The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1884-09-13 00:00:00

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tin? 2.-t,touryrlbge Obserbev.,

‘TU:tOAI SEPTEMBER 13th, 1884.

HOLIDAY TIME.

Within the memory of men in early life
ill, annual holiday has made a rapid stride
in pablie estimation and popular favour.
Thirty or even twenty years ecro the yearly
outing was by no means the institution
which i+ es now become and promises to con-
tinue. The great ob:e.A c f the dweller in inland
towns, especially in the Midlands, is to get
to the sea and there can be no doubt that
the railway companies offer numerous facili-
ties for this description of recreation. The
longing for the sea on the part of those who
live a considerable distance from it seems to
be implanted in the human bosom without
distinction of climate or of country. In
great tracts of land such as Germany and
Russia, with a restricted line of sea'ooard,
large numbers of the people pass through
the world without ever witnessing the sea at
all. A remarkable instance of the astonish-
ment caused by the first sight of the sea was
afforded in the Franco-German war of 1870,
The German armies poured over the land
frontiers in an irresistible torrent, and were
seen at Orleans and at Dieppe as well as in
Paris. The Uhlans who stood first on the
hights of Dieppe and gazed upon the English
Channel, were dumb with amazement at the
wonderful spectacle. They had never before
looked on the vast shining bosom of the sea
across which the First Napoleon when at
Boulogne, had moodily pondered as the
scheme of an English invasion filled his

brain.
It must have been twenty years since Mr.
Gladstone, as Chancellor of the Exchequer,
declared in the House of Commons that the
prosperity of the country was increasing by
leaps and bounds. There can be little doubt
that this prosperity gave a strong impulse
to the yearly holiday movement. The aug.
mentation of the national wealth has not
continued in the same proportion
as at the time described by the
present Prime Minister ; but it ceitiinly
cannot be asserted that the vacation enjoy-
ments of the people are less. These seem to
suffer no diminution whatever may be the
price of consols, tE e fluctuations of railway
shares, or the quotations of foreign bonds.
The holiday has, in fact, come to be regarded
as a necessity and so much is it appreciated
hat those whose means are not large put by
week by week all the year round a
stated. sum to meet the expenses. The truth
appears to Le that such is the whirl and
turmoil, the hurry and the competition of
modern life in great towns that a break in
the continuity is regarded as essential to
health and to life. The resident in the busy
city finds it a relief to go down to the sea-
side, and watch the advancing or receding
waves, to listen to their music as they fall
upon the sands at eventide to exchange the
smoke and fog of the ,town for the sweet
breath of the ocean and the close pent-tip
streets for the wide spreading shore. There
are some who are enabled to afford the luxury
of an Atlantic voyage and who can appreci-
ate the difference between the mighty sweep
of the sea and the close office in Change-ally
or the gloomy warehouse in Cannon-street.
What a contrast between the bosom of the
rolling main and the roar of London traffic ;
and then, too, the pleasure of being so far
from the telegraph-boy, and for the matter
of that, from the letter-carrier, too. The late
Sir Charles Reed described one of the great
gratifications of an ocean voyage as the ab-
sence of telegrams, and to a great man of
business there can be no doubt of the relief
here referred to.
The quietude of the country is immensely
appreciated by those who lead a bustling life
in town. The farmstead, with all its acces-
sories of rural existence, is often selected be-
cause of the stillnessef nature which is there
presented to the overworkedbrain. The purity
of the air, the gurgle of the rill, the calm of
the field, and the silence of the hills, are all
grateful to a man who passes his life as hut
a unit in the midst of a great people. Pos-
sibly he may not care always to be sur-
ronnded bythe accessories of agricultural life.
To a mind accustomed to activity, the une-
ventful existence which some associate with
a farming career which would soon become
monotonous, more especially when the chang.
ing tintsof Autumn give way to the bleak and
desolate appearance imparted to the land by
the approach of winter. But a townsman
does not often pass into an agriculturist,
whom at the end of his holidays he leaves
to return to his more exciting pursuits,
thankful for the repose which he has enjoyed
and braced together and strengthened for the
toil of the future.