The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1879-03-08 00:00:00

Our Tanban 6a-rrespubent.

LWe deem ic right to state that we do not at all times
Identify ourselves With our Correspondent's opinions.]

It is a long time since foreign intelligence was
awaited with so much anxiety and interest as that
which is now brought to us over thousands of miles of
ocean from the far.off Continent of Africa. Perhaps
the circumstances of the Indian Mutiny, two-and-
twenty years ago, are the nearest approach to the
present position. Then, as now, there was no electric
telegraph communicating with the scene of disaster
directly from England; the intelligence of the calamity
took some time to reach us; and while reinforce-
ments were on their way the suspense respecting the
fate of our brave countrymen and countrywomen who
were in danger was of a very painful character.
Many of us remember the prominent incidents of
that exciting time how Lord Palmerston, who
was then Prime Minister, on receiving the grave in-
telligence from India, sent for Sir Colin Campbell, who
had done such splendid service in the Crimea, and told
him he wished him to take the command of the Indian

army. When could he start? "To-morrow morning,"
was the reply of the stout old soldier. And away he

went; and as time went on so as to allow news to come
from our great Eastern dependency, events told clearly
enough of the turning to flight of the armies of the
aliens. Now, as in 1857, there is the utmost activity
in the despatch of reinforcements, and there is as little
doubt of the ultimate result; but, equally, some time
must elapse before we can know what these reinforce-
ments have been doing. In each case a small number
of Europeans are face to face with an overpowering
force of dusky and merciless savages; and the Zulus

have shown that, like the Sepoys, they can turn to a
fearful account the knowledge which they possess of

the art of war.

One very obvious result of the exciting news from
Africa is the total extinction of public interest in that
which is passing upon the adjoining continent. Only
three months ago the deeds of our soldiers in forcing

their way through the passes of Afghanistan in the
face of enormous obstacles was the theme of congratu-
lation in household, in street, in mart, and senate.
The victory of General Roberts in the Peiwar Pass,
in the early days of December, was announced in both
Houses of Parliament on the first night of the winter
session, amid the warm and cordial cheers of all
parties. But, as the campaign advanced, it was found
that there was no fight in the Afghans, and that the
British columns were constantly marching against an
invisible foe. There was no glory about such a business
as this, and great was the disappointment on the part
of enterprising managers of those daily newspapers
who had at great expense sent out special correspond-
ents to chronicle the incidents of a war which from past

history promised to be full of interest and excitement.
In the meantime, it scarcely entered the imagination to
conceive of the catastrophe which was in store for us
at the Cape of Good Hope; and, BO far as that part of
the country was eoncerned, it was left comparatively
unattended t. This hiatus has, however, now been
supplied. Many of the specials have shaken the dust
off their feet in Afghanistan, and have made their way
towards the land of the Zulus. Therefore, although
at present we have chiefly to depend upon extracts
from the Cape newspapers for our knowledge of what
is going on, it will not be long before the public get
from Africa some of those graphic descriptions which
are familiar to those who followed the incidents of
the wars between France and Germany, and Russia

and Turkey.
Country visitors to London who take an interest in
political affairs generally spend an hour or two in the
lobby of the House of Commons, and get the public
men pointed out to them as they pass in and out of
that assembly. The intelligent members of the A
Division of police, who are told off for duty in the
Palace of Westminster, are all courtesy and infornaa.
Con to a stranger, who is pleased with the one, and
asks for the other. The animation of the lobby
Is a reflex of the life of the Parliament,_ and

