The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1878-09-07 00:00:00

ur 37011b011 COrreSpAtut.

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

For some few weeks after the prorogation of Parlia-
ment, as regularly as the years roil round, a lull in
political affairs is certain to be noticed. The Court is
out of town. The members of both Houses of the
Legislature, who have been talking politics six long
months, have for the time had enough of the subject.
They are scattered not only throughout the kingdom,
but over the Continent; some find their way across
the Atlantic to the United States and to Canada;
others seek relaxation in India and Australia. The
columns of the London papers, no longer filledwith Par-
liamentary debate; are open to the discussion of ques-
tions of variety and interest ; letters to the editor, which
cannot possibly be printed in the full tide of the Session,
are now given the dignity of leaded type; and the
reviews of books, which have been standing over for
Weeks, gradually become worked off, to the satisfac-
tion of the publishers. By-and-bye, as September
draws to a close, politics in the provinces begin to
move; members of the House of Commons, having
had some weeks of relaxation, pass in review for the
benefit of their constituents the work of the preceding
session of Parliament; in those rare cases where a
Cabinet Minister appears, his listeners put various con-
structions upon oracular sentences bearing upon our
national position and future prospects; and the political
dissertations, which would have been wearisome at the
end of August, become clothed with some degree of
freshness at the beginning of October. The public inte-
est in Parliamentary affairs, which has slumbered for a
time, then re-awakens into a healthy activity, indica-
tive of the substantial foundations which form the
bases of our national life. There are, however, occa-
sions on which no such lull supervenes as that to
which reference has been made above. That is when
P4iament is prorogued with a view to its immediate
diss'olution. When this happens, as in 1865, or when
the dissolution, if not imminent, is known to be
certain, as in 1868, there can be no holiday for honour-
able members seeking re-election until after the contest
has been fought out at the polling-booths. Two
months ago the rumours of a dissolution of the existing
Parliament in the autumn were very specific and
precise, but they have died away, to the great relief
of all who hold that the prostrated business energies
of the country can be recruited only by a period of
rest —a consummation not likely to be attained
through such a period of political turmoil as that
which is inseparable from a general election. -
The chronicles of the Court, as supplied to the
metropolitan journals day by day, contain much that
isinteresting to the general reader. When the Queen
is at Windsor or at Osborne, the Court Circular is
despatched to London by railway parcel; but when her
Majesty is far away in the Highlands, the facts as they
appear in the papers are transmitted by telegraph.
The interest of the facts so communicated varies
necessarily, but there was one a very few days ago
which must have touched a chord in Oh: heart
of many a reader. Writing under a date the
Court Newsman mentioned the circumstance that it
wasc the anniversary of the birthday of the late Prince
Consort. It seems a long time ago that the Queen's
husband died—nearly seventeen years; yet her Majesty
does not allow his memory to be forgotten; and as
regularly as the dates roll round, her people are re-
minded of the days of his birth and of his death. The
generation which was coequal with the period when
the Prince Consort was a power in the State is gradu-
ally melting away; and of the public men of that time
very few remain. The Queen's elder children approach
the age at which their father disappeared from the
ranks of men; and to the Sovereign herself, many of
the events of her long reign must often seem more like
a dream than a remembrance. Our fathers—where
are they ?" And where are he Ministers and the
Parliament of forty-one years ago? Of the former,
Earl Grey is the sole 'survivor, while the members of
the House of Commons, who were then, and are now
discharging legislative duties, might be reckoned upon
the fingers of one hand.
The dwellers in populous city pent, who pass the
live-long year surrounded by houses, cannot but miss
a great deal of that pleasure which is inseparable from
the occupation of the agriculturist, for of all men the
farmer is the most deeply attached to the labour by
which he lives. He may, indeed, be said to love the
earth on which he walks. You find very little of this
sentiment in the crowded town, where one season is
very much like another, so far as the daily routine of
life is concerned. Contrast this with existence in a
rural district, where in the spring the mowing
grass rises thick, strong, and green, and the
watcher over its progress knows when it is
ready for the scythe without reference to the
almanack. Then there is a world of interest in
noting the advance of the wheat through its various
phases of colour. First the green and succulent blade,
then the modest ear, which under a bright sun speedily
pales into yellow. Nest comes the autumn—the time
for the ingathering of the kindly fruits of the earth,
and when the rich ripe corn stands out in sheaves
beneath the light of the harvest swoon. Finally there
are the dark December days, when the work upon the
land seems to be as quieteas the sky above it, as though
the soil were enjoying that rest which was to prepare
it for future exertions. There is nothing like this
variety of life in the town—nothing to fix the mind
upon the lessons which are to be derived from the
varying phases revealed by the onward march of each
• revolving season.

