The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1876-08-26 00:00:00

ear yonbon 6orresponbtat.

We deem it right to state that we do not at all tirics
((loudly ourselves with our Correspondent's opinions.]

What memories cluster round the Palace of Holy-
rood, at which the Queen sojourned on her way from
Osborne to Rda,oral I Its ecclesiastical towers—for it
was formerly an abbey—tell of a time running far into
the ages of antiquity; and its internal splendour
speaks eloquently of a period when it was the residence
of the Scottish monarchs. It had been appropriated to
this purpose more than 400 years before the memorable
night of the 91 of March, 1566, when a tragedy took
.plAce which has been graphically described by the late
Henry Glaseford BelL It was upon an evening of raw
and surly mood that Mary Queen of Scots sat in one
of the chambers of the Palace, listening to the rain and
sighing wirl the wind. She knew well enough that
her husband, the E irl of Darnley, was jealous of her
Italian secretary, one David Rizzi°, but little dream-
ing of what was in store for her favourite, and her
mind being full of blighted hopes, she "summoned
Rizzlo with his lute, and bade the minstrel play."
The unsuspecting Italian, not knowing that Darnley
had completed a plot for his assassination, gave his
royal mistress some of the songs of gay Navarre, and
these

'Hail beguiled her of her cues—they soothed her into
smi:es,
They won her thon;hts from bigot zeal and fierce domestic
broils:
' '"

But hark! the tramp of armed men! the Douglas battle-
cry.
They come! they come and to! the scowl of Ruthven's
hollow eye!
And swords are drawl), and daggers gleam, and tears and
words are vain—
The ruffian steel is in his heart—the faithful Rizzlo's slain!
Then Mary Stuart dashed adde the tears that trickling
fell;
'Now for my father's arm,' she said; 'my woman's heart
farewell I ''

The exclamation of the unhappy Queen at seeing this
murder perpetrated before her eyes, was understood to
indicate a desire for revenge, and the fact that Lord
Darnley's b3d7 wal afterwards found in a place known
fk3 the Kirk of Field, tended to show that if such an
idea, had beeu cherished, means were certainly found to
carry it out. The Palace of Holyrood has now wit-
nessed a very different scene. Its walla have looked
down not upon a tragedy and a threat of vengeance,
but upon a ceremonial in which a Queen of Scotland
as well as of England has shown how to appreciate the
memory of a husband who although a tenant of the
tomb for half a generation is still the central figure in
the life of the foremost personage in the land.

Parliament prorogued, the law courts up for the long
vacation, bazaars and dinners for charitable institu-
tions suspended, popular preachers enjoying their
holiday, the members of the Royal Family all out of
town, the lords spiritual in their respective Cilceses,
the lords temporal and the commons pas,iog their
time away amongst their ancestral homes and in their
several counties, the columns of the London papers
now present a very different appearance from that
which is customary when there is a page or two of
debate, columns of an interesting law case, and re-
ports of speeches of eminent men upon all kinds of
subjects. Not that there is any lack of matter,
for in the recess, as well as in the Session, the
difficulty in the office of a great London paper is
not how to fill it, but what to leave out. It may be
safely asserted that every day twice as much is sent
into the office as the editor can find rcom for ; and if a
newspaper comes out with twelve columns of Parlia-
mentary intelligence, a similar quantity of equally
good matter has to be cast into the waste-paper
basket. The way in which the penny dailies have of
late years condensed their reports cf the proceedings
of the legislature cannot have failed to attract atten-
tion. They find that in appealing to the million they
have to suit the tastes of all classes, and that their
intelligence must be varied and of many descriptions.
Time was when the Parliamentary debates were
reported by the yard; but length is now left to the
high-priced journals. _ _ _