consequently of the nation. In times of great political
excitement there is much moving to and fro in the
lobby —members in and out consulting the Whips,
peers strolling about arm-in-arm with commoners,
eager faces all ground you. Occasionally the word
"Division I" shouted in a stentorian tone, followed by
the tinkle of the electric bells all over the building,
has called members to vote in the rise and fall
of administrations, and to give a decision which
for years will settle the fate of a political party.
But we get nothing of such exciting fights now. As a
matter of fact no decision has expelled a Government
from power since that which took place on the 18th
June, 1866, when Lord Russell's Ministry resigned
on being placed in a minority of 11—namely, 315 to
304. Since that time the verdicts given by the people
at the polls at the general elections of 1868 and 1874
have decided the fate of parties. As to the lobby of
the House of Commons now, it is cheerless and de-
serted. The business before Parliament is principally
devoted to the carrying on of administrative routine;
there are no burning subjects to agitate the con-
stituencies ; no overpowering number of applications
for admission to the lobby and the galleries. All is
quiet, as befits the closing days of a long-lived but
now expiring Parliament.
In connection with this subject it may be men-
tioned that the fifth of this month makes the Parlia-
ment five years old, The writs dissolving its
predecessor and summoning a new one, were return-
able on the sth March, 1874, on which day the two
Houses assembled at Westminster. "Mighty changes
have come o'er us" since that afternoon in the early
spring half a decade ago, when the lords spiritual and
temporal, the knights, citizens and burgesses, and the
commissioners for shires and burghs in the House of
Commons—to quote the language of the Royal pro-
clamation—met for the first time in Sir Charles
Barry's Legislative Palace. The personnel of the
Assembly has been materially changed, 54 members
of the House of Commons having died in the five
years—a proportion equal to about one•twelfth of the
whole. It is a curious fact, and one illustrating in
a remarkable degree the working of inevitable and
unalterable laws, that the mortality in this House
corresponds exactly with that in the representative
chamber which preceded it. When it was dissolved,
on the 26th January, 1874, it had been in existence
five years, one month, and sixteen days, and in that
time 55 of its members had died. By the time the
present House has lived another six weeks, possibly
another of its members will have been gathered to his
fathers. The removals by death are on an average
eleven every year. Some members are caught away
after only two or three years of Parliamentary life;
others go on from one Parliament to another as though
panting Time toiled after them in vain. Mr. Glad-
stone, for instance, has sat in eleven Parliaments,
extending ever a period of forty-seven years. Lord
Palmerston was a member of the House of Commons
for the amazing term of sixty years; Lord John
Russell forty-eight years, then going to the Upper
House, where he sat another seventeen.
The repugnance of the British public to slavery in
any form is a matter of history. Clarkson and
Wilberforce, in the last century, laid the foundation
of the work which Brougham helped to complete in
the first generation of this, and that distinguished
man was a member of a Cabinet—that of Earl Grey—
which abolished slavery throughout the British
dominions, principally in our West Indian possessions.
Long before that, however, Lord Mansfield, whose
statue holding with even hand the scales of justice,
now stands in St. Stephen's Hall, had laid down
the famous and irreversible dictum that a slave
on touching the soil of England was free; and to this
day, wherever the Union Jack flings out its folds upon
the breeze, whether in the island of Cyprus, or in the
distant territories of the Transvaal, no slavery can
exist. Still it takes a long time to kill a rooted
evil. Slavery in the United States was extinguished
only after a great war, and to this day it flourishes
under Spanish rule. Only a few days ago, a deputa-
tion from the Anti-Slavery Society waited upon Lord
Salisbury at the Foreign Office, and asked our Gov-
ernment to use its efforts with the Spanish authori-
ties for the extinction of this plague-spot upon the
escutcheon of the hidalgos. The Foreign Secretary
thought that public opinion might do something,
pointing out how susceptible the Spanish were to any-
thing like interference with their domestic institutions •
but at the same time promised to do what he cinsist
ently could to further the views of the deputation. It
is well that the public should know this, and to feel
assured that the last is being done to extinguish so
dark a shadow upon the fame of a people.
parch seems to be a favourite month in connection
with Royal marriages. On the 10th March, 1863, the
Prince of Wales was married; on the 21st of that
month in the year 1871, the wedding of the Princess
Louise took place; on the 12th March 1874, the Duchess
of Edinburgh first entered London in state, after her
marriage to the second son of the Queen; and on the
13th of this month the union of the Duke of Connaught
with the Princess Louise Margherite of Prussia is
to be solemnised in S. George's Chapel, Windsor.
This will make the seventh of her Majesty's children to
enter the holy state of matrimony; and the weddings
have thus far extended over a period of more than 21
years, the Princess Royal having been married on the
25th of January, 1858. Prince Leopold, who is the next
in point of age to the roya bridegroom expectant,
will complete his 26th year on the 7th April, and
Princess Beatrice will be 22 on the 14th of the same
month. Prince Leopold has followed up his speech in
favour of extended University teaching, which he
lately delivered at the Mansion House, by an address
at the Birkbeck Literary and Scientific Institution,
on the occasion of its fifty-fifth anniversary. The
Birkbeck has had some very eminent presidents in its