The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1879-08-16 00:00:00

?HE STOURBRIDG-B OBSERVVIR.

flowing white robes the operation of loading the beasts
of burden, and read in Arabic what we may suppose
were prayers for the success of the sacred expedition.
Around him stood a crowd of minor ecclesiastics in
green and black robes and white and green turbans,
and a number of officers and Court dignitaries in dark
blue uniforms, richly ornamented with gold lace and
surmounted by the ordinary red fez which is commonly
worn by all ranks of Ottoman subjects except those
who belong to the ecclesiastical world. When the
preparations were completed, the halter of the larger
camel was handed to the Surreh-Emini, an old
pasha on half-pay, who had been appointed to
the honourable and lucrative post of command-
ing the caravan. The cortege then issued from the
chief doorway of the palace and proceeded in the
direction of Tophaneh. An immense crowd had been
waiting patiently for hours to see it pass. In a large
open space near the gateway was a donble line of car-
riages filled with the most elegant female representa-
tives of Turkish aristocracy. Each carriage was of
course attended by a swarthy guardian of matrimonial
fidelity in shiny black clothes which vied with the
shiny blackness of his skin. The fair inmates, in their
snow-white yashmaks and bright-coloured ferredj6s of
light, exquisitely soft silk from the rapidly-declining
factories of Broussa, waited patiently, fanning them-
selves, some sitting silent with the weary meaningless
gaze of habitual ennui and others chatting and laugh-
ing like light-hearted children out for a holiday.
"Behind these front ranks of spectators was an
ordinary Constantinople crowd, with the invariable
vendors of bread, water, ice, and sweetmeats, each one
shouting in discordant tones the excellency of his
merchandise, and the disagreeably importunate
beggars displaying the most horrible mutilations and
deformities, and imploring the blessings of Allah on
those who seemed likely to give them alms. . . .
"The lumbering, picturesque vehicles of former days
have entirely disappeared, and give place to broughams
and landaus which might have spent their younger and
fresher days in Hyde-park or the Bois de Boulogne.
Many of the ladies now wear veils, which are mere
transparent shadows of the old yashmaks, and French
kid gloves, which were a few years ago a distinctive
mark of the infidel. Even among the women of the
middle-class the light of Western civilization is begin-
ning to dawn. Strange to say, it has first become
apparent on their feet, All the upper parts of their
costumes have remained unchanged, but the old tiny
yellow slippers', which greatly contributed to that
awkward shuffling gait for which Turkish women are re-
markable, have given place to smart French boots. It
is, perhaps, to be regretted that the Turks should
begin by thus adopting the mere externals of Western
culture, but in this respect they are no exception to
the general rule, for in all countries where the climate
demands a certain complexity of costume French
millinery has ever played a prominent part among the
pioneers of civilisation.
"A flourish of trumpets announced the approach of
the procession, and at once all eyes were turned to the
point from which it was expected. First came
a few mounted chamberlains from the Palace
resplendent in gold lace, and then about a score
of Ulemas, likewise on horseback, wearing the
flowing picturesque costume of their order. Im-
mediately behind them rode a Palace official
holding before him what seemed to be a small cushion
covered with green satin. Among the spectators the
general opinion was that this packet contained the
clippings of the Sultan's beard, which popular rumour
says are yearly, for some unknown purpose, sent to
the Sherif of Mecca. A gentleman standing near me,
however, who professed to be better informed, scoffed
at this legend, and explained that the cushion-like
parcel contained the Imperial Buyuruldy,' which
is in caravan travelling what the ship's papers are in
navigation. Next came the two richly-capari-
soned camels accompanied by the ' Surreh-Emine,'
and immediately behind them a group of Arabs
executing a fantastic dance around a buffoon, who
stood on the shoulders of two companions and
steadied himself by means of two long poles, while
making grimaces and ludicrous remarks for the amuse-
ment of the crowd. It seems at first sight strange,
that buffoonery should thus be mixed up with a re-
ligious ceremony in the presence of the highest eccle-
siastical dignitaries of the realm, but this curious mix-
ture of merriment and devotion did not seem to shock
the Mussulman spectators', as it would ,probably not
have shocked our mediaeval ancestors, who were accus-
tomed to witness the mysteries and miracle plays
which used to be performed under the patronage of
the Roman Catholic Church. However this may be,
the spectators cast merely a passing glance at the buf-
foon and his dancing companions, and examined with
much more attention a second pair of camels and the
long line of mules which closed the procession.
