The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1879-01-25 00:00:00

A TALE WORTH REVIVING!
(From Monday's Daily Talegraph.)

Last week—in the words of a sea-chorus to which
many an anchor has been merrily run to the oat-heads
—" a Yankee ship came up the channel." She was
an ancient enemy of ours, being none other than the
American frigate Constitution, which was built so
long ago as 1798, and which on the 30th of December,
1812, fought a desperate combat with his Majesty's
thirty-eight gun frigate the Java. The United
States man-of-war of which we speak was unfortunate
enough to go ashore during the night of Wed.
nesday on the "Old Harry" ro,ks, near Swanage,
but her disaster having been telegraphed. to Ports-
mouth, it is needless to say that immediate as-
sistaiace was afforded her, with such success that
the Constitution, which arrived at the Mother.
bank on Saturday morning, is now safely docked,
we believe, at Porises.. Her title, and her mis-
chance upon the Epglish enaet, have recalled the
"'awry of that famuus sea-tight in which, as naval
history records, the flag of Great Britain had to be
struck to this Transtlantie veteran. Yet there is
nothing in the valiant btory to make Englishmen blush
when they see the Constitution flying her Stars and
Stripes amid the masts at Portsmouth. On the con
trary, the tale is worth reviving, for it showa that
some of our naval defeats were as glorious as our
victories.

The Java—which had been a French frigate named
the Renommifte, captured off Madagascar—was sailing
to Bombay with a new Governor and a cargo of ship's
stores, out of all sea trim; and manned by a crew,
gathered hurriedly from the commone4 and least.
trained sources. Net fifty of her company had ever
seen a shot fired, and over a hundred of them were
la,tys from the "Marine Society." At dawn, near St.
Salvador, Captain Lambert, commanding her, spied the
Constitution and at once cast off a prize which she
had taken, the British ship chased the enemy. She, how-
ever, "caught a Tartar," for though the Java's first
broadsides increased the desire of the Constitution
to escape, the raw crew and the light metal of the
Enoi-h frigate could not cope with the American's
armament when fairly engaged. Twice the oppor-
tunity of raking the Yankee was thus missed, and
when this was noticed by her commander, and the
Java's bowsprit had been shot away by a lucky
ball, the Constitution laid her broadside acress
the Java's stern, and, after a hot cannonade
of some twenty minutes, completely dismantled
her. The American frigate then sailed round
and round the helotess ship, pouring in her fire,
the Englishman seeking by a jury - mast to get
alongside so as t board. Captain Lembert had fallen;
the first lieutenant, Henry Chads, was badly wounded,
and over a hundred of the Java's complement were
slain or hurt; but when the vessels at last came
together the Americans were twice driven back, and
eventually made sail on the Constitution to gain an
offing. With splendid effrontery the suffering oompany
of the English frigate shouted to her to "come back
and finish it ; " but, having her sails set, while the
Java's were all shot away, the Yankee man-o'-war
ranged easily across the bows of the Java, and
again opened a raking fire which could not be re-
turned. Nothing more could now be done on
board our sinking frigate', but there were one hun-
dred and twenty-four killed and wounded in the
Java; her hold was half full of water; her masts
were all gone; her boats were destroyed, and ten of
her carronades and seven of her main-deck guns were
dismounted, when the White Ensign was struck.
Among the English boys who fought like men that
day was little Ned Keale, a midshipman of thirteen,
whose leg had been carried away, early in the engage-
Went. "The Java," says the record, was his first
Chip, and after the action was over, and he was being
removed, he inquired anxiously if the ship had struck.
Seeing one of the flegs spread over him, he became very
uneasy; but, being assured that it was English, he was
satisfied, and, turning round, died with a quiet smile"
Lieutenant Chads and the Java's company were court-
martialled for the loss of the frigate; but it may be
Judged how gallant had been this deed of British
daring, since the President, in returning his • sword to
the brave Lieutenant, said: "Had you been an officer
who had served in comparative obscurity all your life,
and never before been heard of, your conduct on the
present occasion would have been amply sufficient to
establish your character as a brave, skilfid, and faith-
ful officer." If our Arneriban guest, therefore, be
indeed the old Constitution, and if she carry—which
we doubt not—seamen as honest and loyal as our
ancient enemy Commodore Bainbridge, they will
know that the Java was only taken because she was
ill-manned, and that even the boys and longshore
hands on board the old craft fought like lions to the
last.

