
mutiny was suppressed is a matter of history; but
there is much in Mr. Martin's latest work which tells
us what an anxious time it was for those in high
places, and how, on occasions of great national sue-
pease, the responsibilties of an exalted position weigh
upon Sovereigns and statesmen.
The opening of the Royal Academy Exhibition on
the first Monday in May marks the beginning of the
best part of the London season. It is the correct
thing to "do" the Academy en the opening day, and
an enormous number of visitors struggle through the
rooms merely for the sake of saying they have been
there. To tee much at such a time is impossible;
Indeed, in order to arrive at anything like a due
appreciation of the merits of the collection the
visitor ought to go again and again. However, the
Exhibition is open three months, so that ample
time is allowel for the admiration of its manifold
attractions, In the success which attends it, and
In the crowds which also throng to the Grosvenor
Gallery, an illuitration is aff rded of the all-cor ("Tier-
ing power of the English shilling. For this modest
coin, which rolls in by thousands, the investor has the
privilege of inspecting the newest works of our m( at
eminent artists—landscapes, portraits, allegories, sea-
views, representations of sunrise and sunset, of night
and morning, twilight and meridian, nocturnes in blue
send gold, and nocturnes in black and silver. True,
the works in the National Gallery can be seen for
nailing on stated days; and a visit there, with a look
at the pictures of the Old Masters, is a very excellent
preparation for an hour or two at the Academy, with
its specimens of modern art. You can judge between
Bubens and Millais, Teniers and Frith, Tintoretto
and Leighton, and find ample material in all to ap-
preciate and to admire.
The fixing of the scale of wine duties is so difficult a
subject that it has been referred to a Parliamentary
for i interesting
evidence which has been given it appears that England
is the only country that has a scale of duties
for wine; in all other lands the duty is uniform on all
descriptions of wines. By requiring a certain per-
centage of alcoholic strength we actually shut out
some of the wines produced in our own colonies,
notably in Australia. Our fellow•subjects at the
Antipodes tell us that they make a very excellent and
wholesome wine, but they are not allowed to send it
here became it does not possess that rather high de-
gree of alcoholic strength demanded by our scale of
duties. This seems rather anomalous; for many who
might wish to know what Australian wine is like,
have at present to confine themselves to the

products of France, Germany, Spain, and Portugal.
Sir Louis Mallet, in hie evidence before the committee,
advocated a uniform shilling duty and the abolition of
the eliding scales. The consumption of wine in this
country was very small; the total in 1.378 was about
1641 million gallons, of which six millions came from
France. But the proportion was in England half a
gallon par head per annum, against twenty gallons in
France, He believed if 'people in England, especially
those engaged in sedentary occupations, could get half
a pint of good pure wine for a penny, as they could in
any wine-growing district of France, a very large con-
sumption of such wipes would take place by those who
now drink beer. The very thought of being able to get
half a pint of good pure wine for a penny never
entered into the wildest dreams of those who, upon a
hot summer day, have often paid sixpence for a b Atte
of lemonade or of soda water, upon which, being
of home manufacture, there is of course no import
duty.

The backwardness of vegetation at a time which
ought to mark such an advaneed period of spring, is
somewhat remarkable; and those who anticipated a
speedy time of genial weather after an unusually
eevere winter have been disappointed. Those who
can carry their recollections back to the terrible
winter of 1855 will find the circumstances precisely
parallel with those of this year. Then, as now, there
were weeks, and even months, of frost and snow and
bitter winds, hopes that the inclement weather would
have exhausted its strength in the intensity of its force,
and that spring would be warm and early. Yet, as in
this same year, frost, snow, and hail went right into
May. Punch, apostrophised the month as "miserable
May !" and could do so again with equal justice.
The nightingale and the cuckoo have been seldom
heard; flocks of fieldfarea have been abroad, remind-
ing one of mid-winter; and the cold rain, drenching
flower and leaflet, has checked vegetation almost as
much as frost. Time was when the merry month of
M.ay was a season in which poets told us "the bees
from flower to flower did hum," but there are very few
of either bees or flowers at present The tender tint
of the birch, the white seed of the coltsfoot, the timor-
ous bloom of the black thorn, the pale yellow of the
cowslip, the green buds of the hawthorn, the delicate
shoots of the elm and the sycamore, the ash and the
aspen, the oak and the beech, the pale yellow of the
cowslip, the modest upward peep of the marsh-mari-
golds all are at a standstill until the arrival of the warm
south-west winds which shall fill the woods with
warblers and cover the ploughed fields with young
corn.