By the time the last of these mules had issued from
the palace gate the head of the procession had reached
Tophaueh, where a Government steamer decorated
with flags was waiting to convey the treasures across
the Bosphorus. As she moved away from the landing-
stage a salute was fired from some big guns on the
shore, and the ceremony was at an end. The presents
will remain for a few days in the great mosque at
Scutari, and then be transported by sea to Beyrout,
whence the caravan will proceed by Damascus by the
ordinary pilgrimage road to Mecca. Formerly it went
to Damascus by land, but now it has been discovered
by the learned doctors of the law that the tedious land
journey through Asia Minor may be dispensed with
without prejudice to the sacred character of the pro-
ceedings.",

MR. GLADSTONE ON BEAUTY IN
MANUFACTURES.

On Monday night Mr. Gladstone opened a fine art exhibi-
tion at Chester, in aid of the funds of the local school of
art. In the course of his remarks, referring to the object
with which the exhibition was being held, he said
Now, it is very material that we should have a
clear and distinct view on the question whether the
Chester School of Art deserves support or not ;
whether it is useful and worthy; whether it is an
institution representing principles of great importance
to the country. I venture to say it does represent
principles of great importance to the country; and, in
order to make myself intelligible, let me attempt
to state in a few words what I suppose to be the prin-
ciples of these schools of art, summed up in a single
phrase, I apprehend you will agree with me that in
all the visible and material objects that are produced
to meet the wants and tastes of man there are two
things to look to; one is utility, and the other is
beauty. (Hear, hear.) Well, now, utility, of course,
includes strength, accuracy of form, convenience, and
so forth. I do not enter into detail; I only want to
remind you that, besides the utility of these objects
which are made to meet our common wants, in every
possible description there is an important consideration
in their beauty, which also divides itself into various
branches, on which I need not dwell in detail—beauty
of form, beauty of colour, and beauty of proportion.
But let us for a moment just fix our minds on this ques-
tion of beauty as a whole. The question is whether
there is any special reason why we should endeavour
to promote the education of our people—the education
of our artisan people—in this matter of beauty. I
hold that there is a very special reason for it, and I
may draw that special reason in part—and it will be
very intelligible to many when I do so—from the
distress now felt in this country. (Hear, hear.) It is
quite evident we are passing into a time when, from
whatever cause—' need not at the present moment ex-
patiate upon the causes—the commerce of this country
will have, at any rate for a period, a severe
struggle; and, consequently, it is desirable that we
should husband all our means for the struggle
and should enlarge all our means for the struggle.
(Applause.) Now, for that reason, those who
are concerned in industrial production ought te
review carefully the manner in which they have been
working and consider whethet it is in all respects
such as it ought to be. I believe myself they will find
great room for amendment, very general room for
amendment, in a great many branches. (Applause.)
A long experience of public life which has placed me
very much in relation to the great industries of the
country made me long ago of opinion that an English-
man is a marvellous man in the business of production
when he is put under pressure, but if he is not put
under pressure he is apt to grow relaxed and careless
and is satisfied if he can produce things that will sell.
(Applause. He has not got as much as he ought to
have of the love of excellence for its own sake.
Now, there are those who will ray it is a very
visionary idea to promote the love of excellence for
its own sake. But I hold it is not visionary at all.
For, depend upon it, every excellence that is real,
whether it relates to utility or beauty, has got its
price and its value in the market, and it is an
element of strength in the market. (Applause.) There
is no doubt England has been very remarkable for
cheap production, but in this a formidable rival is now
springing up in America. America, however, has
been taken with a fever, of what is called protection,
and so long as America suffers from the fever English
manufacturers will not have a great deal to fear from
American rivals. But when she learns to trust en-
tirely to her own splendid national resources, the
great genius of her people, their marvellous profi-
ciency in the adoption of labour-saving contrivances,
in which they are ahead of the whole world, America
will be a formidable competitor. (Applause.) But
what you have now to contend against is not competi-
tion with America, but limitation of markets. You
are met on every side with hostile tariffs, and you
want to bound over these tariffs and get within
them. Well, for that purpose the British producer
must consider the solidity of his work and its
homely qualities, and endeavour to make it, in the
first place, true work, not professing to be
anything but what it is, to divest it of all falsehood
and sham, for, however, the imposture may last for a
little while, the effect is ultimately to destroy the
reputation, to take away confidence, and to react
most injuriously upon those who have attempted the
trick. (Applause.) But, apart from that, I have the
strongest conviction of this, that all along English
industry has been defective in the matter of beauty
and the quality which we generally hear that important
element described as under the name of taste. Taste
is nothing in the world except the faculty which de-
vises according to lines of beauty, executes according
to lines of beauty, judges ace:A-ding to lines of beauty.