It ia all the more timely to speak of these noble
mem mien because the past week has seen an almost
sacred manuscript deposited in the British Museum.
Everybody is familiar with the name of Charles
Dibdin, and knows how the spirit of the sea and the
heroic deeds of our countrymen upon its waters entered
into him, and came forth in immortal song. Great
Britain has never yet found the poetic chronicler with
professional knowledge, patriotism,4and genius enough
to tell in living verse the long annals of her naval
glories. Had Macaulay been a sailor, as more than
one of our famous men of letters had been in their
youth, we might have seen the blazon of British Sove-
reignty upon the ocean err' lled ;1i such majestic lines
f3' those of " The Armada" from Elizabeth to Victoria.
But, though the White Ensign of England has yet i
ko alai its Homer, it had its Irie Tyr-issue long
'ago in Charles Dibdin, whose homely, tender, and
inelodieue pea-songs are full of a sailor's feeling, and
instinct with the fresh and open atmosphere of the
ocean. Dibdin himself was no seaman by profession;
but the mystery, the freedom, the gallantry, and the
chivalry of the waves were in his very soul. He
knew and understood the charm of the pure, clear
billows rolling in translucent ridges, breaking into
lace-work of foam, laughing under the sunshine
in ripples, or heaving to the fierce wind in moun-
tainous ranks. He breathed by poetic inspiration
the cool and invigorating sea-air; he felt, as sailors
do who cannot speak of it, the vastness of
life when nothing shuts it in but heaven above
and the measureless main around; his nature danced.
as a mariner's does, with the lively tripping of
beautiful ehip over the deep, and all its admiration
centred on that truly gallant and glorious specimen
of a ship, a well-equipped British man-of-war, trim,
perfect, lovely, formaaable, ready for peace or conflict,
calm or storm, with her crew of lion-hearted men' and
her officers faiqiful to the death, all disciplined to
"the nines," and eager for fair and open battle.
And never, beyond doubt, have human virtues
of the manly sort reached loftier development
than on the deck of many a Royal ship in
the wars of England, when the- tnunders of the
rattling broadside have stilled the great deep
itself, and the sea-dogs of our-realm have made good
in flame and smoke Dibdin's loyal line, "As for my
life, 'tis the King's." Never did songs go straighter
to a nation's heart than Dibdin's, because never had
they come more directly from a singer's own. " There
goes the little fellow who mans our Navy," an old Ad-
miral at Southampton once said as Dibdin went by
with his fiddle, and it is matter of fact that "Lovely
Nan," "Poor Jack," and "Blow high, blow low,"
sent tliousands of high-spirited young men into his
Majesty's service. The Articles of War were stowed
away in that simple line, "As for my life, 'tie the
King's ;" the whole faith of a blue-jackct found expres-
sion in the "Sweet little cherub that sits up aloft To
keep watch for the life of poor Jack ; " the Sailing
Directions" of the British tar—from Nelson down
to Hornby—are neatly coiled up in the words "A
tight-water boat and good sea-room give me, .And it
'aunt to a little I'll strike.'' As for theology. Charles
Dibdin settled that, too, for Jicle when he made him
report the chaplain as saying, "How that a sparrow
can't founder d'ye see, Without orders that come
down below," with many other wholesome doc-
triues which prove "that Providence takes in
tow." Thus it is that to this day Dibdin remains
the Laureate of the Navy, and his songs are the
sea-hymns of England. Something newer may be the
momentary fashion on the forecastle but again and
again the tine old melodies return—the music that has
the splash and spray of the sea in it—and the watch is
lightened with 'Post-meridian,- half-past four," or
" As the ship rolls on the sea, The burden of our song
shall be Blow high, blow low;" or, tenderest of all
the strains of maritime love and duty, the pathos and
eternal faith of "Tom Bowling."
"Tom Bowling,'" by the way, was Dibdin's own
,brother, and commanded.a cruiser in the. East Indian
;Navy ; so that the lyrist of the sea painted from the
life when he sang of that faithful mariner, " though
his body's under hatches, his soul has gene aloft." The
brothers were two out of a prodigious family of eighteen
children by the same mother, who in her fiftieth year
gave birth to Charles. It is a curious fact that he
was designed for the Church, and that the profession
which he actually adopted was that of the stage, he
having even managed Co cent-garden Theatre for
some time, and acted in his own plays. Yet, though
most of his years were thus spent ashore, the sea
was the native element of his fancy, and his
sympat4 for the life of the British sailor was intense
and intftate. The seaman's passion for his craft, his
simple faith in Heaven, his easy prodigality, his sus-
ceptible heart, his dauntless courage, his instant pity
for the fallen or unfortunate, all find an echo in
Dibdin's strains. He knew by some magic every chord
in Jack's nature, and played upon them in turn,
exciting him to deeds of valour like the Java's battle.
or melting him to compassion with such lines as
those in "True Coura_ e," which begin, "What's
that to you if my eyes I'm a-wiping ; For they that
ha'nt pity—why, t pities they." The and the rest of
Charier; Dibdin's soup., as written with his own hand,
have just—as we says-f ound fitting sanctuary in the
•library of- the Brisiah Museum; nor could much
•• prouder and -more -polished work half so well, deserve
• the honour of thu- becuriaing a national treasure. They,.
gave Charles Dibdin, in his declining piers, a Govern-
ment pension of two hundred pounds per annum; but
no one imagined then, or thinks now, that such ser-
vices could be .paid. If we estimated his patriotic
labours at their full ambunt, we ehoeld have to
debit victory after victory, heroism upon heroism,
to his prolific pen, The naval chronicles of
Great Britain owe to the spirit and genius of this man
whole pages of their lustre. Who can tell, indeed, how
much the world of action is indebted to the world of
thought? The old Constitution, repairing her damages
to day in her Majesty's Dockyard, would not perhaps
have seen the Java saucily challenge her, and the
Java's scratch crew fight so stoutly, if Charles Dibdin
had never written; "Dye mind me, a sailor should be
every inch All as one as a piece of his ship, And with
her brave the world never thinking to flinch, From the
moment the anchor's a-trip,"

