The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1884-02-16 00:00:00

Our Ditbson Correspoubmt.

(We (teem it right to state that we do not at all tIBIN
dentify ourselves with our Corresponden4'.

The announcements in a recent number of the
London Gazate of her Majesty's intention to hold
lrawine-rooms at Buckingham Palace on the 13th and
20th March are satisfactory, as showing that the condi-
tion of the Sovereign's health enables her to take part
in a ceremonial which is of much interest to a consider.
able number of her subjects. Had it been the Queen's
intention to delegate the duty of holding these drawing,
re oms to the Princess of Wales or to either of her daugh-
ters, it 'would have been expressly stated. But her
Majesty feels sufficiently strong to undertake the task
herself, and her subjects are gratified that this is
so. The attendance at these drawing - rooms
fluctuates considerably. It has gone as high
as 400 when her Majesty herself has presided,
and has dwindled to fewer than twenty when
the Sovereign has not been there in'person. The official
notice always states that presentations to either of the
Princeeees are to be considered as equivalent to pre-
epntations to her Majesty; but somehow or other
these are no: so regarded by the persons presented.
Tnere would never be 400 presentations to anyone but
the Qaeen herself, and on that occasion her Majesty
had to be relieved by the Princess of Wales when
the number had been dispoeel of.
The session has begun in a lively manner, one amend-
frosnt to the Address after another having been disposed
ot`by division. Time was when an amendment to the
_ _ _ _ _

Adresa in answer to the Speech from the Throne was

a serious business, involving the fall of one Administra-
tion and the rise of another. Three brief lines at the
end settled the matter. After going through the
"fsalqgraphs in the Royal Speech, and humbly thanking
the S xereign for the information thus imparted, these
say:is:were added, fall of portentous import: "And
vie? be further humbly to assure your Majesty that
we have no confidence in your Majesty's present
advisers." This was what was called "amending" the
Address, and, on being carried, was at once followed
by a resignation of the Ministry. The last time on
which this happened was in Jane, 1859, when the
amendment was moved by the Marquis of Hartington•
Wayfarers in St. James's-park must have often
noted the appearance of Buckingham Palace, with the
sentry of the Grenadier Guards eternally pacing up
and down before it. A singular contrast it presents
with the mansions of the rich that are to be seen
fringing the park right and left looking up the Mall.
The blinds to the windows on one floor of.the palace
the drawing-room floor—were white once, but they
have degenerated now into a dingy brown. They are
kept closely drawn, as though the place were a verit-
able house of mourning. Singularly enough whits
blinds are not appointed to the windows on the
upper story. Here there are Venetians, grey
with age, and partially drawn. The pedes-
trian would find it difficult to tell what colour
these Venetian blinds originally were; but gar-
nishing as they do now the forlorn-looking windows,
they might have been of any hue which accords with
the taste and fancy of the spectator. The fact that
the Q leen is coming to the palace next month will no
doubt give an impetus to the energies of those who are
responsible for its aspect, and would like the residence
of the monarch of this realm to be at least as present-
able as the surrounding mansions of some of her
subjects.

The cricket season of 1884 will be one of great
interest to the admirers of that pastime in
this c)untry. There is to be a visit of a team from
Philadelphia, that flourishing city of Brotherly Love,
which is the capital of the keystone State of America,
and the pride and glory of the United States. No
town in England outside London can equal Phila.
delphla either for size, beauty of situation, or the
number of its inhabitants. Liverpool and Glasgow
have long run a close race as to population; but
Philadelphia is a town with nearly a million people,
and the team of thirteen sent over here this summer
consists of the picked players of that vast community.
Both at Lord's and at the Oval there will be ample
opportunity of comparing the Philadelphians with our
nearer relatives, the Australians, who were last ovei
here in 1832.

