The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1878-02-09 00:00:00

Our fo.ooli.

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

The debates in the British Parliament upon the
Vote of Credit for six millions sterling demanded by

the Government have been followed with interest

not only in our own country, but throughout Europe.
The causes of that interest upon the Continent

are variously interpreted. Something is to be said
for the traditions of a nation which has for

ages stood forth as the champion of liberty against
despotism, of freedom against oppression, of civiliza-

tion against barbarism, and of enlightenment against
tyranny and wrong. It was GreJ.t Britain which,
early in the present century, placed herself
in the van of the Opposition to the designs of
the first Napoleon, who would have partitioned
Europe into two pieces, the eastern part to be ruled
by Russia and the western by France. To break down
Bonaparte's power cost us several hundred millions
sterling; and the interest which we now pay upon the
National Debt every year exceeds the
_amount which

we spend upon our -army and navy. The interest upon
the National Debt is about £28.000,000 sterling
annually; while the army and navy estimates com-
bined eo not come up to this eum by about two
millions. It i 3 a heavy price to pay for a war waged
three-quarters of a century ago, but it will have to be
pail for generations yet to come, and it is difficult to
see how Napoleon could have been dealt with in any
other way. Therefore the Continental peoples of to-
day may well regard us as the rock against which the
strength of a ruthless tyrant was hurled in vain. True
there are those who tell us that we have no friends
amongst the nations of. Europe now; that they are
cne and all jealous of the influence we exercise, and
would be glad to see us drift into war in order

that they might combine against us. If there
be such a feeling, which is doubtful, it can be
accounted for mainly by the fact that in their
numerous quarrels and wars with each other, we have
taken no part on either side. If Prussia has gone to

war with Austria, or France with Prussia, we have

allowed them to understand that it is their business

alone, and not ours, and thus we may have earned the

hostility of both.
As to the debates themselves, they have well

maintained the reputation of that British eloquence
which in times past was accustomed to "move
the fierce democracy and electrify, the Senate.''
The House of Commons, on a great night, is

a spectacle, the recollection of which is never effaced
from the memory. It is after ten o'clock at night that

the House should be seen. It is then that members

return from dinner in scores, the majority in full dress,
and it is a perfectly understood_ thing that a speaker

of the first rank then takes the floor. The benches on
either side fill rapidly, the compact ranks of the Op-
position vieing with the serried phalanx of the Minis-
terialists. When the orator presents himself at the

table, the news flies round the building with the
speed of electricity; and from the smoking room, the
library, the refreshment department, and other loung-
ing places, members hurry in, and fill not only the
body of the House but the galleries. The peers'
gallery also is full; 33 is the Speaker's, and so also is
that devoted to the accommodation of the public. The

chamber is lighted from the ceiling, and a beautifully
soft and chastened light it is. Every eye is fixed upon

the man who is addressing the assembly, and all at-
tention is paid to him. Suddenly the silence is broken

by a volley. of cheers from his own side, or by a running
fire of interruptions from his opponents. In times of

great political excitement party feeling runs very
high, and nowhere higher than in the House of

Commons.

Many a singular scene has been witnessed at the
entrance of the Straits of the Dardanelles since the
time when Leander was accustomed to swim across
those four miles of water every night to see his ladylove
on the Asiatic shore. lierodotus tells us of the bridge
of boats which Xerxes built when he poured his
mighty army into Greece, where it was defeated in
detail. But to come down to modern times, there
are a few naval veterans still living who can
tell us of Admiral Sir John Duckworth' s forcing
the passage in 1307, when the garrisons of the
Castles of Sestos and Abydos poured down huge
stones upon the decks of the British ships.

The next occasion when a British squadron entered
these waters was one in which it met with a more
friendly reception, for that was in October, 1853, just
before the outbreak of the war with Russia. Recent
events have brought the Dardanelles once more
prominently forward. By the Treaty of raris in 1856
no foreign ships of war were to enter those Straits
without the permission of the Sultan ; for to put i,t to
our own case, it would not be a pleasant spectacle
to Fee a foreign squadron passing up and down

Now, - -
the Thames. 'Now, Russia has a fleet in
the Black Sea; the other European nations have
fleets in the Mediterranean; the latter do not want
to go into the Black Sea, but Russia would like
to come into the Mediterranean. But the Treaty of
Paris stands in the way, for the only means of access
is through the Bosphorus, over the Sea of Marmora,
and out by those very Straits of the Dardanelles
which have been closed to all nations for the passage
of war ships. This is one of the most knotty points
which will have to be settled' at the forthcoming
European Conference for the arrangement of the
terms of peace. It should be boene in mind that when
we read of the Straits being closed, they are not
closed to commerce, but only to battle ships.
The Itecordership of London, vacant through the re-
tirement of Mr. Russell Gurney, who has held it twenty -
one years, is an ancient and dignified office of great value.
In this, as in some other things, the citizens of London
possess peculiar privileges. For instance, they elect
their own Sheriffs, instead of having them appointed
by the Crown, as in the various counties of England
and Wales ; and the Court of Aldermen, who are in the
first place elected by the citizens, choose the Recorder
—a dignitary in all other municipalities appointed by
the Crown. Theßecordership is an office of great anti-
quity; it has been in existence more than 600 years;
its holder is a judge at the Central Criminal Court;
he presides over the sittings of the tribunal known as
the Lord Mayor's Court, and must be well acquainted
with the laws, customs, and usages of the City.
When the Lord Mayor is presented to the Lord
Chancellor on the 2nd of November, and to the
Barons of the Exchequer on the 9th, it is the Recorder
who performs the ceremony of introduction, and in a
speech sketches the principal incidents in the career of
the new magistrate. The aldermen of London con-
sider the Recordership an office of such dignity and
importance that they attach to it a salary of £3,000 a
year.

