The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1883-01-06 00:00:00

IJf ur fonhu ContspgAtut.

ZWe deem it right to state that we do not at all times
Identify ourselves withimr Correspondent's opinions.]

The Cabinet changes are now complete so far as they
will be made for some time to come. Earl Spencer's
occupation of the Viceroyalty of Ireland is not looked
upon as a permanent arrangement; but as he retains the
office of Lord President of the Council, his surrender
of the Lord Lieutenancy would not affect his position
amongst the Queen's confidential advisers. The
number of Cabinet Ministers is now the same as
when Mr. Gladstone formed his Government—four-
teen; but as Earl Spencer is in Dublin, practically
the number is thirteen. Last year Mr. Bright and
Mr. Forster went out, and Lord Derby and Sir
Charles Nike came in, The latter is its youngest
member, and is not yet forty years of age. Its oldest
member is the Prime Minister himself, who is in his
74th year; next comes the Lord Chancellor, in his
71st. Earl Granville is 6?; and indeed most of the
Ministers are men of mature years. Sir Charles
Dilke is young for such a distinction; but the present
Lord Derby was a Cabinet Minister at 32, and the
Duke of Argyll was a confidential adviser of the
Crown at an even earlier age.
The borough of Chelsea, represented by Sir Charles
Mike, adjoins the City of Westminster, the boundary
line being near the Victoria Station. The people of
both carry on similar occupations, live in houses of a
like structure, and have to a great extent a corre-
responding community of interests. Yet Westminster
Is as decidedly Conservative as Chelsea is unmistake-
ably Liberal. Last February, on a vacancy arising in
the representation of the former, the Liberals did not
contest it; the Conservatives do not contest Chelsea
now. The political complexion of the two places is
all the more remarkable inasmuch as in Westminster
there is the Grosvenor estate, belonging to the
wealthiest of our Whig peers; and in Chelsea there I
are the aristocratic suburbs of Kensington, Notting
Mill, and Brompton—street after street and square
after square in which the income of the occupant of a
house would be estimated at least at £2,000 a year.
With the arrival of January we look forward to
gradually lengthening days, and to better weather
than has passed over the land during the quarter
which has just come to an end. A Californian who
arrived in this country some years ago declared that,
while upon the sunlit slopes of the Pacific 355 days
were annually fine and only ten dismal, in England
355 were dismal and only ten fine. This is an exaggera-
tion, no doubt; but there can be equally little doubt
that the English climate, so far as the summers are
concerned, is growing worse. For several years past
there have been no such summers as we can remember
In times gone by, nor are the winters such as we
expect at this season. The great snow-dorm of
January, 1881, was of course an exception ; but a
December like that which has just gone, when the
temperature was higher than on some days of the
previous June, was unseasonable in the sense that
June was unseasonable. The chilly June and the
warm December were both out of place.
On the 11th January is the beginning of Hilary

I prC

Term, and the date will be an historic one. The
judges will, for the first time, assemble in the Royal
• Courts of Justice in the Strand for the despatch of
business. Law, equity, probate, divorce, admiralty
cases, and bankruptcy will all be disposed of nwl_cr
one roof, instead of being scattered about at West-
tainster, Guildhall, Lincoln's-inn, and Basinghall-
street. Westminster Hall has witnessed its last trial,
and the small and inconvenient courts in which justice
bail for ages been administered will now be devoted
to other purposes. Its vast roof-will no longer look
down upon crowds of irritated men who have been
summoned as jurors to the great detriment of their
business, and upon groups of witnesses anxious over
the proFpecte of cross-examination by some of the
eminent counsel who were ever to be seen hurrying to
and fro over the_stone floor of the great Hall.
Club life is becoming more and more popular in this
country. No so 'nes is a club started than its roll of
membership gets rapidly completed; and this is the
case whether the club is of a political or a social
organisation. A scheme has now been promulgated
for converting the Alexandra Palace or the Crystal
Palace into one of these institutions. It is proposed
that, by a small annual subscription the members
would be enabled to pass to and fro free, and obtain
at a reasonable charge substantial refreshments for
themselves and whomsoever they might have in their
society. The suggestion is one which is attracting
considerable attention. Such a place would afford
shelter and recreation to thousands of persons at times
v7hen out door locomotion is impossible, as it has been,
cr practically so during the past few weeks, when the
drenching rains have descended on the capital.
Seldom has there been such a feeling of relief ex-
perienced over the recovery of a public man from a
dangerous illness as in the case of Mr. Fawcett. The
right hon. gentleman, in a speech delivered in Liver-
pool in OctOber, 'generously gave the credit of recent
postal reforms to the permanent officials, by whom
they were suggested to the temporary head of the de-
partment. At the same time, it is obvious that the
chief has the power of either vetoing or adopting these
suggestions, and can be either a Bing Log of inactivity
or a King Stork of energetic effort and resource, The
reforms in the Post Office during the last three years
have marked out that department specially for public
notice and commendation. Its latest development is
the Parcels Poet, whieh comes into operation early this
year. Mr. Fawcett's success at the Pout Office has

