The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1876-11-18 00:00:00

our fodou 6orreslonlnni.

gra deem it right to state that we do [lot at all time,
idcatify ourselves with our Correspondent's opinions.]

The selection of a Secretary of State as a Special
Ambassador on the occasion of a great European Con-
ference, is strictly in accordance with precedent. At the
close of the Russian War, early in 1856, when the
representatives of all the Great Powers met in Paris
to discuss the preliminaries of the Treaty of Peace,
each country sent two Plenipotentiaries, one its am-
bassador in the French capital, and the other des-
patched specially, armed with extraordinary powers,
and having received specific instructions. At that
time the British Ambassador in Paris was the Earl of
Cowley, and with him was associai:ed the Secretary of
State for Foreign affairs, the late Earl of Clarendon.
Coming directly from the councils of his colleagues in
London, he was more intimately acquainted with the
feeling of the Cabinet than the Ambassador in Paris
could possibly be; and in the discussions which took
place over that famous Treaty of 1856, those who
gathered round the table must necessarily act a great
deal upoa their own judgment and discretion. They
were representatives, and not merely delegates for the
registration of formal decisions already arrived at.
Paris, even then, - was in communication with
the rest of the world by telegraph ; but if a
proposal made by one Power at the Council
table was to be wired to all the capitals
of Europe for instructions how to act upon it, the
waste of time must have been enormous, and the
slowest of progress would be the result. So the pleni-
potentiaries had to form opinions upon the facts before
them; and so convinced was Lord Clarendon that some
of the concessions
.he had made would be adversely
criticised at home, that when the work was done, he
playfully remarked, "I have signed a peace in Paris,
to open a war in London." In the present instance
the appointment of Lord Salisbury, as Secretary of
State for India, to act in concert wish Sir Henry Elliot,
our ambassador at Constantinople, is looked upon as a
EllosptagP:areq,riaAt one as the ia-ttri?st43.°l oaf., 1.12c./.1.32:
Turkey. In the conference of Paris the Earl of
Clarendon took precedence of Lord Cowley; and in
that which will shortly assemble at Constantinople,
the same etiquette will be observed, the special ambas-
sador occupying a positron officially superior to the
ordinary Minister Plenipotentiary. Conferences have
assembled in London, in Paris, and in Vienna; but it
must have been a long time since there was such a

gathe7ing upon the shore washed by the waters of the
Bosphorus. It is a long way for English and French
statesmen to journey to the very gates of Asia, and
none but the most urgent necessity would justify it
now.
The

ts respecting the forthcoming
Cattle Show at the Agricultural Hall in Islington,
Indicate the approach of Christmas, and act as re-
minders that a large numbei of persons come to
London in the winter who view the capital under the
most disadvantageous circumstances. The farmers
who crowd the High-street of Islington on the first
week in December find that they have left their own
broad acres, where, whether the land be arable,
pasture, or abounding in heather, they have at all
events-the benefit of fresh air, and have come to a
place of sombre gloom, where if there be no fog, the
sky is covered with murky clouds which exclude the
Jblique rays of the sun, and shorten the day, brief
enough as it is under the most favourable circum-
stances. Two or three years ago, during the Cattle
Show week, a fog of more than ordinary severity
swept up the river frcm the marshes of Essex, and
settled down upon the metropolis for two or three
days. This necessitated the lighting of the gas in the
Exhibition Hall, and the fumes of the artificial light,
combined with the fog, played sad havoc with the
splendid beasts upon the rearing of which so much
time and trouble bad been expended. It was dis-
couraging to fatten these magnificent animals, and
having brought them to as high a condition of perfec-
tion as possible, and then to bring them up to London
to be stifled by a combination of gas and fog. Many
an agriculturist returned to his home that December,
rejoicing that although his habitation might be "far
from the madding crowd's ignoble strife," he was daily
enabled to breathe the pure air of heaven, and not
compelled to swallow an atmosphere laden with fog
and smoke,
_which coats the lungs of the people of
London.

Although the American presidential election has
not created in this country anything like the excite-
ment which has attended some previous contests—
notably that resulting in the success of Abraham
Lincoln—it has not been without its interest for many
of our politicians. In running over the list of states—
Florida, Arkanas, South Carolina, Alabama, and all
eee es _se hAliAvia that
every one of these is at least the size of Great Britain,
and some are vastly larger. If there are parts of
London into which people living in other portions
never penetrate, with how much more truth might the
saying be applied to the United States! What do the
people living at the rise of the Mississippi know of
thoee who have their being at its mouth? How many
of the residents in Connecticut will ever see anything
of San Francisco? What proportion of those whose
lot is cast upon the Atlantic seaboard of the American
Continent, will ever look upon the calmer waters of
the Pacific main? What can New York know
of the conditions of life in Oregon or Kamm ?
What idea has Vermont of the ringing grooves
of the mountains of Nevada? Qaestions like
these, illustrative of the immensity of the
territory of the United States might be multiplied
indefinitely. That colossal country is indeed a great
world of itself, with room enough and to spare for the
whole of the population upon the surface of the globe.
With the mighty Atlantic rolling between it and the
eastern hemisphere it knows nothing of the strife ;
which so often divides the nations upon the Euro-
pean Continent, has no interest in the vexed Eastern I
Question, cares not for big fleets and standing armies,
pays off its national debt, and gradually extends the
influence of civilization through the vast extent of its
forests and its prairies. What kind of an influence upon
the politics of the habitable globe is such a country
likely to exert when its institutions shall have stood 1
the testof a thousand years as they have stood that of
the last century?
The Gardens of the Temple, south of the old pile
of buildings containing innumerable chambers in which
barristers study the statutes of the realm, are a great
blessing to the dense population around, and in the
summer are thrown open at stated hours, to the public
without distinction. There is always a tasteful dis-
play of flowers, varied enough in the days when the
sun is at his longest and hottest, but gradually dis-
appearing with the advance of autumn. Yet even
midwinter in the Temple Gardens is not without floral
attractions. The show of chrysanthemums there is
about the best in London; and at a season
of the year when so far as the Horticultural Gardens
at South Kensington are concerned, "their joys have
grown dim, their glories passed away," it is refreshing
to find in the heart of the city, a spot, where by great
care and constant attention the chrysanthemum is
brought to the highest state of perfection. Tiaose who
go into the gardens to see this show of winter flowers
might well imagine themselves a long way from the
centre of the largest city in the world, save for the
subdued roar of the traffic beyond the Temple
boundaries. The effect is a singular one, when amid
the quiet of the Gardens, the chimes of St. Dunstan's.,
sending forth an air familiar to many a congregation in
our places of worship, break upon the ear. They are
lost amid the roar and bustle of crowded Fleet-street;
but beaten back again from that troubled atmosphere,
they find their way into the calmer regions of the
Gardens, and to the imaginative listener their fleeting
melody never fails to convey a useful lesson :