A connecting link between the present and the
past has been removed by the death of Mr. George
Cruiksbank, the eminent caricaturist, who has passed
away quietly in his 86th year. What an extraordinary
array of events have been compressed into one single
life may be gathered from the solitary fact that
seventy-two years ago, when a mere lad, he drew
Lord Nelson's funeral car; and that at the time of the
Battle of Waterloo he was illustrating Hone's poli-
tical works, then amongst the most prominent of the
day. To our later generation, however, Mr. Cruik-
shank has been known more as a temperance than as a
political caricaturist, "The Bottle," "The March of
Bacchus," and such like sketches, attesting the strength
of the convictions respecting the cause which he had at
heart. There was always something about Mr. Cruik-
shank's etchings which marked them out distinctly from
the works of any otherartist. They possessed an original
individuality which was peculiarly Mr. Cruikshank's
own, a stamp in his own line like the writings of
Dickens in his, so that the moment you looked at a
picture you could tell from whose pencil it had pro-
ceeded. Dickens and Cruikshank, indeed, worked
together for some time, the latter having supplisd the
illustrations to "Oliver Twist."
Of all the phenomena of Nature which from time to
time have wrought destruction upon land and sea, the
earthquake is the most mysterious, the most awful,
and the most devastating. We can understand the
whirlwind and the stolen—call them by what names
we pleaseTsirocs, hurricane, cyclone, or tornado.
The sweeping of the wind either across the land or over
the surface of the ocean, tempestuous as it too often
is, forms, unfortunately, too common an occurrence to
excite wonder or surprise. Happily an earthquake
is a visitation of a much rarer character, and
the shocks which we experience in these latitudes,
such as that felt in many parts of the island
last week, are generally of the mildest character.
But those hollow rumblings in the interior of the
globe, which are so often heard by the inhabitants of
volcanic regions, might well strike the utmost terror
into their untutored souls. Anything surrounded
with mystery, or that cannot be traced or understood,
is indeed likely to upset even a mind of intelligence,
especially when it is instantaneously followed by
yawning chasms in the earth's surface, the rocking of
mountains, the displacement of hills, and the filling-
up of valleys. Anaxagoras supposed that earth-
quakes were produced by subterraneous clouds
bursting out into lightning, which shook the vaults
.:onfmed them. Kircher and Descartes con-
ectured that there were many vast cavities under-
ground, which have a communication with each
other, some of these abounding with waters, others
with exhalations arising from inflammable substances,
such as nitre, bitumen, sulphur, &c. Dr. Stukeley
and Dr. Priestley attributed earthquakes to electri-
city. It appears probable that steam generated by sub-
terraneous heat contributes to occasion them. At all
events, whatever may be the cause of an earthquake,

>1

there is no convulsion of Nature throughout the wide
universe which can be more appalling to the mind, or
more sudden and desolating in its results.
London is so vast a place that it would almost
appear as though any legislation required for the pro-
tection of its inhabitants must necessitate a length of
time commensurate with the enormous size of the
province of houses which make up the British capital.
In the month of November, 1875, the Thames burst
its banks, which it had frequently done before, to a
more than usually destructive extent, and the same
process has been repeated many times since, causing
much misery and loss of property. The Metropolitan
Board of Works has now referred to a committee of
that body the provisions of a bill for dealing with
the mischief caused by these river floods, the making
of the requisite works to prevent them, the compensa-
tion to be given should another innundation take place
before these are executed, and other particulars. The
committee will make all essential inquiry, and will
present a Bill to the 803. rd, which, after proper dis-
cussion, will be laid before Parliament in the Session
of 1879. The legislation in this case will not be
' either crude, hasty, or ill-digested, and whoever may
have to pay the damage will not be able to say
that the Bill was passed in a moment of paniz.
This is a different kind of municipal govern-
ment from that which prevailed in Paris under
the late Emperor Napoleon. That sovereign
was anxious to improve the city in a way which would
enable him to sweep the streets with cannon in
case of a revolution, so he nominated his own Muni-
cipal Council to rule the city, which spent vast sums
of money in carrying out the schemes, over which the
people had no control whatever. Had it been neces-
sary to embank the Seine, it would have been done;
but that unceremonious manner of doing things would
not suit Londoners ; and Paris itself is now governed
by a Municipal Council elected as all such bodies
should be by the free voice of the citizens.