The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1884-12-27 00:00:00

THE _STOURBRIDGE OBSERVER.

Gilbert Leigh, 82; Right Hon. Henry Fawcett, 51
Mr. Thomas Collins, 64.

In various walks of life the death roll is a heavy
one. The year had barely opened before a heavy
shadow fell upon the house of Grosvenor, the heir to
the dukedom of Westminter being removed at the
early age of 30. The Marquis of Hertford swiftly
followed at 72, and amongst a long list
of others may be mentioned Mr. Wendell
Phillips, the famous abolitionist orator, 72;
Sir J. B. Byles, for many years one of her Majesty's
judges, 83; M. Rouher, Imperialist statesman, 69;
Cetewayo, ex-King of the Zulus; Mr. Frank Sceda-
more, 61 • Mr. Chenery, editor of the Times, 57; Dr.
John Made, 71; Right Hon. T. Milner Gibson, 76;
Admiral Sir Sydney Dacres, 80; Mr. Blanchard
Jerrold, 57; Mr. Samuel Bowly, President of the
National Temperance League, 81; Miss Litton, the
well-known actress; Mr. Charles Reade, novelist, 70;
Mr. H. J. Byron, dramatist, 48; the Bishop of
Ripon, 67; the Duke of Buccleuch, 78 • Madame ,
Taglioni, operatic dancer, 79; Sir Michael Costa, '
musical composer, 74; Mr. Michael Bass, 84; Sir
Bartle Frere, 69; William Prince of Orange, heir to fix
throne of Holland, 33; the Rev. James Baldwin Brown,
Congregational minister, 04; General Todleben, de-
fender of Sebastopol, 66; Dr. Jacobson, formerly
Bishop of Chester, 81; Earl Cowley, 80 • Mr. Justice
Watkin Williams, 55; Mr. Caesar Hawkins, Sergeant-
surgeon to the Queen, 85; Rev. Mark Pattison,
Rector of Lincoln College, Oxford, 70; Sir Erasmus
Wilson, 74; Bishop Piers Claughton, Chaplain -
General of the Forces, 70; the Duke of Wellington,
78; Lord Ampthill, British Ambassador at Berlin,
65; Mr. Joseph Livesey, temperance advocate, 90;
the Marquis of Londonderry, 63. Not the least inte-
resting record in the roll of mortality is that of the
death of Griffith Williams, the patriarch of Carnar-
vonshire, at the extraordinary age of 105 years.
Happily there have been no great catastrophes at
home marking out the year for special remembrance
in the annals of calamity. Tempests, fires, railway
accidents, and shipwrecks have obeyed the law of
average, but we have fortunately escaped without
exceptional disaster. The most serious of these was
the loss of her Majesty's gunboat Wasp, on the wild
and desolate north-east coast of Ireland, on the 22nd
September, with the serious sacrifice of 52 lives. And
not only so, but there is one subject for deep and
heartfelt congratulation in the escape of this country
from a visitation of the cholera. In the middle of
June this terrible scourge broke out at Toulon, and
soon spread to Marseilles and other places on the
sunlit shores of the Mediterranean Sea. In a
few weeks it was devastating Naples, and to
such an extent that the King of Italy visited
that city and went through the hospitals which
were crowded with the patients who had been stricken
with the !plague, the spirited conduct of his Majesty
eliciting the warmest enconiums. Having stayed its
hand in Italy, early in November it suddenly appeared
in Paris, to the consternation of the people of the
French capital. This was nearer to us than the
tholera had yet come; but the elaborate sanitary
precautions taken by our local authorities for months
have proved an effectual prevention against its secur-
ing a footing in this country.
Foreign affairs have produced nothing very start-
ling during the course of the year. It began with
difficulties between France and China, and these have
not yet been brought to an end. The friendly rela-
tions between the two nations, which had been so long
strained, were finally ruptured on the 21st of August,
when the French Ambassador left Pekin, the Marquis
Tseng having previously withdrawn frem Paris. The
arsenal of Foochow was immediately afterwards bom-
barded and destroyed by the French, whose course
of policy was adversely criticised on this side of the
Channel, the Paris press responding in a vein of acri-
mony. The recent debates in the French Chamber
of Deputies bore testimony to the depth of the
feeling which is felt in France as to the
course which has been pursued. While this
question has thus absorbed the attention of our
nearest neighbour, our Transatlantic cousins have
been occupied over the quadrennial election of their
President. Mr. Blaine, who had filled the office of
Secretary of State under the late General Garfield,
stood as the Republican candidate, Mr. Cleveland
being nominated by the Democrats, who met in Con-
vention at Chicago on the 11th July. The struggle
was long and keen. The election took place on the
4th November, and so close were the votes that for
some days the result was uncertain. It was not until
the 12th November that the issue was placed beyond
question, and that Mr. Cleveland was recognized as
the duly-elected President of the United States.
Reflections are natural at the end of a year which
is a period more strongly impressed upon the human
imagination than any other in the calendar. At the
termination of a month, or of a quarter, or of six
months, we are all too busy to look back upon what
has been accomplished during either division of time;
but at the close of a stage marked by the passing
away of a twelvemonth, men pause awhile to rumi-
nate over the past, to canvass the present, and to
speculate upon the future. There is no instance in all
the multifarious doings in the world's affairs in which
can be uttered more truthfully the saying, "Welcome
the coming speed the parting guest." Instinctively men
turn from that which has been to that which is to
come; they joyfully bid farewell to the old year, and
hail the new with a song of joy. No one expresses a
wish to live a year over again, for it is too often asses.
ciate4 with ruined hopes and heavy troubles which
have furrowed their way deeply into the soul. We
would not, even were it possible, recall the vanished
friendships, the faded affections, the family bereave-
ments, the humiliations, and the disappointments that
have characterised the fleeting year. Its successor,
on the other hand, eomes to us with no cares marked
upon the many pages of its opened volume; no
lines of sorrow are yet inscribed upon the blank
records of the outspread parchment scroll. Travellers
in mountainous lands, in describing the scenes
presented to the physical vision from a high altitude,
have told us of the lights and shadows which fall upon
the plains beneath, and of the differeat hues that give
eolour and variety to the landscape. 'The sun gradu-
ally chases away the grey masses of cloud, and illu-
minates the whole scene in an unbroken sheet of
brilliancy. So it is with the old and the new year.
Inseparable from a glance at the former, now gradu-
ally disappearing from the mental view, there are
gloomy patches interspersed with the bright streaks
which, let us hope, preponderate. But the old year
disappears, and with it the dark spots which have
disfigured the picture. Then, without the pause of an
instant, the arrival of the new year is heralded by
merry peals of bells, awakening the echoes of street
and square in the populated town, and in the calm
retreats of rural life swelling o'er hill and dale, carry-
ing the grateful sounds through villages and hamlets,
and away over silent hilltops and by peaceful valleys.
Such is the spirit in which men greet the fresh epoch
of time now presented to us; and with these senti-
ments. we cordially wish our readers A HAPPY NEW
YEAR.