The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1879-11-22 00:00:00

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

The triennial elections to the London School Board
take place next week, the term for which that body
was elected expiring on the 27th instant. On that
day therefore the whole of the ten divisions into which
the metropolis is divided will elect new members to
the local Parliament that will have the direction of
their educational interests, The School Board for the
British capital contains fifty members, which is less
than the number of representatives on the Metro-
politan Beard of Works. If a vacancy arises through
the death or the retirement of a member during the
three years for which he has been elected, the whole
body has the option of not filling up the vacancy, or
of selecting a man themselves, instead of referring the
queetion to the ratepayers. The reason is the great
cost of an election in those vast constituencies
which make up the mighty world of London. A
single contested election in Marylebone, for instance,
would entail an outlay of several hundred pounds, a
considerable portion of which must fall upon the
rates. Marylebone is the most populous of the whole
of the divisions; while Lambeth is the largest, extend-
ing along the river from Blackfriars to Putney, and
landward from the Elephant and Castle to Norwood.
For some time after the election of the first School
Board, it met in the formcil Chamber of the Guild-
hall, but it has since established a local habitation on
on the Thames Embankment.
The Metropolitan Board of Works is another of the
public bodies of the capital with vast interests in
its hands, and like the School Board, having the
control of enormous sums of money. An example
of this was supplied at the very last meeting of the
Board, when it was decided to complete the Main
Drainage scheme at a cost of three-quarters of a
million sterling. How many millions the main
drainage of the metropplis has cost from first to last it
would be difficult to say; but even in the time of
Lord Palmerston it was looked upon as practically
finished. All went well for some years; but during
the past two or three seasons of extraordinary rain
fall, many di.tricts, more especially on the south
side of the Tnames, have suffered severely from floods,
causing not only much material damage, but ad-
versely affecting the public health. Tne Board is
therefore going to spend .£750,C00 in placing what may
be called the top-stone on the fabric of one of the
greatest engineering works of its kind in the world,
by increasing the capacity of their sewers sufficiently
to cope with those occaaional dangers arising from
heavy rainstorms.
Eleven years ago, after the expedition to Abyssinia
had ended in the release of the prisoners who had been
so unjustly aetained by King Theodore, the death of
that monarch in his capital of Magda's, left as a waif
upon the world his little son, then eight years old.
What to do with the poor little lad, Alumaiyou by
name, was at first a question of some difficulty,
It was useless to leave him in Abyssinia; he
would have been out of place at Calcutta, BO it was
decided to bring him to England, which he was to
make his future home. He was treated with great
kindness by the Queen; and an adequate allow-
ance having been set apart for him by the
Government, he settled down in the land of his adop-
tion, made good progress in his studies, and was
generally spoken well of ley all who were brought into
association with him. But his death last week, at the
age of 19, terminated a career of far greater promise
than could have been expected from one whose
earliest years were passed amid every surrounding of
barbarism. Authorities differ on the point whether
Theodore committed suicide at Magdala, or was killed
in the rush of the British troops upon that capital.
But the result was the same to his son, whons the
success of the expedition left fatherless, and for whom
the conquering nation then did its best to provide.
The annual report of the weather forecasts in the
United States possesses some interest for a people like
ourselves whose commercial and agricultural pros-
perity so much depends upon the atmospheric condi-
tions. The science of meteorology has received a far
greater development across the Atlantic than in this
country, a special vote of money being made by Con-
gress, and signalling stations being established at
variaue points along the seaboard of that wide-spread-
ing continent. An examination of the daily forecasts
shows an average of 90 per cent, having been verified.
A display of cautionary day and night-signals by flags
and lights uLon the lakes arid at the great ports of the
I.sLited States, al well as upon the Atlantic and Gulf-
coasts, has been made systematically on occasions
of supposed especial danger at ninety-four different sea
and lake ports and cities. Of the total number of
cautionary signals displayed, 80 per cent. were after-
wards reported as justified. No great storm has
swept over any considerable portion of the United
States without pre-announcement. The watch kept
by the telegraph service and the prompt transmission
of a few messages have in times of danger saved pro-
perty amounting to more than the cost of the lines.
One of the conspicuous features of the Lord Mayor's
Show, and one of the most loudly cheered, was the
section of the pageant representing the Fire Brigade.
In this case popular appreciation went with Royal
approval, for within a few days of the time when
the Fire Brigade was so applauded in the streets
of London, Captain Shaw, its able and experienced
chief, received the distinction of C.B. at the hands
of her Majesty. Ever since Mr. Braidwood was
killed at the great fire in Tooleyestreet in June,
1861, Captain Shaw has been the head of the
Metropolitan Fire Brigade, a body whose strength is
infinitesimal in proportion to the vast area which it
guards from destruction. It is not often that in Lon-
don a fire threatens to over-master the strength of the
brigade, as was the case in Chicago in 1871, although
the Tooley-street conflagration referred to above men-
aced at one time the existence of the whole of South-
wark. The blazing oil which flowed from the burning
warehouses into the Thames seemed to convert the
river into a stream of liquid fire, which the rising tide
fortunately carried up stream, and in the contrary
direction from the mass of shipping in the docks. That
was the most stupendous calamity of its kind since the
great fire of 1666; but even within the past eighteen years
the discipline of the Brigade has been materially
strengthened. The chief station is connected by tele-
graph with every part of the metropolis.
It is just twelve months since the 20th November,
1878, the last day allowed by the Indian Government
to Shere All for the acceptance of our ultimatum, and
the consequent avoidance of war. Poor Shere Ali
was not prompt in action, for it was not until the 19th
that he sat down to indite a letter acceding to our de-
mands. It was, however, impossible for this to reach
the frontier by the time named by Lord Lytton; the
troops were moved forward, and the unhappy
monarch subsequently paid the penalty of his proems.
tination. He died soon after becoming a fugitive from
his kingdom; and his son Yakoob Khan is not
now much better off than his father was a year
ago, for he has lost his throne, and his
capital is in the hands of the English. The climate
of Afghanistan in the winter season is of extraordinary
severity, and the English people may well hope that
the military operations now being carried out in that
sterile land will not be protracted. The cold is as in-
tense as in Greenland itself upon the summits of those
lonely mountains—death, indeed, to troops like ours
who have been accustomed to the torrid heats of an
Indian climate.