The silk trade of France is famous throughout the
world, Out it is not so well known that this also is the
most flourishing of the national industries of Italy.
There are 300,000 persons engaged in it, and the
greater part of the work is done by hand, there being
only 700 looms driven by machinery, as against 20,000
hand-looms. Como, the headquarters of the trade,
absorbs about one-third of it, but there are also large
works at Novara and Lego Maggiore. The Italians
export more than 3,500 tons of raw silk every year—a
fact which will be new to many of the admirers of this
beautiful fabric. Italy, it may be added, possesses
great mineral wealth, but it is unable to put this to the
best advantage in consequence of its having so little
coal, for it has to import more than a million tons
annually for various purposes.
The interest with which the public have followed
the re-opened inquiry into the loss of the Eurydice is
a strong evidence of the deep impression which a
naval disaster leaves upon the popular mind. It is
nearly a century ago that the Royal George went down
at Spithead, and yet to-day the story is as familiar in
our mouths as household words. Many a catastrophe
has been attended with a far more serious loss of life,
yet these are forgotten, while the narrative of a land.
breeze shaking the shrouds and overturning such a
vast floating town as one of those old three-deckers, is
known to every school-boy. Another instance of the
great public interest felt in a great maritime calamity
was furnished in the loss of the Captain in the Bay
of Biscay eight years ago. It was on the night of the
6th of September, 1870, and at the highest time of the
excitement consequent upon the opening incidents of
the war between France and Germany. The capitula-
tion at Sedan four days before had burst like a
thunderclap upon Europe; and two days after the
Emperor Napoleon had been made a prisoner a Re-
volution broke out in Paris, the Empress seeking safety
in flight. That was on Sunday, the 4th of September,
and on the 6th one of our most powerful ironclads sud-
denly toppled over and was gone. The 500 brave
men on board were as a tiny cloud upon a tempest.
covered firmament compared with those awful
harvest-fields of death upon the soil of France,
and yet for the time the continental war was
driven out of our minds, and we could think of
nothing but our own loss. And for years yet to come
the story of the sailing frigate which, after passing
unscathed through the hurricane-chased latitudes of
the West Indies, was capsized by a squall within an
hour's sail of home, with a loss of more than 300 men,
will be remembered as one of the most mournful mys-
teries amongst the secrets of the sea. The huge iron-
clad will hold together for ages 1,200 fathoms beneath
the stormy surface of the bay in which she was en-
gulphed ; but nautical science has been enabled te
raise the Eurydice, and to give the bodies of the
drowned a more peaceful resting-place than would be
found amongst the restless waves.
A nation with such vast colonial possessions as
Great Britain must be often with some cause of
anxiety in respect to one of there ; and that one
appears to be India. It s not so much a colony as
a great dependency, with a State department of its
own—a land teeming with an immense alien popuia„
tion, responding not to the call of Christianity, but
assembling to worship in Moslem mosque and Pagan
shrine. To say nothing of the devastating famines
in India, the latest of which was grappled with
twelve months ago, the Government at Calcutta
seem to live in a state of perpetual alarm at
the reported advance of the Russians in Central
Asia. The most important questions put to ministers
before Parliament separated for the recess related to
the demonstration made by the Russians on the side of
Afghanistarr; and it appears that the authorities at
Calcutta were not aware of the Muscovite mission
before its actual reception at Cabal. Not even a
breraar rumour of the arduous and difficult journey of
a fully-equipped mission, with an armed escort, pene-
trated to British India. It must have been on the
road some time through a country presenting such
obstacles to military movement as Central Asia; but,
like the French in the last Continental war, the intel-
ligence department of the Calcutta government was
not equal to the occasion. It may be doubted whether
the body politic generally takes any considerable
amount of intend in Russian progress through Centsal

Asia. It usually crops up in the recees, and for twenty
years past has appeared as regularly as those
apocryphal stories of impossible /usus naturcs with
which the newspapers were credited with filling their
columns when they were deprived of long reports of
Parliamentary debates.