The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1876-03-04 00:00:00

Inkta corroponinnt.

pre deem tt`Fight to state that wc,do noc at g timei
Identify ourseirts with our Correspondent's ci,ink.ls:]

A visitor to the Strangers' Gallery of the House of
..lommons for a single night upon an ordinary sitting
of eight or nine hours, witnesses a series of changes
like those of the shiftirg glasses of a kaleidoscope.
The Speaker takes the chair at five minutes to four in
the afternoon, and prayers are said by the chaplain.
At this time very few members are present, for the
first half hour is always devoted to what is called
private business, that is, reading a second and a third
time railway, gas, and water bills which have under-
gono the ecrutiny of committees or of the referees.
The presentation of petitions also goes on, and during
this process the only sound you hear from the Speaker
is the word "table," although the right hon. gentle-
man, in each scam, is supposed to put the question
formally "That this petition do lie upon the table."
In practice, however, these documents aro thrust into 1,
a huge sack, near the seat of one of the clerks, and
carried away to undergo a rigid scrutiny at the hands
of the Select Committee on Public Petitions. As half-
plat four approaches, the House becomes full, the
Cabinet Ministers take their seats upon the Treasury
Beech, and the chiefs of the Opposition range them-
selves in he proverbial cold shade on the other side of
the House. Then come the questionic fbilt is the
prerogative of the representatives of the people to ins
terrogate the heads of the departments, and even the
Prime Minister himself is often up several times while
this is going on. Then .v.hen these are out of the why,
and supposing it to be a night of big debate, like that
of the Suez Canal purchase, or the Fugitive Save
Circular, there are crowded benches up to about seven
o'clock, when the House em-ptios as though by
magic. The stranger in the gallery, who has
followed the old-fashioned plan of dining at one or two
o'clock in the afternoon, is informed that now is the
time when members go to dinner, and from this hour
until ten there are not generally a score of gentlemen
In the Huse. Those who do remain are mostly
anxious to deliver their speeches, which read quite as
well in the newspapers as though the place were
Growded. After ten, more especially when it is known
that a division is to be taken, the seats once more
become filled, honourable members now coming down
.f).

In full evening dress, many of them with nosegays in
Abair button-holes, and the whole scene brilliantly
lighted up from the illuminated ceiling. Then is the
time for the cheer and the counter-cheers, more espe-
cially if it is uncertain which way the divisioia will go,

and the rival leaders clench an argument in order if
possibi'e to influence a vote. Such a night was that of

the 27th of April, 1866, when the second reading of
Mr. Gladstone's Franohise Bill was carried by a
majority of five-318 to 313—a result received with
tiemendons cheering from the Opposition benches at
the smallness of the Government advantage. Of late
years, however, there hay e been no such divisions, for
whichever party may be in office, the Government
majority has been assured, and ,the only
.question
was, how many above fifty it would be.
Loitering beneath the magnificent elms of Kensing•

ton Gardens on a genial spring afternoon might

well suggest to a contemplative mind that there are
u, sermons in trees as well as in stones. There they
stand, typical of our still vigorous national
life, and struggling to better themselves, in other
words to attain to a purer atmosphere. Some few
allsnarled and crumbling, may well have a sobering in-
-t`fluenee in these giddy days; bt seeing the sturdy

life which most of them get out of the smoky air, we
Inv well regret that our streets were not laid-out as
Peaty avenues. To this day there is a tree in Cheap-
_ _ _

side hale and vigorous, and upon a summer morning
the chirrup of the birds which have lodged in its
sibranches fills the thoroughfare from Peel's statute to
...the Mansion House, for namely another sound then
breaks the silence of the quiet city streets. In all
ages the oak, styled the monarch of the woodE, has

been looked upon as an emblem of strength, virtue,
l'conatancy, and long life. That grown in thil country
a
is regarded as the best, while the ancient Romans used
to point with pride to their olive, which may be said
never to die, for it starts up again like a Phcenix ft:om

its crumbling dust. There are olives still waving their
grey leaves along the shores of the Riviera when the
I:Armies of Haanibal and Scipio met in deadly combat,

