The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1876-04-15 00:00:00

ear fonbn aorrottagent.

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

Longfellow has told us of the footprints that are
left upon the sands of time, but some of memory's
footprints have made an impression of a far more
permanent character than the substance of sand
would appear to suggest. Many who, at this Easter-
tide of 1876, remember that it fell at the same
date in 1865, will carry their minds back to that time
as one productive of events of momentous con-
sequences. It will not have been forgotten that on
tt.e morning of Saturday, the 15th of April, 1865, the
ietellegence was -publi,died in the broad sheets of the
newspapers that the civil war in America, which had
lasted four years, was at length at an end. "Capture
of Richmond I elnrrender of General Lee !" Such
were the tidings that on the day after Good Friday
were flashed through the land. At that time there
WU BO Atlantic telegraph, and the intelligence
I rottght by mail packet fully set forth how on the
morning of Sunday the 2nd of April, General Grant,
who had never relented in his iron grasp upon
Richmond, had succeeded in turning the flank of
Lee, who had then no alternative but to capitulate
with his whole army. It was a great sensation,
aed for days there was much rejoicing as well over
the success of the Northern States as at the fact that
fratrieidal struggle which had cost the lives of
thousands, was now terminated. Meanwhile a steamer
was making her way towards us over the Atlantic,
by day and by night, bearing a terrible message.
On the afternoon of Wednesday, the 26th of April,
a piece of news spread through London which pro-
duced an excitement almost electrical. For ten days
nothing had been talked of but America, and the
admirers of President Lincoln were saying how the
second term of his office would contrast with the first—
he would now sail over a sunlit and peaceful sea after
a four years' voyage over a tempest•tossed and restless
ocean. But what was it which met the eyes of the
people cf the capital as they hurried to and fro in the
streets on that beaut:ful spring afternoon? "Assassina-
tion of Pre,itilent Lincoln !" There were the awful
words staring them in the face wherever they went,
sad the evening papers, sellirg by thousands in the
crowded thoroughfares, told the sad story; how on the
evening of Good Friday the foremost man in the
United States had been struck down by an assassin to
the cry "Sic semper tyrannis I" ("So shall it ever
he with tyrants.") Yes; at the very time that his
friends in this country were predicting a more quiet
career for him, the President of the United States had
been suddenly sent to his account; and his remains
were borne from the Executive Mansion at Washington,
far away from the strife of politics, out into the green
fields of Illinois, and there, mingling with the sods of
the valley, one of the most prominent characters in the
world's great stage was laid in the peaceful place of
his rest!

Few sessions of Parliament have witnessed so many
late sittings before Easter as the present. Two o'clock,
half past two, a quarter to three, and in one case a
quarter-past four—such have been the hours kept by
our legislators—hours which we have hitherto been
accustomed to associate more with July and August
than with February and March. The debates, too,
have been on subjects of great national interest—the
Royal Titles Bill, the purchase of the Suez Canal
shares, the Slave Trade Circulars, the loss of the
Vanguard, and the Burials question. Really, the
'embers of the House of Commons deserve their
holtday—which, beginning on Tuesday, the 11th, will
terminate on Monday, the 24th, when the sittings
will recommence. There are always a lot of repairs
going on in one part or another of the Palace of West-
minster, and the recess will be taken advantage of to
clear off as many of these arrears as possible, so as to
have the place swept and garnished by the time fixed

for the recommencement of busineee. Easter generally

brings a large number of excursionists to London, and
as a rule the Lord Chamberlain permits the Houses of
Parliament to be thrown open to the public on the
Monday and Tuesday in that week; whereas at other
periods in the session the privilege is restricted to
Saturdays only:
The Parliament will enjoy its vacation, and so, in a
lesser sense, wiil the people for whom it legislates.
Easter Monday will be the first Bank Holiday since
the 27th December—a time when indoor amusements

sere of necessity more to the feeling of the people
than recreations of an outdoor character. The
outflow of the population on a fine Easter Monday
is wonderful to witness. Fleet•street is a desert ;

