The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1879-11-08 00:00:00

ur gobtin 6orrtspeatld.
[We deem it right to state that we do not at all times
Identity ourselves with our Cerreependentt opinions.]

Speaking at Birmingham, in the autumn of 1873,
Mr. Bright, who then hold Wine as Chancellor of the
Duchy of Lancaster, referred to a very general expec-
tation on the part of his constituents, that he was
about to disclose some part of the Ministerial policy.
It was the month of October, and Mr. Bright
effectually set at rest all such anticipations by the
declaration that " Cabinet secrets are not made
up until November." Well, here is November once
more, and the month was only a few days old
before a series of Cabinet Councils was summoned,
presumably to decide on the future course of
Ministerial policy. Two councils were held in
October, but the news from Afghanistan was suf-
ficient to account for these. At the November
Councils, however, the ordinary business of the ap.
proaching Session has to be formulated, the estimates
of the great spending departments are submitted for
consideration, and the outlines of bills hereafter to be
drafted, are discussed by the Cabinet. About the end
of the month, Ministers adjourn until the meeting of
Parliament; and thus an interval of several weeks is
allowed to carry out any changes that have been sug-
gested in the estimates befere they are laid before the
House of Commons, and for the filling up of the
skeletons of the different measures, clothing them as
it were with flesh, and making them into substantial
forms.

The rumours of an autumn session which were so
prevalent some time ago, have now been effectually
set at rest by the prorogation of the present Parlia-
ment to the 19th of December. This will bring it up to
within a week of Christmas Day, when people are
engaged upon matters which do not include the read.
ing of Parliamentary debates. It has been rather
hastily asssumed that the fact of this proroga-
tion puts an end to the renewed rumours of a dissolu-
tion so that the new elections should take place upon
the registers that expire with the end of the year.
Such an impression is founded upon error. Nothing
whatever can interfere with the Royal prerogative of
disiolving Parliament at any moment. There was a
remarkable illustration of this during the agitation
which precedei the passing of the first Reform
Act. On the 22ad of April, 1831, Earl Grey's
Ministry having been defeated in the House of
Commons on the previous night, King William went
down to Westminster while the two Chambers were
actually sitting, the opening sentence of his speech in
the House of Lords being the startling announcement,
"I have come to prorogue this Parliament with a
view to its immediate dissolution." The scene in the
Upper Chamber, prior to the King's arrival, has had
scarcely a parallel in English history. The Opposi-
tion peers had an inkling of the intention of the
Sovereign, and hastened to metre an address to the
Crown, asking his Majesty not to dissolve the Parlia-
ment. Their speeches were made amid a scene of
extraordinary clamour which drowned the roar of the
guns notifying that the King was on his way to
Westminster. But Lord Brougham, the Lord Chan.
cellor, refused to take his seat upon the woolsack until
the arrival of the King, so that the House could
not be constituted, and no address could be
moved. When the King came there conld of course be
no further debate in the Royal presence; so the
Parliament was dissolved, the Whigs secured a ma-
jority at the elections, and the Reform Bill became
the law of the land.
It is a curious instance of the power possessed by
the city of London that an Institution like Lord
Mayor's Day should still exist in the metropolis. The
procession is not confined to the City, where the Lord
Mayor reigns paramount, but it traverses also a con-
siderable portion of Westminster, namely, from the
site of Temple Bar to Westminster Hall. Now,
it should be understood that in Westminster the
Lord Mayor has no jurisdiction whatever, yet
the streets have to be kept clear for the Civic
show to pass, the pavements are crowded with people,
and all vehicular traffic i 3 for the time diverted.
Formerly, and before the construction of the Thames
Embankment, the procession returned by the same
route as it went, which practically meant that the
streets were, all the daylight hours, in possession of a
vast and surging multitude, But now, no sooner has
the pageant passed through the Strand on its way to
the Court of Exchequer, than the mass of spectators
pour down upon the Embankment to see it come
back, to the great relief of the tradesmen in Parlia-
ment-street, the Strand, Fleet-street, and Ludgate-
hll. Tt-y can then open their shops agaia. Every
3 ear brings the usual amount of grumbling at the
displacement of traffic caused by the Lord Mayor's
Show, but this is confined to a comparatively few.
The people of the metropolis, as a whole, are
highly pleased to have a speotacular exhibition for
nothing, and they turn out in hundreds of thousands
to look at it. In its distinctive features it rarely

