The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1876-01-08 00:00:00

:Ethn arespubtut.

it'Wo deem It right to state that we do not at all timeil
Identify ourselves with our Correspondent's opinions.]

The early days of January find the metropolis
gradually awakening from a kind of torpor which has
stolen over it as a consequence of the Christmas

festivities. Those who declare that there is "nothing
-in the papers" may of a truth affirm it in the closing
! hours of December. As a rule, with the great
journals of London, the nightly problem with their
eonductorA is not, as popularly foipPosed, how to fill up

their space, 1)14
twitat thmite.y leave out. If, as is
uc unfreqnently .the case, seventy columns are in

ty pa, and only forty-eight or at most fifty-six, can
be got into the paper) -1' is clear that some-
_ thing must be sacrificed. But for a few days
• before and after Christmas there is really a
• difficulty in obtaining sufficient matter to fill the
papers. The overseer of the printing department no
longer comes round to the editor, and says "You
had better mind what you are about, Sir, or I have
15 columns over." But now the burden of his demand
is "I want ten columns of copy 1" Where is ,it
to be procured? There are no law courts, no
assize intelligence, no big speeches, and very few
public meetings. Then is the time for the
reviews of books to be worked off, for the
police news to be given fully, and for the provincial

journals to be minutely scanned if haply these may
contain anything beyond a mere local interest. But
the farther we leave Christmas behind us, the more
the great Capital seems to arouse itself once more to
the business of active life. On the 11th of January
the law courts re-open; and in the country those

members of Parliament who have not yet addressed
their constituents, hasten to make arrangements to do
so, for the time when the collective wisdom of the
nation shall re-assemble at Westminster, now ap-
proaches apace; Cabinet ministers will soon be return-
ing to town, to put the last few finishing touches to the
coming legislation of the year; and in west end

squares and terraces preparations are being made for
the reception of the lords and the commons in their
private residences. The two assemblies number be-
tween 1,100 and 1,200 and it will thus be seen what a
difference such an influx must make upon the appear-
ance of one part of the town. They bring with them
their wives, their families and their servants, all look-

ing forward to the slowly but surely lengthening days,
and to the coming time when the warm sunlight shall
• chase away the deep and heavy gloom which through-
out the winter perpetually hangs over London.
It has been truly remarked that fashion has many
caprices, especially with respect to ladies' dresses, but
it has seldom displayed a more questionable one than
•in the appropriation of the feathers of our favourite
songsters to the adornment of ladies' attire. Some
very seasonable protests have lately been uttered
against the threatened wholesale destruction of our
small birds, and feeling appeals have been made for
our poor little friends of the woods and fields. It should
be remembered that small birds play an important
part in the economy of nature. Distinguished na-
tionalists have again and again testified that even to
farmers the feathered tribe do more good than harm.
They destroy insects, the ravages of which, in their
countless swarms, are far more destructive than the
birds to many crops. Yet there is no doubt that the
agriculturists do not always see matters quite in this
light. They find their corn pecked up, and their har-
vest imiously interfered with, and so they are disposed
to devote the birds to wholesale slaughter. And it thus
comes to pass that between the war declared against
the birds by the farmers, and the efforts of the trappers
who are anxious to procure feathers for the decoration
of ladies' hats, the little creatures that render our fields
and groves melodious, and throw around them so
delightful and indefinable a charm, stand in danger of
)mething like extermination. It is alleged that those
who make a trade of snaring the birds for the sake of
the feathers to furnish the trimmings, consider that the
colours are brighter, and preserve their tints longer
when they are plucked from the birds alive. Hence
they are stripped of their pluraage while living. I saw
an argument by an eminent naturalist a short time
ago to the effect that dogs and other animals had no
sensibility to pain. This, however, is an assertion
which is contradicted by all experience, if seeing and
hearing be evidence, and if there be any truth in ex-
periment. Not many countries can boast of the sing-
ing birds we have in the United Kingdom. When