Cheapside is a wilderness; and six o'clock, the
neighbourhood of the General Post Office, usually
so crowded and such a scene of animation, Bees very
Jew persons moving about. Such is the demand upon
the railway companies-at Easter that the lines running
south out of London 4 finding their excursion traffic
final to the utmost capacities of their rolling stock,
are now unable to carry the volunteers to the once
familiar sites of the Review. It is therefore useless
now for Brighton, Dover, or Portsmouth to compete
for the honour of receiving our civilian army on Easter
Monday. Neither the Brighton, the Chatham and
Dover, nor the South-Western can carry the volun-
teers and accommodate their excursionists as well.

But the London and North-Western have this year

stepped into the breach, and the review will be at
Berkhampstead Palk the seat of Earl Brownlow, a
distance easily accetible from the metropolis.
What country vi sf tor to London does not remember
he Thames Tunnel? Certainly if an inspection of
this engineering work were made on a hot summer
afternoon, the experience was one not likely to be soon
forgotten. The descent of eighty or a hundred steps
brought the wayfarer to an archway lighted from end
to end with gas jets, and the very sight of these,
hissing and flaring in the darkness, seemed to make
the perspiring pedestrian more heated than before. As
he travelled on through the long vista, the distance ap-
peared an almost interminable one, and yet it covered
merely the breadth of the river. He had, perhaps,
crossed London-bridge over and over again, and the
way seemed nothing, because the ever-shifting pano-
rama to be witnessed from that structure effectually
disposed of any feeling of monotony. Over the eastern
buttress are huge steamers being continually laden for
ports upon the Continent; down the stream is a dense

mass of shipping; the restless City is hard by; the
bustling Borough lies upon the other side of the water;
and away to the west are the lofty towers of the Houses
of Parliament. Then there is the mighty traffic upon
the bridge itself, which is not to be equalled in any
other city in the world. Four streams of vehicles—two
north and two south—and compact hosts of foot pas-
sengers slowly making their way over the river—such
is the spectacle presented by London Bridge. But if
you made your way across under the Thames, through
the Tunnel, there was no relief whatever to the eye,

and all that could be heard was a hollow murmur
overhead, testifying to the presence of a vast body of
water, upon which quick steamers were plying up and
down. Then, irhen you came to thg end of the
Passage, there was the mounting of a great number of
steps in order to get again into the streets; and
altogether the impression produced by the Thames
Tunnel was not of the most agreeable character. It
never fulfilled its object of relieving the traffic; and
the East London Railway now bowls through it, a
line connecting the Great Eastern with the Brighton
and South Eastern systems, and which has cost
£3,200,000.

Amongst the parliamentary committees which have
been at wp,rk this session, people have seemed to take
most interest in the sittings of that appointed to
inquire into the condition of our oyster fisheries. The
room is crowded on the days when the committee as-
semble; for, unlike the House of Commons itself, where
an order is required to enable a stranger to gain admit-
tance, the committee-room is open to any one who cares
to enter. People in search of a lounge may stroll
along the corridor, and take their choice of subjects.
Enter room No. 1, and you may listen to a quantity of
evidence upon the working of the Ballot Act, and
returncrg cfEctrs pathetically describe the trouble

given to them by the illiterate voter. If that does not
suit you, pass into the next, and you may hear all
al- cut the causes of the depreciation of silver. That is