With reference to the fight betwixt the Constitu-
tion and the Java, Mr. Ahred Grown writed to The
Times

ha your paper of to-day, referring to the accident which
recently happened to the American frigate Cprostitution, you
describe her as having six Runs, and belmr of 1,333 tons, and
you state that on the 20tn of Dec:liiber, 1812, when under the ,
command cf• Commodore Bainbridge, she captured and burnt
the Itrltistit22dfun frigate Java, commanded by QaptainLain-
he CroStution's tonnage is in reatity 1,5133 tons, and,
her .lioviside armament, when she captured the JAVA, con- -
si.ted of 56!ong 24-neueder guns on the main deck, exclusive
fher carronades. The Java was a 40-gun frigate, captur ed from
the French and re-named.. In guns, weight of metal, men,
and tonnage, the Constitution was one-third superior in
force to the Java, whmh fought her for upwards of three
hours and a halt under meat disadvantageous circumstances.
In Natio° to the aleatory of the young and gallant Capt.

EPITOME OF NEWS.

the

Harris, the seaman on board one of the Calais mail
packets, who a short time since saved the life of a
mate, named named Cleveland, from drowning in Calais Harbour,
has been awarded by the Royal Humane Society a certificate
on vellum. This is the second certificate for bravery ob-
tained by Harris.

It is stated that a trial of the electric light will
shortly be made at the readingToorn of the British Siasetim.
A meeting of the telegraph celebrities of all nati ens
willtake place in Loudon daring the summer.
The authorities of the Great Western Railway,
owing to the continued depression in trade, oontemp/ate,
it is understood, making a r. duction in the mileage of their
train system, In order to less ea the rrorking espouses of the
I line.
A turbot of the enormou w,-ight of nearly 1601t.5.
was recently caught on the coast ot Jutland.
Massachusetts married ever 6,000 bachOote Last
year, and only 16.3 old maids.
The Army and Navy Gazette says that the manu-
script of Dibdin's sea songs, which did so ranch toward.
attracting men to the navy 11 the stirring times of the past
has been deposited in the Baish llgiuseum.
"Be careful how you punctuate the stove," is the
latest. It means not to put too much colon.
Elippophagy is on the increase in Paris. The number
of horses sold for food last year was 11,1319, being TOO mere
than ha 1877.
Tuesday (Jan. 21) being the anniversary of the
-execution of Louis XVI., the leading Legitimists in Paris
attended mass at the Expiatory Chapel. Among them were
Queen Isabella, the Duo de Nemours. Princess Blanch*
d'Orleans, Prince Philippe de Bourbon, and the wife of Don
Carlos.