(Applause,) You, ladies and gentlemen, are familiar
with this fact, as are many outside these walls. The
French standard of taste in production is very much
higher than in the production in this country; and, de-
pend upon it, it is the taste of French productions which
fetches the price in market, as well as other qualities
they possess, which has immensely contributed to give
France her very high place in the commerce of the
world, and it is well known that at this moment she is
and has been for some time the second country in the
world for exports. (Applause.) It is this want which
schools of art in this country aim at supplying • it is
a great national want—a want which has been felt at
all times. The national want is now specially felt,
because of the depression of British commerce, because
of increased difficulties in finding our way into markets
of many foreign countries. (Applause.) Now, it
seems a very singular thing that this want should
exist, because it is admitted that England is a
country which in production of beauty in its
highest forms shows so deficiency at all. ( Ap-
plause.) If we take the very highest form in which it
is given te man to produce what is beautiful, probably
the highest form of all is that of poetry. Well, Eng-
land boasts of herself, and boasts with some good
reason, that, on a comparison of her poetical produc-
tions with the literature of Europe, she takes a place
—which is moderately stated if we only call it a place
—the first in rank of production. For there are even
those who would say, and say with some colour of
plausibility, if not of reason, that English poetry
stands at the head of the whole modern poetry of the
world. At any rate there is no doubt of this, the
English poetry of the 19th century has been at the
head of the poetry of the world in this 19th century.
(Applause.) I won't say we stand so high, for perhaps
we do not, in other forms of production. When
we come to touch upon what is material paint-
ing, sculpture, and architecture in this country,
there is no deficiency in English people in
their sense of beauty. What there is, what there has
been, seems to be some deficiency in the quality or
habit which connects the sense of beauty with the pro-
duction of works of utility. (Applause.) Now, these
two things are quite distinct. In the old, in the
oldest times of human history, among the Greeks there
was no separation whatever, no gap whatever, between
the idea of beauty and the idea of utility. (Applause.)
Whatever the Greek produced in ancient days he made
as useful as he could, and at the same time, according
as it lay with him, he made it as beautiful as he could.
(Applause.) But that has been forgotten. I have been
speaking of Americans, with whom I trust we shall
always continue in peace and in bonds of brotherhood
(applause) : and if you take the industrial productions
of America, I am sorry to say we find that very few
have any beauty at all. (Applause.) The circum-
stances of their national existence, down to the present
time have, from the scarcity of labour and other causes,
compelled them to do a thing in the shortest way and
most effectual way for answering the immediate pur-
pose, and the beauty of production has been entirely
overlooked, (Hear, hear.) I may illustrate this by
reference to a pursuit to which I have myself
personal relation—the cutting of wood. (Laughter.)
The American axe is an axe not intended to cut a tree
away neatly, but to cut a tree away quickly. The
American does not care a pin about beauty of work,
his object is te clear ground. To a certain
extent the same consideration will apply here. We
have bad a strong pressure of competition with all
quarters of the world, and we have thought a great
deal about useful and cheap production. But until
lately, certainly not 50 or 60 years ago, we thought
very little about the beautiful in production. For
about 40 years now these schools of art have been in
existence, and I am glad to say that in many branches
of industry, I might almost say in every branch, we
see already the vast effect that has been produced.
(Applause.) If I take, for example, the tissues of this
country, 30 years ago all patterns for our cotton goods
were obtained from France- but now we take patterns
from France and send patterns back to France. The
people of Mulbausen—l believe it is in ,Germany, and
not in France, but it does not matter for the purpose
I have in view—exchange patterns with England
instead of simply sending patterns to Eugland.