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body politic, so the listener moves on, and gets into an
apartment where several hon. members are inquiring
into the operation of the Vicar's Rate at Halifax. That
being more of a local than a national grievance, is alPo
cold-shouldered, and the next stage of progress brings
him to the Select Committee on the Railway Passenger
Duty. That is all very well as far as it goes, but if he
does not happen to be a shareholder, he cares very
little about it. Onward he goes, and at length strikes
"Oyster Fisheries! the very thing I" And so the
room is filled even unto the door, and tales are told of
the increase in the value of the favoerite bivalve
which has brought the price of oyster meat up to well
nigh 10s. per lb., while a pound of good mutton can be
got for a shilling. The oyster may truly be said to
have its capital in Britain, for though found elsewhere
on the coasts of Europe, in no part of them does it
attain such perfection as in our seas. Even the Roman
satirist, Juvenal, had seine good words to Fay of British
oysters, and although he wrote nearly eighteen hundred
years ago, the Colchester natives which Juvenal so
warmly praised, retain their reputation to this day.
An Act for promoting the cultivation of oysters in the
United Kingdom was passed in August, n 366, and
one for the preservation of the fisheries in the following
year. If the present Committee is enabled to devise
some means for rendering the oyster less scarce and
more reasonable in price, it will not have been ap-
pointed in vain.
The Income Tax, which has been increased from
2d. to 3d. in the pound, has had rather a remarkable
history. It was originally called into existence by

Mr. Pitt in 1798, "as an aid to the prosecution of the
war" with France. Graduated duties were then
levied upon all incomes of over £6O per annum. In
1803 the rate levied upon all incomes was 5 per cent.; it
was afterwards increased to 6, and then to 10 per cent

In 1815, the last year of our conflict with the First
Napoleon, the income tax produced fifteen millions
sterling. With the termination of the war, it was felt
that the necessity for the impost ended also; and it
lay dormant until its revival by Sir Robert Peel in
June, 1842. The rate was 7d. in the pound, or 22 18s. 4d.
per cent. The reason urged for its re-impoeition
was that it would enable the administration
to repeal about ten millions of indirect taxes,
and this was actually done, and the striking off
the shackles from the arms of industry led to a
great development in trade. During the Crimean
war, the income tax stood at the very stiff
figure of fonrteenpence in the pound. in 1858 it
was reduced to 5d., and this was a material relief to a
vast number of persons. In 1859 and 1860, in conse-
quence of an increase in the expenditure, it again went
up to 9d. and 10d. on incomes above £r 0 ; but after
that a gradual reduction took place, until in 1865 the
scale of charge was only 4d. in the pound. In 1868 it
was raised to 6d. in consequence of the Abystinian
war; then it declined again to 4d. until 1871, when it
once more became 6d. In 1872 it was again 4d., in
the next year 3d., and in 1874 as low as 2d., at which
it remained last year, and is now 3d. This, it will be
seen, is l per cent., a scale which would have been
relished immensely by those of our forefathers who
had to pay ten.

Those who, on a clear night, have watched the mag-
nificent lustre cf the planet Jupiter, cannot lave
failed to be struck by his great bulk and extraordinary
brilliancy. Sometimes when the night is hazy, and
no other star is to be seen, he etands out in bolitary
splendour, like a sleepless sentinel keeping watch
and ward over this earth of ours. For countless
ages he has looked down upon our continents, our
islands and our glittering seas; he was known to
the Chaldeans 3,000 years before the Christian
era, and was equally well known to the Chinese
in the far-off times of Confucius, Mencius, and their
other philosophers. Four moons are in constant revc-
lution around him, and judging his time by our own,
he would have a full moon every week, whereas we are
obliged to be content with one once a month. Yet
astronomical relearch has proved that this immense
planet, which shines with so much beauty in our eyes,
is in the condition of our own world, so graphically
described in the first chapter of Genesis. "The earth
was without form, and void; and darkness was
upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of
God moved upon the face of the waters." Jupiter
has, in fact, been cooling for thousands of years,
and is still unfit for the reception of in-
habitants. Those who delight to trace the stars
through their courses tall us that the time will come
when Jupiter, like the earth, shall have the darkness
chased away from the face of the deep, the night
divided from the day, the waters above separated by a
firmament from the waters beneath; and when seed-
time and harvest, summer and winter, day and night,
cold and heat shall prevail for the benefit of the busy
peoples in that resplendent and colossal world.