varies; generation after generation witnesses the same
display of mock chivalry and ;knight errantry; and
the crowds are always there. They were there in the
days of Fitzalwyne, Whittington, and Walworth ;
and they will remain long after the present members
of the Court of Aldermen have passed away.
Lord Beaconsfield has, with meet of the other
Cabinet Ministers, accepted the invitation of the
Lord Mayor elect to dine with him at Guildhall
on Monday next; and there are those in London who
go about assuring their friends and acquaintances
that an important Ministerial statement will then
be made by the Premier. These Guildhall banquets
have, within the past half generation, assumed
a kind of national importance. Midway be-
tween the close of one Session and the beginning of
the next, it affords an excellent opportunity for the
leading members of the Administration to defend their
policy from the attacks of the Opposition. It occa-
sionally happens that announcements of momentous
importance are made at these dinners; as, for example,
in 1868, when the present Prime Minister, then Mr.
Disraeli, informed his hearers that within forty-eight
hours the then existing Parliament would be dissolved.
This was actually the case, for on the 11th November
new writs were issued, and the new Legislature assem-
bled at Westminster on the 10th December following.
At other times a sentence may be uttered which passes
into a proverb. On the 9th November, 1866, Mr.
Disraeli, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, made use
of the expression "Individuals may form cone-
munities, but it is peoples only who constitute
nations." Lad year the Premier uttered the famous
phrase: "The world is governed by sovereigns and
statesmen, and not by the hare-brained chatter of
Irresponsible frivolity."
The month of November, proverbially a dull one in
London, is not without its redeeming features. On a
wet day there are the Winter Exhibitions of pictures in
the galleries at Pall Mall; and, if the weather be dry,
a very interesting hour may be spent in the Temple
Gardens. These gardens, which are the exclusive pro.
perty of the benchers, are thrown open to the public twice
a year—from the let of June to the middle of August,
when the summer flowers are in their full bloom and
beauty; and in November, for the show of chrysan-
themums. The benchers spare no expense to make
the gardens attractive; and those who, amid the
fresh air of the country, imagine that the gloom
of winter is totally unrelieved in the dark me-
tropolis, would find in the gardens of the Temple
a sufficient refutation of the theory. Hemmed in
between two great highways of traffic flowing
east and west—Fleet-atreet and the Thames Mu-
bankment—its quaint old buildings seem to carry
the mind back centuries of time. The place is
like an oasis of calm in the midst of a sea
of commotion. There are crowds upon the
north hurrying to and fro; and the thronged Surrey
shore, across the river, is outspread before the
spectator, But the gardens themselves are a quiet
retreat, and one which is very much appreciated by
the jaded city man. The annual Chrysanthemum
Show is one of the best of its kind that England pro-
du :es; and the perfection to which the cultivation of
this fiver is brought in the very heart of the City of
London is such as to surprise many a country visitor
who has a traditional belief in the blighting influence
of the fogs which settle down upon the capital at this
season of the year.
The present month will witness the celebration of
two birthdays in the Royal family. On the 9th the
Prince of Wales will be thirty-eight; and on the
21st the Princess-Royal, as we were once accus-
tomed to call her—the Crown Princess of Germany
now—will be thirty-nine. The Ileir-Apparent's
birthday is celebrated in London much as that of her
Majesty, by illuminations in the City and the West.
end; but it is not always that these are so good as on
the 24th of May last, when upon the Queen completing
the sixtieth year of her age, the western thorough-
fares were lighted up in a way which had not been
witnessed for years, and the streets were filled with
enormous crowds. The Prince and Princess will them-
selveg spend the anniversary at Sandringham, where
a select circle of distineuirhed guests has been invited
to meet their Royal Highnesses.
The Royal visitors are coming back from Scotland,
where the mountain tops are often clothed in snow at
this sewn of the year, and the wild winds, sweep-
ing over desolate tracks of moorland and heather,
tell of the approach of a not distant winter. The
Empress Eugenie is back again in her solitary home
at Chisiehurst, with a gloemy time before her.
The year now closing has been one of the saddest
in the history of that illustrious lady, for whose acts of
kindness in the days of her prosperity many a French
peasant has yet a place in his memory. In 1870 she
lost her throne; in 1873 death deprived her of her
husband; and now 1879 has completed the story of