(Applause.) If you take other important branches
of production, such as glass and porcelain—
well, English glass has now become extremely
beautiful, and also very convenient. The Eriglisu
glass manufacture (I am not now speaking of plate-
glass, window-glass, and so forth; but of glass for
services, wine glasses, and a variety of all portable
articles of that kind) there is no doubt at all, as far as
regards both the convenience of the form and the cha-
racter of the materiai, has advanced to a very satis-
factory position. It is in entire contrast with what it
was forty or ftfty years ago. (Hear, hear.) It was
then a very great deal dearer, and it was a great deal
uglier. A sense of beauty, of valuable beauty, has
found its way into that manufacture. If we
take porcelain, a similar improvement has taken
place. Anybody who is familar with the tea, coffee,
and dinner services of forty or fifty years ago, sup-
posing he had been asleep during those fifty years
and that he awoke to-day and went to the best
shops and repositories to observe the character of the
manufactures that are offered for sale, he would
think he had passed into another world, so entirely
different are they, and so far superior to what was
produced in the time of one generation, and especially
ta o generations back. I am very glad to see within
these walls proof that the same sort of improvement,
the same love of beauty, has found its way into the
production of metal work, for my own impression is
that reform and improvement in the art of producing
in metal comes more slowly and is more difficult. I
do not think that in the art of designing for silver-
plate we have made the same advances as we have
made in designing for glass and porcelain- but
the beautiful works which Messrs, Elkington have
sent to this exhibition—l know not whether there
are others of the same kind—will show you that in
that also improvement is at work. Do not sup-
pose because improvement is at work that, therefore,
there is no more to do. We want to carry this work
of improvement to such a length that it shall not depend
upon the spirit or enterprise of this or that master,
of this or that workshop or factory. We want to get
it into the mind and brain and heart and feeling of the
working men (applause) ; that is what we want.
There are workmen who have it already. There are
most interesting exhibitions sometimes held in London
—exhibitions in which nothing but works produced by
the workmen themselves after their ordinary hours of
labour are shown • and it is moq interesting, I may
say it is most tmuhing, to witness the arduous efforts
and tle successful florts these men will make to pro-
duce things that are beautiful outside those hours of
labour, whiah, although, I am happy to say, not so
heavy as they were in former times, are still quite
sufficient on the whole to tax the energies of men to
their utmost limits. But these workmen, after all,
are individual !exceptions. We want that spirit to
spread. We want a workman to understand this; that

if he can learn to appreciate beauty in industrial
production, he will thereby do good to himself, first
in the improvement of his mind and the pleasure he
derives from his work, but likewise, and literally, he
is increasing his own capital, which is his labour.
(Applause.) He is increasing his own capital as truly
and as substantially as if he could add to the muscles
of his arms by doubling their force all at once. He is
introducing in the work he produces an element com-
paratively new to him, but an element which will
add to its value, an element which will add to the
price it will bring in the market, and which will add to
the comforts he can provide for his wife and family.
(Applause.) The interest I take in this subject has
led me further than I intended, and it appears to me
that I have said all that is necessary, and perhaps
more than is necessary, upon the subject. I think the
matter so plain that I am almost ashamed to seem to
dwell upon it as if it required explanation; but we have
an object in view—to bring home these words, not only
to the minds merely of you whom I have the honour of
addressing, but the minds of those also who may read
what is here said, and who may hear of what is here
said. We want to infuse into the minds of the popula-
tion generally an idea which as yet they have not
sufficiently embraced, which it is most desirable they
should embrace, and which it is now of especial
value and necessity that they should come thoroughly
to understand, and which they should adopt and
make use of as part of their regular apparatus of life—
namely, the pursuit of the beauty of those things that
they make as much as the pursuit of their utility.
There are difficulties in the way, and one very great
difficulty, I cannot deny : yet the difficulty arises from
what is now absolutely inseparable from the system
of modern production namely, the division of
labour which confines a workman to some portion
—perhaps a comparatively trifling portion—of the
manipulation of the thing he produces, and natu-
rally diminishes his interest in it as a whole.
Ido not deny that that is a difficulty. We are
told that it takes I do not know how many people
to make a pin, and probably the man who has to shape
the head of the pin does not care much about the
goodness, neatness, and efficiency of the pin as a whole.
I can understand that this is an obstacle and a diffi-
culty ; but, at the same time it is a difficulty which
can be overcome, and there is no reason why we should
extinguish the feeling I now describe. Labour is not
always so divided as it is in this. In many of the
great industries there is plenty of room for apprecia-
tion of beauty. A great many people—for instance,
those who are engaged in moulding earthenware—
are concerned directly in that which must be beauti-
ful or the reverse. (Applause.) We must not expect
too much ; we must not look for miracles; but what we
may reasonably look for is progress—progress in the
adoption of principles recommended, not merely by
theory or some apparently plausible grounds of reason,
but by the surest investigation we can make, as well
as the surest testimony of long experience, which
shows that to unite all forms of beauty, all the varied
qualities of beauty, with the different characteristics
that make up the utility of industrial productions, is
the true way to the success of our national enterprise
and commerce. (Loud applause.)