The protracted debates on the Address to the Crown
and the proposition of the Opposition leader in the
House of Commons for the moving of a vote of censure
on the Government for the particular course which
has been pursued in Egypt, have postponed the
retirement of the Speaker from a post which the
right hon. gentleman has filled twelve years. There
can be no doubt that of late years the capacity for
tslk in the House of Commons has greatly increased.
No greater evidence of this can be afforded than
in the contrast between the present circumstances
and those which attended the resignation of Sir Henry
Brand's predecessor. Parliament met on the 6th Feb.
rnary, 1872, when the address in both houses was voted
on the same night without a division. On the next
day Mr. Speaker Denison announced that after fifteen
years of service in the chair, increasing years and aug-
menting duties compelled him to retire from so
arduous a position. On the 9th the present Speaker
was elected, on the motion of Sir Roundell Palmer.
seconded by Mr. Locke King, Mr. Denison was.
created Viscount:Ossington, but declined to accept the
usual pension of £4OOO a year, voted by the House of
Commons on such occasions.
The decision of the metropolitan volunteer com-
manding officers not to hold the usual Easter Monday
Review is not likely to be popular with the members
of the citizen army. The success of the Volunteer
movement has been materially aided by these annual
displays in the presence of a vast concourse of spec.
tators, but the brigading of the men with the regular
forces at Aldershot, Portsmouth, and Dover is a
very different matter. The new arrangement will
a'so cot into more time than ordinary men of busines,
can conveniently spare, and will take not far short of
a week out of them at Easter instead of a day or
two, as in the case of the review. The latter has
always been looked upon as a holiday and as a welcome
recreation ; but the massing of the men with the
regular army for a few days, while no doubt strengthen.
ing their military esprit de corps, will not be calculated
to raise the martial spirit of the people as after the
manner of a spectacle such as a review.
A singularly chequered career was that of Cetewayo
dnrinn the last few years of his life. It is just
five years since the news arrived in this country
of the disaster at Isandula, and the name of the Zulu
King was surrounded with a kind of superstitious
terror, which was not subsequently diminished by
the intelligence from Kambula, and of the slaying of
the Prince Imperial by the aesegals of the fierce Zulus.
Then maned the battle of Ulundi, the flight and cap.
ture of Cetewayo, his three years of imprisonment at
Cape Town, and his visit to this country in the summer
of 1832. His aspect here was the very reverse of the
ferocious potentate that fancy had painted him. He
appetred in the garb of an English gentleman, and
except that he had a few little eccentricities, such as
the consumption of eight pounds of beef a day,
and preferring a hard resting place upon the
floor to a feather bed and an eider down quilt,
the Ebony King might have passed as un.
observed a sojourn here as did King John
of Bonny seven or eight years ago. Great was the
delight of the Zulu chieftain whem the Qoeen an.
nouneed to him at Osborne that he was to be
reinstated; but during his long absence from his
country other monarchs had arisen, and when he got
ba.c:z to Zululand he found hie authority disregarded,
and his power practically gone. Brief records of a
series of internecine fights have from time to time
reached us ; but as a factor in Colonial politics, Cate.
wayo was long ago played out, and the most that can
be said of his death is that it removes what threatened
to be a source of embarrassment to the preient Ad.
ministration.

The prospectus which has been issued descriptive of
the object of the Industrial Health Exhibition, show
with sufficient clearness what is proposed to be done at
South Kensington in this direction in the course of the ,
ensuing summer. Its purpose is "to illustrate as
vividly and in as practical a manner as possible food,
dress, he dwelling, the school, and the workshop as
affecting the conditions of healthful life, and also to
bring into public notice the most recent appliances for
elementary school teaching and instruction in applied
science, art, and handicrafts." This is a comprehen.
eV() programme, and from the energy with which the
preparations are being conducted, remembering also
the success which attended the Fisheries Exhibition of
last year, there seems to be little doubt of a gratifying
remit.

DECLINA D 4 TAM:.—The Board of Trade returns
in regard to steel rsils, steel, hardware, and cutlery,
show that in January last there was a very serious
falling off. Steel rails have fallen from £415,103 in
January 1883, to £213,202; unwrought steel from
£117,069 to £98,641, hardware and cutlery from
£341,982 to £283,446. The United States, which took
a value in steel rails of £33,661 in January 1883, only
took 210,062 last month. (In January 1882, the value
of steel rails sent to the statea was £125,883.) Mexico
has fallen ,from 225,732 to £lll9, Ale Argentine
Republic from £46,963 to £21,195, British possessions
in South Africa from £32,964 to £6136, British East
Indies from £91,417 to £51,253, and Australasia from
£66,325 to £46,376. Italy and British North America
are altogether blank; in January of 1883 they took
it 33,566 and £33,465 respectively. Egypt, which had
nothing in January, 1883, received a value of £9701
last month. The steel (nnwrought), the decline in the
United States trade accounts for the total falling-off.
In hardware and cutlery the United States haJ
deereased.2l4,ooo.