"The angel music of the bells
Calls from the holy ground;
Hark I how the joyful cadence well;
With sweet and tuneful sound.
It bids us haste with willing mind
To hear of our true Home;
It tells us where true joy to find,
We come, sweet bells, we come ! '
It is just a little over twelve months ago that the
Prince of Wales landed at Bombay, and commenced
that gorgeous progress through our Eastern
which has since been chronicled by graphic pens and
become a matter of history. Nothing impressive can
be done in India without glitter and magnificence, as
those who accompanied the heir-apparent on his tour can
abundantly testify. E ztraordinary preparations are now
being made for the gcand Durbar at Delhi, at which
her Majesty's Imperial title over India is to be
formally proclaimed. One native prince is paying
limo rupees for the use of a house during the cere-
mony. The Duke of Buckingham, Governor of
Madras, is having a splendid howdah made in which
to ride on the day of the proclamation; and Sir Albert
Woods, Garter•Eing-at-arms, will be present to
arrange the ceremonial. Every effort will, in short,
be made to convey to the native mind an adequate idea
of the wealth and power of the British Crown.
• For more than ten years—indeed ever since the
cattle plague which decimated the ranks of our flocks
and herds in the autumn of 1865—the high price of
meat has has been a source of perpetual complaint
amongst more than one class of the com-
munity, and various suggestions have from time
to time been made with a view of finding
a remedy for what has been regarded as a
grievance. The latest idea is the establishment
of a General Meat Supply Association, with its head-
quarters in Wisitcomh-strcet, Leicester-square, and
ma great difficulty which it bad in getting into
working order was owing to the rush of meaaber,s who
ybind it before the Association was complete .in its
arrangements. The working classes tell yo tt that,

possessions

like the power of the Crown in the reign of George 111.,
as described in a famous resolution of the House of
Commons passed nearly a eentury ago, the price of
meat `• has increased, is increasing, and ought to be
dimini,hed; " but after all, meat, like every other
commodity, must in its value be regulated by the laws
of supply and demand. If more meat is consumed
now than there was twenty years .ago—of which there
can be no doubt whatever—and no more cattle are
slaughtered, it must follow that the price of animal
food rises, and it will take a good many artificial
agencies to bring it down. .;4 Afr 4
r , _
Those who take an interest in such matters will
have noticed that at the more recent Cabinet Councils
the number of Ministers present has again been made
up to twelve, at which it stood before the resignation of
Lord Malmesbury, in August last. In the intervening
time the Cabinet, consisting of eleven members has been
the smallest of modern times. In Lord Palmerston's
eecond Ministry there were fifteen in the Cabinet, and
at one time in Mr. Gladstone's Administration sixteen.
There are, of course, certain members of the Govern-
ment who must essentially be Cabinet Ministers.
These are eleven in number - the First Lord of the
Treasury, the Lord Chancellor, the President of the
Council, the Privy Seal, the five Secretaries of State,
the Chincellor of the Exchequer, and the First Lord
of the Admiralty. It is entirely at the discretion of
the Premier how many of his other colleagues are
taken into confidential deliberation, and when the
present Cabinet was formed, it was the Postmaster
General who was so selected. Now that the Privy
Seal and the Premiership are held by the First Lord
of the Treasury, the original number of twelve is made
up by the admhieion of the Chief Secretary for Ireland.
It would be impossible for the Lord-Lieutenant of
Ireland to attend frequent Cabinet Councils in London,
so his place at the Ministerial table is taken by the
principal executive official in this country, who, as
having the conduct of Irish affairs in Parliament, is
mainly responsible for the administration of the affairs
of the island.

It was in the third week of Novembet, 1875, that
wiOlin the space of four months the third of a series of
volume of land waters pouring down the Thames
meeting one night with a high tide from the sea in-
undated the low-lying lands on the south bank of the
river for miles, causing great misery and enormous
damage. The present has been a very different autumn
from the last so far as any excess of moisture is con-
cerned, and the travellers who have returned from the
frigid zone bid us prepare for a winter of which mild-.
ness is not likely to be a characteristic. Those vast
icebergs which in the fierce heat of the brief Arctic
summer drift away from the frozen home and wander
down into the Atlanti3, have already had a perceptible
effect, for that a more than ordinary number of these
unpleasant visitors have been lately met with by the
ocean-going steamers between Liverpool and New
York there can be no doubt whatever.