The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1879-09-06 00:00:00

Au Donn gorrtspon tut
illro deem it right to atate that we do sot at all t;
rlsntify ourselves with our Correspondent's opinions.)

Often as it has been declared that the principal
topic of conversation with the people of these islands
is the weather, it seldom happens that it has absorbed
so much attention as it did last week. With the
closing days of August there are associations of hot
sunshine, clear skies, and the ingathering of the
harvest. But the last week of August, 1879, seemed
to mark the climax of a strange and disastrous season,
and to suggest to many minds the idea of a national
visitation. It was not enough that since the 24th
July, 1878, there had not been seven consecutive days
without rain or hail; but at harvest time to have
the land, from end to end of the kingdom, covered
with calamitous floods, with rain still falling pitilessly,
and the wind sweeping with a melancholy howl
through the dripping foliage of the trees, was a more
depressing spectacle than even our agriculturists, with
all their vicissitudes, are commonly accustomed to
Ism That these destructive inundations should have
carried off bay in enormous quantities shows the
extraordinary backwardness of the crops at this time
of the year. Hay harvest in September, a month to
which tradition assigns partridge shooting, and when
the reapers are supposed to join in singing, "All
among the barley 1" is a startling phenomenon which,
for the sake of the prosperity of the country, it is
earnestly hoped will be exceptional. The last wet
year which in any degree approached 1879 was 1860,
but it was not so bad as this; for already we have had
111 inches of rain more than the average for the first
eight months of the year.
The weather has naturally turned the attention of
the people to the prospects of the harvest; for to no
class in the community can the condition of the agri-
cultural interest be a matter of indifference. In
London itself, with its wide-spreading acres of houses,
you have not to gs far before obtaining a sight of a
field; indeed the Earl of Mansfield's park at High-
gate can be plainly seen from some of the busiest por-
tions of the northern side of the Thames. In our great
provincial towns a view of the fields is of course more
easy than in the metropolis; while in places of lesser
size the associations suggested by the presence of the
agricultural interest are ever with the people. There-
fore there must exist a strong community of feeling be-
tween the country and the town; and when it is known
that the loss to the farmers through the deficient
yield of the crops is likely to exceed fifty millions
sterling, no elaboration is necessary to show the very
serious condition of affairs, coming as it does after five
indifferent .haivests. Except in a few favoured dis-
tricts the corn is still green, and the date of harvest
uncertain. The low temperature of the past two
months has had a most baneful effect upon the wheat
crop; and thousands of acres grown several hundred
feet above the level of the sea are now not likely to re-
ceive sufficient warmth and sunshine to ripen. Thou-
sands of acres more are grown upon stiff soils which
have been soaked in water since the beginning of last
winter, and to which additions have been made by the
heavy and incessant rains.