Probably one of the problems to be solved by the
engineers of the future will be how to utilise in a
greater degree the enormous quantity of water
power which is always found ready to their
hands. In the country districts this is done to
some extent in mills and manufactories of
various kinds; and as it is comparatively easy
to divert a running stream, the water is often
made to serve the purposes of man before it is per-
mitted to pour itself into the sea. But how is man
to make the best of the great strength represented in a
tidal river? No better illustration of its immense
power can be found than in the metropolis itself. Take
your stand upon London Bridge, and note the force of
the tidal wave, as its rapid current sweeps irresistibly
beneath the arches, and rushes up the stream, beating
back the land water. Consider at the same time that
thity-estiest -Yrourhiege-3.; -anzt 'tt digtwat UlArlt then
of the mighty power of the tide. Yet what use does
scientific skill make of such a potent instrument?
Flowing at man's feet day by day and hour by hour,
and past the homes of vast populations, is a tre-
mendous agency requiring only management to enable
It to perform an immense amount of work, and to be
of incalculable benefit to man. We have pressed steam
into our service; when are we going to take the tides in
band? So long as the moon continues to illuminate the
heavens, the action of the tides can be predicted to a
nicety, and the time may come when more use will be
made of their leviathan strength.
Speaking of the tides suggests the various efforts on
the part of plucky individnals to do battle with the
sea, not upon the banks of rivers but amid the foam-
crested billows themselves. Last year the exploits
first of Captain Boyton and next of Captain Webb in
crossing the English Channel was the theme of admi-
ration by thousands, who were delighted to see a single
man wrestle with and overcome a force which, always
hungry and remorseless, had engulphed many a gallant
ship, an destroyed a host of valuable lives. There is
something which strikes the imagination in a human
being plunging fearlessly into a vast body of water,
grappling successfully with the waves and the opposing
currents, and swimming from the shores of one country
to those of another over the tumbling hills and through
the seething valleys of the sea. The recent attempt which
has been made to cope with the perils of the deep has
revived public attention in an exploit which is certain
to be estimated at its proper value, and with no feeling
whatever bordering upon jealousy, no matter of what
nationality the daring man may be who is bold enough
to make the venture.
It is remarkable how the mere mention of a name
which has been lost sight of for years will sometimes
bring back strange and curious memories of the past,
these bearing with them associations that might well
have been supposed to flee away for ever. Who that
finds years advancing into middle life cannot call to
mind the recollections surrounding the name of
Florence Nightingale? By next winter two-and-
twenty years will have passed since the praises of this
estimable lady were in every mouth. That dreary
time, which saw out 1854 and witnessed the early days
of 1855, was one, to quote the language of Lord
Russell, of "horrible and heart-rending sufferings" to
the British army encamped upon the bleak hill sides
of the Crimea. As ill-luck would have it, the winter
was the most bitterly cold which had swept over
Europe for many years, and the fierce north-easters,
which were so much the admiration of the late Canon
Kingsley, were far more fatal than the Russian
batteries. Those who were wounded either by Mus-
covite guns or by the piercing frost, were removed
to Scutari, in Asiatic Turkey, directly opposite
Constantinop'e, of which city it is a suburb. In the
vast hospital there, the French sick and maimed as
well as our own were attended by Mies Nightingale,
with a band of skilled nurses under her, aided by a large
fund of money subscribed by the public, and placed in
the care of the proprietors of The Timm. More than
two decades have rolled over our heads since that
terrible time; but the unselfish devotion of Florence
Nightingale to the cause of mercy, pity, and cornpasaion, has made the mention of her name one of
affectionate respect, not only in our own land, but
across the Channel. At a meeting held at Willis's
Rooms last week, to organise a fund for the relief of
the sick and wounded in the Eastern war, a hearty
letter from Miss Nightingale was read, in which she
expressed her warmest wishes for the successful working
out of the idea. The fact that she wrote from a sick-
bed elicited expressions of sympathetic regret from all
who knew her works and her untiring energy in the
alleviation of distress when in the possession of health
and strength.

Visitors to Parliament-square, Westminster will
see
in the enclosure two statues facing the south and look-
fng dir_fctly towards the Palace of the Legislature'
They are those of Lord Palmerston and the late Lord
Derby, both of whom held more than once the high
office of Prime Minister of England. There stand
two eminent statesmen struck into stone, and a vivid
imagination can alcc.ost fancy them as perpetually
regarding the scene of their former activity, and as
fighting over again the battles of years and years ago.
When Lord Palmerston died in 1865, it was remarked
that he had been a member of the House of Commons
exactly one-tenth of the time covered by the existence
of Parliaments in this country. It was in 1265 that
Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, issued the first
regular writs of summons to the knights, citizens, and
burgesses to assemble as a Parliament at Westmin-
ster; and of those 600 years, Lord Palmer-
ston, entering the House of Commons in 18061
and dying in 1865, had been a representative of the
people precisely one-tenth of that time. Between the
arena of his life during that long period of political