THE EXTRAORDINARY ROBBERY OF
A SAFE.
In London on Saturday, at Bow•street Police-court,
Be/ jamin Jordan, Henry George Chapman, Alfred
Thornton, and .terederick Hadden were further
charged before Mr. Flowers with being concerned in
the burglarioasly breaking and entering the premises
of the Dairy Supply Company, 28, Museum•street,
.Noomsbury, and stealing a safe containing upwards
ol £84)0.

Mr. Batchelor prosecuted on behalf of the Pub:io
Prosecutor. Mr. Boraman defended Hadden.
The depositions taken on previous occasions were
read over, and in cross examination Mr. Morley,
manager to the company, stated that he had known
Haddon for about two and a half years, and always
elle wed him to be a respectable man.

Jane Matilda Ward, 22, Shandy-street, Stepney,
deposed that she was in Hadden's service, but left
last Saturday. She did not sleep in the house, but at
her own home. She remembered the Thursday prioe
to the Saturday she left Hadden's employ. She
slept there that night. On that particular Thursday
she last saw Hadden about dinner time. Mrs. Ha3det
and witness sat up until half.past two that night,
when Hadden came in. He spoke to Mrs, Haddon
in a whisper, but witness hear I him say that he WaE
going to a place where somebody wee dying, and
they had asked him to look after the pony. He
went out, and witness did not see him until the
next morning at six o'clock, when she opened the shop,
A short dark young man was with him, who was
known to witness by the name of "Jack." Haider
had a chisel in his hand. Both men went into the yard
at the back of the house. Mrs. Hadden made florae
tea and after Sadden had partaken of some he said
"Make a quart, so that I can take it over to them.'
Witness did not know who he meant, but he took the
tea over the road, He returned with a tall man,
unknown to witness. They went into the yard
together, and witness saw them grinding a chisel on a
grindstone there. After that Hadden sent witness tc
his father-in-law with a meesage requesting him tc
come up to the house, as he (Hadden) wanted te
sneak to him particularly. Sadden left the house
abut three or four on Friday afternoon, and had not
returned when witness left about half-past ten at
night, He remained away from home the whole ol
the text day (Saturday), when witness left her ern.
ployment.
Mrs. Baker, the wife of a dalryman carrying on
business in Gloucester-street, deposed that she re-
membered seeing a pony and cart in Gloucester-street
on Thursday week, in the evening. She observed that
it remained there between two and three hours, and
saw the name of "Jordan, Bale-street, Stepney,"
painted on the cart. The next morning she saw Mr.
Clark, of the Hole-in-the-Wall, I,ublic-house.

Mr. Clark, landlord of the Flole-in-the•Wall,
house, Gloucester•street, Theobald's-road, deposed
that to the best of his belief he had seen Thornton and
Jordan on Thursday week in the evening, in one of the
bars in his house.

Mr. George Barham, managing director of the
Dairy Supply Company, deposed that Chapman wat
in the employ of the company, and in addition to
Haddeu he had seen Thornton on the company's pre-
mises. On one occasion—five or six weeks ago—wit-
ness saw Thornton in the warehou3e„ He asked pri-
soner his business, when Hadden came forward and
said it was alriend of his.
Detective.sergeant Rowan was recalled, and pro
duced the clock and candelbra found in Hadrien't
home on the occasion of his arrest, and the girl Ware
was called to prove having seen them brought there b 3
Hadden &nee Christmas.

John Gerdes, 133, Bethnal-green•road, gilder and
furniture dealer' who had also a shop at 141, Bethnal.
green, depo-ed that a robbery was effected at the
latter premises on the 19th January, and amongst
other things a clock and candelabra were stolen. He
idclititied those produced as his property.

A previous conviction was provei against Thorn-
ton, for housebreaking, and the prisoners were farther
remanded.