been so great that the advisibility has been canvassed
of making that department a civil and not a
office as far as its ruler is concerned- .nat is to say,
like the Board of Inland RevP•:-....", the head should not
be moved with a cis:-.:16e of ministry.

.The allusion in the Queen's Speech on the 2nd of
December to the gratifying decrease in the revenue
through the diminished consumption of intoxicating
liquors, has aroused considerable controversy. If the
receipts from the excise continue to decline,
and the national expenditure goes on growing
as it has done for the past quarter of a cen-
tury, how, it has been asked, are both ends
to meet? We have taken off indirect taxation
from hundreds of excisable articles, and unless in case
of an extraordinary emergency, such as a great war,
these articles will remain free. The money, argue
political economists; should be raised by direct
taxation—that is the short and simple way of bringing
a man acquainted with the growing expenditure,
and the necessity for retrenchment. A man might
complacently contribute to the revenue four 'shillings a
week, through his consumption of tea, epirits, wine,
beer, and tobacco; but call upon him fc r Be, all at
once, and he might be likely to think essitusly of our
augmenting national expenditure, and of the desira-
bility of a reduction in it as soon as is practicable.
In London, as is customary, the holidays caused a
temporary suspension in business. There was the
usual Saturday half-holiday, then Sunday, Christmas
Day, and Boxing Day, on which the shops were
entirely closed. For more than half a week the
commercial life of a great city stood still, and as
the natural tendency of a holiday is to relax the mind,
It took another day'lo brace people together. The vast
accumulation of Christmas cards in the Post- office led
to delay in the delivery of the usual business letters to
those who wanted them; and many a man engaged in
the serious duties of life was heartily glad when the
season with its saturnalia was over. The newspapers
congratulated their readers that there were very few
charges of drunkenness at the metropolitan police.
courts, and argued therefore that we are rapidly
becoming a sober nation. The truth is, that the police,
like other people, look charitably upon the exuberance
inseparable from Christmas time, and allow that to
pass of which at other times they would be inclined to
take notice and run the offenders in.
There is another mattar in this connection which is
open to remark. On a miserable and drizzly holiday,
such as Christmas Day, the people find every place of
secreation closed against them. The Crystal Palace,
the British Museum, the National Gallery, the great
and i,aried Museum at South Kensington, the Houses
otParliament and the Tower, are one and all closed.
Those who do not care to stay in-doors all day have
positively nowhere to go. The public-houses are as
full as they can be during the hours on which the law
permits them to remain open. There is no city an the
Continent in which a similar experience would be
undergone. People are often driven to drink in
London because they have no other means of employ-
ing the time which is given to them for the purpose of
innocent recreation.
This time twelie months the three great intellects
of Europe were at the head of affairs in their respec-
tive countries, Mr. Gladstone in England, I. Gam-
betta in France, and Prince Bismarck in Germany. If
we look at St. Petersburg, Constantinople, Rome, or
Vienna, we find no name standing forth with such
pominence as those of the three statesmen mentioned.
Of- the three the youngest was M. Gambetta, then
only 43 years of age, who had been Prime Minister of
France only a few weeks, after having for years been
designated for that post. Strangely enough he was in
power less than three monthsoand before the end of
the year he was dead, breathing his last about five
minutes before the hour of midnight rang out for ever
the knell of 1882. Prince Bismarck and- Mr. Glad-
stone remain ; but from some observations dropped
by the former at the Emperor's reception on New
Year's Day, the Chancellor of the German Empire,
who is now 70 years of age, has some idea of retiring
from the position which he has so long held, and whose
tenure has been fraught isith such momentoue con.
,
eeqingffeishurggia., 'plug Artiwia.s Alarm _
• c. 04