before the decree went forth from Rome that Carthage
must be &etroyed. The utilitarian, who calculates
lAaly how =my feet of slid timber there are in a tree
of vast girth, may argue that to allow it to stand is a

waste of capital and a loss of interest; but to many
epeople there i something almost pathetic in the sight
gcssf an old tree doomed to destruction. It has seen
ewers aad revolutions, and changing creeds; inatitu
tions, apparently as stable as themselves, have been
torn up by the roots; yet in its solitary grandeur it has
weathered the blasts of hundreds of winters, and the
imaginative mind might spend an hour much less pro-
fitably than in resting against some time-worn trunk
and listening to its old world talk when the wind
murmurs amongst the fluttering leaves.
Mr. Tennyson, in " Locksley Hall," has told us that
"in the spring a young man's fancy lightly tarns to
thoughts of love." Lord Brooke, writing two-and-a-
half eethuries ago, declared that—
"ln the time when herbs and flowers
Springing out of melting powers,
Teach the earth that heat and rain
Do, like Cupid, live again."
Without endeavouring to prove the truth of what
either Lord Brooke or Mr. Tennyson has said, it may be
noted as a curious fact that the period of our history
which may most fitly be called the spring of modern
English literature was most fruitful of love-songs.
In the days of Queen Elizabeth the people of England
were a nest of singing birds. Shakespeare and Ben
Jonson, Sir Walter Raleigh, and Sir Philip Sidney,
Spencer and Marlowe, with many other lesser lights,
touched the lyre over politics and war, religion and
learning, pastoral pleasures and Utopian delights.
Even Queen Elizabeth herself, the royal daughter of
Anne Boleyn, was accustomed to contribute her
quota to the poetic offerings of the day, although it
must be confused that there were many songsters who•
took a warmer tune, and were little disposed to con-
tent thernielves with the cherishing of affection unde-
clared or unrequited. The reign of Queen Anne has
been called the Augustan age of English literature;
but unlike that of Elizabeth it produces no William
Shakespeare, a bard whose extraordinary genius exerts
an influence after the lapse of three centuries, and whose
characters will test the skill of the best actors in ages
that are to come.
According to the Duke of Richmond and Gordon,
the Loan Exhibition of Scientific Apparatus, which is
shortly to be opered in London, promises to be the
most successful ever held in this country. It has met
with a large amount of favour in all parts of the Con-
tinent, but more especially in Germany, where the
Crown Princess seems to have evinced in this case her
great interest in a proposition emanating from her
native land; and it is mainly owing to her exertions
and to those of the German Royal Family, that the
Industrial and scientific appliances of that nation are
to be so well represented. Belgium, France, Holland,
Italy, Switzerland, the United States, Russia, and
Austria, will all have places in this collection. At
home the appeals made to Government departments
and scientific institutions have been well responded to.
The Admiralty will furnish a complete model of a sur-
veying ship; the Post-office a number of telegraphic
Instruments illustrating the progress and development
of dig Modes of transmitting information by electricity.
The Trinity House, Ordnance Survey, 4,Royal Obser-
vatory;- Geological Survey, and a host of other or-
ganizations, will send in apparatus peculiar to the work
of each, many elaborate and complicated, but all in-
teresting in their way. An exhibition of this kind is
one which might well command the attention of all.
The present Archbishop of Canterbury has told no how
science may harmonise with revelation, and how to
clear away any apparent antagonism between the two.
Scientific men, at all events, will appreciate the excel-
.:ence of a collection which is to be brought together
after go much patient labour.
The first Diplomatic Court of the season has been
held at Buckingham Palace; and, although the presen-
tations were not numerous, there was a good gathering
of the members of the Royal Family. The Queen pre-
sided, and she was accompanied by the Princess of
Wales, the Diuhess of Edinburgh, Princess Beatrice,
the Duke of Edinburgh; Prince Christian, the Duke of
Cambridge, and the Duke of Teck. The Diplomatic
Circle was attensled by most of the Foreign Ministers,
and the knights of the respective orders wore their
collies. On a fine afternoon the sight of the long line
of carriages in the Mall of St. James's-park is well worth
a visit to that part of the town. At a Court, both
ladies and gentlemen are 'presented, and it is held only
by the Sovereign; at a Drawing-room, which is often
held by one of the Princesses, ladies only are presented;
and, at a levee, presided over by one of the Princes,
gentlemen only. When the Queen nolds either a Court,
a Drawing-room, or a levee, the gathering takes place
at Buckingham Palace; but when either a Prince or
a Princess takes the place of her Majesty, it is at the
Palace of St. James's, at the other end of the Mall,
and where there is not the same opportunity for the
display of equipages as 11 sure to be seen when the
Royal standard waves over thc Queen's town residence
to indicate the presence of the Sovereign.
March is a mouth with which many old sayings are
associated, some of which scarcely stand the test of
time. For instance, look at the proverb which tells
us that R of March dust is worth a king's
ransom, and apply it to the experience of last year.
It was as dry a March as any upon record; yet very
few agriculturists throughout the kingdom weuld
be found to deciare that a preternaturally dry
epr ng month had been followed by a good harTeet.