ori

'ON

emigrants have left ourshoresfor distant lands, however
broad and fertile, they have keenly felt the want of
the songs of our birds. The silence of the fields has
become painfully depressing. Even rough countrymen,
who have crossed oceans in search of work, have
walked many miles on a Sunday in Australia or
America for the pleasure of listening to an imported
canary, and, still more, to a lark or a nightingale.
Were our birds to be exterminated, one of the great
charms of the country wculd be gone, and they appeal
. ,powerfully to us all for protection.
• -
It is somewhat startling to find that, notwithstand-
ing the carrying out of the main drainage scheme of
the Metropolitan Board of Works, the Thames is at
this moment the great open drain of a district equal
In extent to about five counties. Berks, Oxford, and
Surrey, with the larger prop e.tion of Bucks and
Hertz, with the smaller parts of Gloucester and Wilts,
. make up the watershed of 2,352,640 acres. The popu-
lation of this area is 900,000, of whom about a fourth
live in towns. There are on the farms 60,000 horses,
160,000 cattle, 900,000 sheep, and 120,000 pigs. The
Thames, from which many of the water companies
draw their supplies, is in fact the receptacle of the
washings of all these towns, villages, farms, and
fields, together with the waste liquids of tanyards,
paper factories, gas works, and a hundred other
establishments. The visible contaminations of the
water are of course, taken out of it by filtering; but at
" no time, and in no circumstances, is it really whole-
some. It is held by competent authorities that, as
4- the river cannot be purified, it should be abandoned at
_ once as a source of supply. The Lea is also con-
demned, for though leas impure than the Thames, the
quality of its water is slowly though irregularly
deteriorating from year to year.
The National Training School for Music at South
Kensington is an institution which appears to be
making substantial progress, so far as the establish-
ment of scholarships is concerned. It is undoubtedly
a scheme of great importance, the results of which are
likely to be felt in the better cultivation of a musical
taste in this country in the years to come. Its head-
quarters are at the Royal Albert Hall, and as follow-
ing out the ideas of the late Prince Consort, it will
-. form one of the best and most lasting memorials of is
career. The School is under the immediate patronage
of the Queen and the Royal Princes, the Duke of
Edinburgh being chairman of the committee of
management. A building, adjoining the Albert Hall
Is in course of erection for the purposes of the School,
and it is expected that it will be ready in the course of
the present month. The object is to institute scholar-
ships of the value of £4O per annum, which will cover
all expenses of instruction, books, and instruments;
and it is in contemplation to found at least 300 of these
• scholarships. These are to be open to competition by
. persons competent to enter upon a course of first-class
musical training, the period of tuition to extend over
five years.
One of the most eminent of our statesmen men-
tioned a little while ago that only a day or two pre-
viously he had received forty-two letters by the post
at a single delivery. This solitary fact testifies to the
desire amongst a considerable portion of the body
politic for the possession of the autographs of famous
men. When Charles Dickens was in America, the
drain upon him for his signature was quite unpre-
cedented, and it was impossible for him to satisfy a
• twentieth part of those who were anxious for a scrap
of paper containing the handwriting of a man who
had made for himself such a name. Some distin-
guiahed men do not care to grant such requests;
others do not like to refuse. If every applicant is
satisfied, the author, poet, or dramatist, as the case
may be, gets a credit for vanity which in all pro
lability is undeserved; and if he refuses, he is with
equal injustice put down as surly or morose. Auto-
graphs of illustrious members of the House of Com-
mons, when attached to orders of admission to the
• Strangers' Gallery, are often not used for that pur-
pose, but kept for their own sakes. Signatures of
Lord Palmerston and Earl Russell, when the latter
represented the City of London, are thus retained as
curiosities.
One of the institutions in the neighbourhood of
London, the characteristics of which are becoming
better understood with the advance of time, is the
Workmen's City. In your wanderings through the
suburbs yott suddenly and unexpectedly come upon
row after row of neat and comely-looking houses, of a
uniform height and size, each with a patch of garden-
ground in front, shut off from the pavement by trimly-
finished railings. On some blank spaces which had
•
previously lain vacant for years probably a thousand
of these habitations have been erected especially for the
accommodation of working men. The fact that they
live several miles away from their daily avocations, is
met by the existence of the workmen's trains, which
start at an early hour in the morning, and return at a
given time in the 'evening. These are invariably
crowded, and the passengers fill not only the third,
but also the second, and even the first-class carriages.
It is a maxim amongst the inhabitants of these cities
wherein the humbler people dwell, that early hours beget
health, wealth, and wisdom. Long before the dawn,
lighted candles shed their fitful gleams from many
a casement, and tall columns of smoke ascend
from
countless chimneys. The workmen are
at breakfast, but it is a race against time, for the
train will not wait, and if they Aim it, they have to