The New Year has opened badly upon many parts of
the Continent. The disastrous floods in October have
been succeeded in January by inundations still more
calamitous, and the deluge along a great part of the
800 miles drained by the Rhine exceeds anything which
ha

s been known for a century. The most strenuous
efforts of man are put forth to save whole communities
from destruction by the rising waters. It is not only
the Rhine, but the Danube, the great commercial high-
way of Europe, which has burst its banks and spread
desolation amongst the lands right and left of the long
water-course, In those parts of Europe the floods are
augmented by causes of which we know but little or
nothing. Here we have to deal simply with heavy
rain; there they have not merely the rain but the
melting of vast masses of mountain snows through the
high temperature, the water pouring down into the
plains and adding to the volume already sweeping
over the land.

The MARRIED WOMEN'S PROPERTY ACT,
1882, and POST-OFFICE SAVINGS BANK.

From the Ist of January, 1882, the rules of the
Post-office Savings Bank affecting the deposits of
married women in England and Ireland will, owing to
the operation of the Married Women's Property Act,
1882, be much simplified, and married women will
enjoy many advantages, as depositors in that bank,
which they have not hitherto possessed. Hitherto it
has been necessary to draw distinctions between
married women before and after the 9th of August,
1870, and between deposits made before and after that
date, All these distinctions are now swept away, and
the law is placed by the new Act on a simple and in-
telligible footing. The following statement of the
rules which will be now observed has been compiled
by direction of the Postmaster-General, and appears
in the Postal Guide of the Ist of January, 1883 :

"Deposits may be made by married women.
"All deposits, which on the Ist of January, 188.3,
are standing in the sole name of a married woman,
will be deemed, unless and until the cottrary is
shown, to be the separate property of such married
woman ; and the fact that any deposit is standing in
the sole name of a married woman will be considered
Drimd facie evidence that she is beneficially entitled
thereto for her separate -use, so as to authorize and
empower her to withdraw and receive the same with.
out the concurrence of her husband.

"All deposits, which on and after the let of
January, 1883, are made in the sole name of any
married woman, will be deemed, unless and until the
contrary is shown, to be her separate property, and
payment of such deposits, and all interests accruing
thereon, will be made to the receipt of such married
woman alone, without the concurrence of her husband.
Where any deposit stands on the let of January, 1883,
or is at any time thereafter made, in the name of a
married woman jointly with any other person or
persons, whether such married woman is expressed to
be a trustee or not, such married woman will be
deemed entitled to such deposit, so far as her interest
therein extends, as her separate property, and the con-
currence of her husband in any receipt or other pro-
ceeding relating to such deposit not be required.
"Any woman who marries while she is a depositor
should forward to the Controller of the Savings Bank
a certificate of her marriaee, together with her deposit
book, and the deposits will thereupon be entered in
her married name, but she will not by so doing lose
any power of receiving payment of the same or of any
interest thereon, without the concurrence of her
husband; but the deposits will remain her separate
property.
"If any deposit is made by a married woman by
means of moneys of her husband without his consent,
the husband may apply by summons, or otherwise in
a summary way, to any Judge of the High Court of
Justice in England or in Ireland, or in England to
the Judge of the County Court of the district, or in
Ireland to the Chairman of the Civil Bill Court of the
division in which either party resides, and the Judge
of the High Court of Justice or of the County Court,
or the Chairman of the Civil Bill Court, may, upon
such application, order such deposit and the interest
thereon, or any part thereof, to be paid to the husband,
and may make such or,der as to costs of and consequent
on the application as he thinks fit.
"No deposit of the husband made by or in the
name of his wife in fraud of his creditors will be
valid as against such creditors, but any moneys so
deposited may be followed for the benefit of the
creditors.
"Deposits belonging to a married woman may be
bequeathed by her by will to any person she may
choose; but in the event of her dying without a
will, her husband, if he survives her, will be entitled
to such deposits."
The Married Women's Property Act, 1882, does not
apply to women domiciled in Scotland, the Channel
Islands, or the Isle of Man.