The annual ceremony of blessing the Neva was per-
formed last Saturday opposite the Winter Palace In presence
of the Emperor and the Imperial family, A salute of Olbe
hundred and one guns was fired from the fortress.
- -

-
An experiment at acclimatiNation le now being
made in Rolland- Ten tkonsand salmon fry from California
have been put down in the Meuse, at Blorick, and 20,000
others are about to be added.

The Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster will leave
England for Rome early in February. It is understood that
his Eminence visits Rome at the special Invitation of his
Holiness the Pope to consult in matters relating to the
organization and extension of the Catholic Church In Great
Britain. The Cardinal Archbishop is notexpeoted to return
before the Easter holidays.

The cabmen of Sear- borough, at their annual meet.
log, have resolved to forward an addreu of condolence to
"her Majesty the Queen, stating that as they were permitted
on the lamented death of Prince Consort to offer to the
Queen their deepest sympathy, they now venture to renew.
that assurance on the mouton of the death of the Princess
Alice.
A Vaudois newspaper reports that during the spell
of oold weather about Christmas, a Minn of Lausanne
drove in a sleigh all round the lake of Geneva. He required
four days for the trip, proceeding as far as Villeneuve on the
drat, as Evian on the second, to Geneva on the third, and re-
turning to Latusanne on the evening of the fourth.

The following cable message has been received at
the London office of the .147ti0 York Herald from N'ew
York :—" Disturbance will prob.bly arrive with increasing
enemy on the British, French, and Norwegian coasts between
the 22nd and 24th. Ram in southern, snow in northern die-
triots. North-east veering to north-west gales."

In a saloon on Commerce-street, Austin, Tex., may
be seen the skulls of tie stags with their horns so firmly
locked togotber that they cannot be readily separated. In
this condition they were discovered sot far from San
Antonio, and the natural Inference that they once be•
longed to a couple of animals who had a terrible tight in the
solitude of the prairie or hills.
About 13,000,000 pounds of eod fish and 11,000,000
pounds of halibut from the banks, and 23,000.000 pounds at
cod doh from George's, were landed at the port of Gloucester,
Massachusetts, in the course of the year In&
A new alert= clock, patented in Germany by Harr
Hummel, presents some advantageous features. It will give
an alarm at several hour' in succession without any fresh
arrangement, and on this account is specially useful for tall.
.way officials and .nurses. The alarm continues sounding
till the person roused touches a little cord; the hands ean
be moved either forward and backward without Injury to the
mechanism, ac.
A .man named Ingram, a farm labourer., has just
died at North Petherton, near Bridgwater, having worked
on the same farm (Impens) for 70 consecutive years.
Considerable preparations are being made at
Windsor Castle in anticipation of the approaching marriage
of the Duke of Connaught, which is expected to take place
on March 13, at St. George's Chapel.
The proportion of persons killed on English rail-
ways last year was one In every 50,000,000 carried. Daring
the years 1872 to 1875, on our lines, it was one out of every
12,000,000; on French railways, one to every 18,000 000; on
B. igian railways, the figures were one to every 20,000,000
during the same period. The much higher speed at which
our.trains travel forms, of course, an important element In
any calculation of the numbers killed in Bzigiand and other
countries.
On Sunday night the body of a collier was taken
from the canal, at Bardsliy, near Ashton. He started to
walk home from a club dinner, along the eanal bank, and is
supposed to have slipped on the ice, which was thin, and
was found broken all around him.