How old this month may be does not appear to be
precisely known. Romulus, who founded Rome more
than 700 years B o. gave it the name of his supposed
father, Mars, though Ovid observes that the people of
Italy had the month of March before the time of
Romulus, but that they placed it very differently in
the calendar. The year fora erly commenced on the
25th of this month. The date now known as Lady-day
was a festival instituted about 350, according to some
authorities, and by others it is fixed about the begin-
ing of the seventeenth century. Another name which
it bears is the Feast of the Annunciation, commemora-
tive of the tidings brought to Mary by the angel
Gabriel.
The visit of the Queen to the London linspital on
the 7th, i 4 anticipated with much interest by the hi-
mense population, amounting to nearly a million,
which live beyond the city boundaries at Aidgate.
Mites of burned ;habitations stretch away outside the
civic precincts right down into Stratford, in Essex; in.
deed, it is difficult to say where Loudon ends and Essex
begins. This is a district which is not often flattered

with the presence of Royalty; and, I believe, the last
occasion of the kind was on the 24th of June, 1872,
when the Prince and Princess of Wales openL
Bethnal Green Museum. There is no portion of Her
Majesty's subjects more heartily loyal than the resi-
dents of the East end, and none, it may be added,
more hard-working. In that part of London are mode
a vast number of matches and match-boxes, and in
[tor honsehnids;shildren of three and four years of
age have to render their assistance towards the main-
tenance of the family,..- The inhabitants, to a great
.extent, confine themselves to their own neighbour-
hood, and A.vie* of the Thames Embankment or of the
Royal Albert Hall would be as new to most of
than as to the people of Manchester or Birmingham.
The. distanced betweer some points in the British
capital are so enormous, that not only inclination to
visit remote spots is wanted, but time also is required,
and that cannot be afforded by every one. There are
large numbers who live in Belgravia who have never
been to Whitechapel, and never will penetrate that
region; the resident at Highgate seldom explores
Peckham, and the retired merchant at Tulse-hill cer-
tainly dues not venture into Bermondsey in the whole
course of his natural life.
Mr. Cobden used to say that there was more infor-
mation to be gained from a single number of Tht
Times than from all the works of Ilaucydides.
The sentiment might have been expressed in rather
an exaggerated way; but when one looks at The
Times of to-day, it is impossible not to see what a
wonderful expansion of the press it represents
since the repeal of the advertisement duty and the
impressed stamp. It is only a little over twenty
years ago—a mere speck in the life of a nation.
that this impost was swept away. It was formerly
charged according to the number of lines, and was
fixed in England at 3s. 6d., and in Ireland at 2s. 6d.,
for each advertisement. The duty was reduced in
England to is. 6d. and in Ireland to is. each in 1833,
and in 1853 was entirely abolished, followed by the
sweeping away of the stanap in 1855, and by the
remission of the excise duty in 186 L On each of these
occasions Mr. Gladstone was Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer, and the removal of such restrictions to the
progress of cheap literature has certainly done wonders
towards that marvellous development of the newspaper
press which we now witness.