Once a year some of the London papers present a
very remarkable appearance. Column after column is
filled with rows of figures, set in the smallest type, and
asinele typographical error in either of them would
vitiate the whole. These are the Parliamentary
notices of applications fer Bills which are intended to
be made to the Legislature in the ensuing session; and
the greatest care is exercised in preparing them in the
various newspaper offices. An opposing counsel with
a sharp eye might hit a blot in the advertisement, and
the scheme would thus stand over for another year. It
is necessary that these notices should appear three
times in as many different weeks, and the last legal
day of their being published this year is Saturday,
the 29th instant. The notices of intended appli-
cations must all be delivered at the Board
of Trade by the last day in November, and
the forthcoming list will be of interest as showing
how far the revival of trade is reflected in the develop-
ment of private enterprise. A considerable increase
in their number would go far to materially strengthen
the hope that the depression in our warn:Luce has
passed its worst; and that the tide, having once
turned, will flow with strength and rapidity in the
direction of prosperity.
Those who looked out for the usual display of star.
showers on the night of the 13th instant, and com-
pared what really did take place with the brilliant
c !mations of former pare, mast have been some-
what disl,ppointed. So far as London was con.
earned, it would have been Impossible to select
a night more favourable for such an observation,
Dark, clear, and frosty, and with an absence of moon-
light, "the spangled heavens, a shining frame," were
seen to perfection. Orion stood away well to the south,
britsht and as prominent as he appeared in the
times when the writer of the Book of Job asked;
" Canst thou bind Orion?" There were the Pleiades,
too, the sweet influence of which is also a matter
of scriptural reference. Orion in southern lati-
tudes is far more resplendent than in our
in the island of St. Vincent, for in. skies;
stance, one of the Cape de Verdi, he is often directly
overhead, and one of the most conspicuous objects
upon the whole surface of the heaven'', A little boy,
with a keen sense of the graphic, once described the

firmament as pierced with gimlet-holes, allowing peeps
of the glory behind it; while Mr. R. A. Proctor, the
eminent astronomer, has spoken of the stare as
the shining lights that surround the heavenly
Throne of the Almighty. On such a night as the
13th November, 1866, when the star•shower was of ex-
traordinary duration and brilliancy, the spectacle is
one of peculiar interest and of deep contemplation.
The gazer is irresistibly reminded of the passage in
the Book of Revelation, in which the stars of Heaven
fall to the earth as a fig-tree caateth her un-
timely figs; and he is tempted to speculate whether
the luminous objects being scattered in all direc-
tions are worlds like our own, with continents and
islan(Ts, and glittering seas, or masses of nebulous
matter without form and void, and wherein the
S;irit of God moves not upon the face of the
waters. However they may be composed, and of
whatever use in the great economy of the universe, it
is clear that once a year the earth passes through a
considerable bcdy of them; and occasionally, the
substance of a meteor is found on the surface of our own
planet, as a protest, in the presence of its remains,
against the destruction which has awaited it at the
hands of the infinitely greater bulk of the earth,