There is no better indication of the prosperity of a
country than the flourishing condition of its railways.
When trade is good, there is not only a large traffic in
merchandise, but an increased number of passengers,
who can well afford to travel either on business or on
pleasure; when the commerce of the country is
depressed, it is just the reverse. The longest of our
railway systems is now the Great Western, for it
has about two thousand miles of line, one of its
branches extending right down to Penzance, within
a few miles of the Land's End. At the half-
yearly meeting, which was held a few days ago at
Paddington, the Chairman stated that during the
first six months of the year the decrease in receipts
was £60,000. They had carried 23,500 fewer by
first-class passengers, and received less from them
£19,000. There has been 65,000 fewer second-class
passengers, and £7,000 less in amount. Of the third class
the number conveyed was 275,000 less, and the receipts
were smaller by £41,000. In the two weeks at Whit-
suntide and Easter, when the company had, as a rule,
a large increase of revenue from pleasure traffic, the
receipts were this year £22,000 less than in the cor-
responding period of 1878. A singular fact mentioned
by the chairman was that 95 per cent, of the permanent
way of the Great Western system was now laid with
steel rails, more costly in the first piece, but far more
enduring than iron.
The aneiversary of the capitulation of Sedan on the
2nd Serve aiber, 1870, is invariably celebrated with
great rejoicings at Berlin; for on that day the French
empire was dissolved, and the Empire of Germany
rose upon its ruins. Few who were in London upon
the reception of that intelligence will forget the in-
tense excitement which it canoed, seeing that only
six weeks previously the Emperor of the French, who
had been accounted one of the most powerful sovereigns
of his time, was the first to declare war. It was on
Sunday, the Fourth of September. that the revolu-
tion broke out in Paris; and only in the few years
which have sines elapsed great changes have been wit-
nessed. The Emperor and his only son, the "Child
of France," now lie side by side in au unpretending
church at Chislehurst, the latter slain by savages
in a far-off land, in a quarrel not his own.
Since the destruction of the Empire, the French
military authorities have devoted themselves unrest-
ingly to the reorganization of the army. The summer
maesseuvres are now taking place all over the country.
Wherever there is a camp, strategy is being practised
on a large scale; where there are ordinary garrisons
of one or two regiments, the soldiers are being taught
to march, skirmish, advance, and reconnoitre. Not-
withstanding the disasters of 1871, the French have a
thorough belief in the military destinies of their country;
and they have paid so much attention to their land
forces that at this moment, in case of necessity, they
could put into the field 800,000 men.
As to celebrations of military victories, it certainly
cannot he said that the English have a weakness for
such commemorations. One reason is that we very
seldom go to war with a great European Power—one
against whom a triumph would be worthy of celebrat-
ing. But even when we do, the victory is allowed to
pass without much notice after it has been won. Let
us take a remarkable illustration of this. The 20th
of September is 4 double event in our history—although
comparatively few will connect that date with anything
of transcendent national importance. On that day, in
1854, we won the battle of the Alma over the Russians
in the Crimea; and, in 1857, the British forces effected
the capture of Delhi, of which the Sepoy rebels had
taken possession. The Alma does find a place in most
of our almanacks, of which word it formsnearly half the
name; but Delhi is mostly forgotten; but as to either
of them being commemorated, it is quite out of the
question. But a far greater victory than either was
the capteire of Sebastopol itself on the Bth September,
1855; but how many of our schoolboys know It?
They can tell the date of the battle of Waterloo, and
of Trafalgar; but the date of the fall of the stately
mistress of the Euxine after a siege of eleven months,
and the loss of thousands of men—an incident within
the recollection of many not yet arrived at middle life
—receives but scant attention, not so much indeed as
it deserves.

The return of Lord Chelmsford from the Cape, his
piomotion to be a Knight Grand Cross of the Bath,
and the congratulations which he has received, have
suggested the question whether he will be welcomed in
the House of Lords upon its reassembly in the same
way as the Commons greet a distinguished military
commander on his return from a successful campaign,
As a matter of fact, Lord Chelmsford has not yet
taken his seat as a peer, for when he succeeded to the
title, in the autumn of last year, he was at the Cape as
Major-General Sir Frederick Thesiger, K.C.B. His
father was the eminent lawyer of that name, who twice
filled the office of Lord Chancellor, and died in October
last at the age of 84. When a member of the House of
Commons receives the thanks of that assembly for his Fier-
vicse in a foreign war, the ceremony is of a very imps.
in; character. The resolution is proposed by the leader
0! the Government, seconded by the lee.der of the
OPPosithn, and formally presented by the Speaker;
while the seat then occupied by the member thus
thanked is his by prescriptive right so long as he has
the privilege of sitting in the Assembly. The last
occasion on which a ceremonial of this kind was
witnessed was on the return of Sir De Lacy Evans,
one of the representatives of Westminster, from the
Crimean war. The seat which he filled that night was
always his afterwards; and however crowded the
House might have been, this one place was always
kept for Sir De Lacy Evans.

The Cricket season in England is nearly at an end;
and owing to the weather there has not been such 4n
unfortunate one since 1860—the last year of continual
rainfall. Many a match has been begun and stopped
when half way through in consequence of the impossi-
bility of carrying on the game in the midst of a lake or
a morass. Meanwhile twelve English cricketers are on
their way to Quebec, in the steamer Sardinian, in
order to play a series of matches throughout Canada
and the United States. Their names will be recog-
nized as representatives, in a very, remarkable,
degree, of the excellence of a pastin4.l4 which the
Euglith are so thoronghly'ianficient,.and which devel-
opes the health and, tests. the skill of .the player.
The team that has gon4 across the • Atlantic con-
sists of Messrs.- Daft. (Captain), Leak,.
wood, Pinder, Emmett, Bites, **orlon Shaw,
Oacroft, Barnes, Selby, and Shrewsbury:. These
are twelve of the most famous professional cricket-
ers of whom England can boast; and it may con-
fidently be said that so complete a team has not
left our shorws on a similar expedition since George

ci;4.

c*.. '