.eive mowers of mountain grass were lent week over-
whelmed by an avalanche in If rittelderthal, Uri. After an
imprisonment of several hours and a severe and prolonged
struggle, they succeeded in working their way out.
It is said that the Phylloxera, that dreaded scourge
of vine growers, can be kept away by planting either daisies
or the common sumach (Rhus ra) between the rows
of vines.
The St. Petersburg Gazette declares the total ex-
penses of the war from the time of the mobilization of the
army to have been 857,000,000 roubles.
Three children named Ellen, Joseph, and Thomas
Begot, aged respectively 11, 9, and 7 years, left their home,
at Sandgate, near Lancaster, on Saturday, to attend a Bun.
day school feast. As they did not rettrn inquiries wars
made, and it was ascertained that they not been at the
school feast. The canal was dragged, and the bodies of the
three children were found near a spot where they had been
seen sliding. A verdict of " Accidentally drowned" was re.
turned.

Two brothers, named Morgan, were walking an tho
Caithness and Sutherland line, on Saturday night, between
wails of snow 12 feet high, when a train was suddenly &Am
approaching. One of the brothers succeeded in climbing
tin wall and got out of danger, but the other was cangnt D 7
engine and cut to pieces.
The Ontario Globe state that Miss Maggie Moses,
a Mohawk girl, in her teens, was weighed at Mill Point a
few days ago and registered 332 pounds.

On Monday evening, whilst a number of boys were
sliding on a pool at Kingswinford, near Dudley, the ice gave
way, and several of them were precipitated into ten feet of
water. An exciting scene took place by some of the boys
clinging to broken ice, and all, with the exception of one,
named Joseph Whitehouse, were saved. The deceased was
twelve years of age, and was drowned on his birthday.
The following account of a terrible disaster is tele-
graphed from Philippopolis to the Standurd :—"A terrible
accident occurred on the railway this side of Adrianople on
tiaturday. A train was precipitated into the River lad* by
the giving away of a bridge. A Russian general, several
officers, and about two hundred men all first and second-
class passengers were drowned. The engine driver and
three third-class carriages escaped."

The men in the service of the Great Northern Rail-
way Company have accepted the terms of the directors, with
the expression of a hope that their case may be reconsidered
with the return of prosperous times. Mr. Oakley, the
general manager of the Company, said he regretted the
necessity for the reductions, which were necessary at the
present time, and the men might rest assured that their pro-
sperity and comfort were as much considerations with the
directors as they were with themselves. The directors telt
that nothing was so essential as a happy and united staff of
men, and on their behalf he hoped the reductions which had
been made would not interrupt that harmony in the service
that had always prevailed.

The Army- at-id Navy Gazette gays :—We undergtand
that the proposals of Commander Cherie for a Polar Expedi-
tion, in which balloons should be used as a means for reach-
oolloo ing the Pole, are under the consider nof the Xxecuttve
Committee of the Royal Geographi ditty. It is some-
thing that the ideas of Commander Ch ne should have met
with favour from so experienced an silronaut as Captain
Templar, who not only supports the project, but is ready to
accompany the expedition whenever it shall be equipped.
The principal firms of Wiltshire bacon surers have
Issued a circular calling the attention of lumen and others
to the public aversion to fat and heavy beam, and stating
that as Irish feeders are now turning out well-finfshedpigs of
light weight, small bone, and full of lean, they have daily
evidence that if English feeders do nnt take some deeisive
steps to meet the requirements of consumers by Introducing
a breed of pigs yielding more lean and Lees fat than the
present " Berkshire a," the aems.nd for English back= will be
very mach curtailed, and the value depreciated.
A telegram from Ottawa • states that the Marquis
and Marchioness ot Lsrue intend paying a That shortly s., the
Falls of Niagara.

It is eta-ted that some 250,000 head of cattle and
500,000 sheep are at present betug st.ll-f(d iu the province
uf Ontario for shipment to British ports in the spring. A
Toronto firm is in negotiation with the British Government
for supplying the troops stationed at Cyprus and Gibraltar
with beef and mutton.
An adventurous American proposes to rnn across
the Atlantic, double the Cape of Good Hope, and cross the •
Indian Ocean to Australia in a boat 10 feet over all.

A fancy ball on a magnificent scale in to be given in
the Exhibition Palate, Dublin, on the occasion of the Duke
of Connaught's marriage.

There were 2,668 births and 1,94/ deaths registered
in London lest week. Allowing tor increase of population,
the births exceeded by 18, and the deaths by 226, the
average number in the corresponding weekof the last ten
years. The annual death-rate from all causes, which had
been equal to 27•4 and 27 0 in the two preceding weeks, rose
to 28•1 The 1,94 deaths included 12 from small-pox, 18
from meaqes, 44 from scarlet fever, 7 from diphtheria, 67
from whooping-cough, 27 from different fornaa of foyer, and
13 from diarrhcea.

Mr. Gough, the temperance orator, delivered a leo.
tnre on Monday night at the Crystal Palace, on "Peculiar
People." The theme which Mr. Gough chose for his address
afforded peculiar scope for his vivid and dramatic style of
oratory. Re selected certain types of humanity, such as ths
"genial man," "the disagreeable man," "the obtuse man,"
and sketched their peculiarities 'with graphic animation.
Mr. Gough has an abutidant fund of anecdote at his oom-
mend, and his lecture consisted to a considerable extent of
humourous stories, told with dramatic force and piquancy.
Lie kept up the attention of his audience to the last, strt4l
some of his best stories provoked shouta of laughter.
The Microphone is being utilised by Prof. Palmieri,
the celebrated Italian savant, who is devoting his life to the
study of Vesuvius, for listening to the unearthly rumbles tot'
whi,:h that volcano is so renowned. rho instrument was
brought to his notice by 81g. M. S de Rossi, who had made
several successful experiments previously. The noise re-
corded by a micrphone, when applied to the subterranean
noises, is said to be so great as at tirst to affect the listecer
with a feeling almost of terror.
The High Sheriff of Kent has fixed Tuesday, Feb.
4th, as the date for the execution of Thomas Mumford, the
seaman who murdered his wife and child at Dover. The
same date has also been named for the exit:4lo°n of rhomal
Garnbrill, the agricultural labourer who was sentenced to
death at the Kent AtOzes for the murder of Mr. Arthur
Gillow, at Sandwich. Roth men will be hanged within the
walls of Maidstone Gaol. No hope is entertained for & com-
mutation of the sentenoe in either cue. The Naidaltare
Journal says that since his conviettpu Garnbrill, who af-
peared to be very indifferent dosing his trial, has comPlew,f3
changed his demeanour, and thoroughly realises his
abut is
position. Mumford, however, is not el reelane d'
buoyt d up by the hope that the jury's recommend .a..wt t„
11
Inercy will obtahi a rrprieve for him.
ries, of-the past
The Gazettede St. Petrmbourg,
d more to extend
w Itn, A fghabistan, aed.tbreatens n,mtFt'n. But the tviuent
her action over the Asiatic coon&
...I:_et•
es, whet, the rowers
will doubtless come, c,ntinuts iheu -
.. t. _
(i).
i b end which
. r • d has reached the 11
will filld that ~t,gtan .
she can never be allowed to pass,
year, remarks that England is bru•gining
has occurred at , Burghfield
A shocking occurrence
William Lawrence, fanner
On Saturday Mr.
near Reading.
out wan his pin, intending to shoot a
of that place. we'S "Ong was found dead within a short
rabbit, and In the eve
He had-been shot in the Chest. I •
t is
oninth:
distance of his house.
he gun must have accidentally exploded as
believed that the gun
drawing it through b
~ ,a ....edge. The de-
Mr. Lawrence
d s about SO years of age, and nas leit a wife and
cease w.,, taiwora_eclose her struggle
young family.
A Bum of 228,000, consisting o remittances to
Europe trora merchants ill zaico, halt been captured by
carriagerati w - ay buitiwte :hue Pueblagoo,i
goods and
al: dn: Vera
Cruz. About a dozen brigands took. _third-class tickets,
about half an hour after starting severed all the carriages
behind them. Leaving these on the line they f Jrce:l the
driver to continue at full speed up to a point ci here t wenty-
five armed men on horseback ordered a halt, wbere up ,n the
seatedlifm t n themselvesbrigands
whole party carried off the money on mules, kiiiiug the
guard and atrioubly wounding an inspector of the line.

1