The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1885-05-02 00:00:00

ear POon Gorrespodent.
[We deem it right to state that we do tat at all tim3lll
Identify ourselves with our Correspondent's opinions.]

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The uncertainty whether peace is to be main-
tained has led to a state of tension of public
feeling which, so far as the metropolis is con-
cerned, is illustrated by the sale of the evening-
newspapers containing the Ministerial state-
ments made in Parliament an hour or two
before. The Peers are not so Inquisitive as the
Commons, where on four days out of five Mr.
Gladstone is bombarded with questions relating
to the negotiations between England and
Russia. These are always, however, in sufficient
time for publication in the special editions, upon
which there is a great run in Fleet-street and
Ludgate-hill. As a.rule Mr. Gladstone has very
little to say. He pointed out one evening last
week that the Government was conducting a
correspondence of extreme gravity, and appealed
to the consideration of Parliament during the
continuance of the crisis. But although the
Prime Minister has but little information to
communicate, people like to read what he really
does say. One of the evening papers prints the
questions and replies in large type, while the
morning papers give prominence to them in
another way.
The Vote of Credit, so far as its amount was
concerned, was undoubtedly a surprise. Very
few could have expected so large a sum as eleven
millions to be asked for. In February, 1878,
when, as now, we were engaged with a dispute
with Russia, Lord Beaconsfield's Ministry asked
for a vote for six millions, upon which a division
was taken, but the proposal was carried by a
majority of 204. Russia seems to have a great
deal to answer for in adding to the burdens of
the people of this country. The long war of
thirty years ago, the difficulty in 1878, and the
vastly greater difficulty now, unitedly represent
the expenditure of an immense amount of money
which no other nation in Europe has compelled
us to spend. The scare of a French invasion
died out many years ago, thanks to the volunteer
movement; and our national interests do not
clash with those of Germany, Austria, and Italy.
It is only Russia amongst the great European
Powers which to us is a constant source of
menace and of irritation.
Attention has been drawn to the fact that the
present Parliament is five years old, having first
assembled at Westminster on the 29th April,
1880. It has had two Speakers. Sir Henry
Brand, now Viscount Hampden, was chosen
unanimously for the third time when the House
met; but retired last year at the age of 70, with
a peerage and a Pension. Mr. Arthur Peel, the
youngest son of the great statesman, was elected
without opposition, a process which the Irish
members threaten will not be repeated in the
new Parliament. Some distinguished men have
disappeared from the front Conservative bench
in the House of Lords—the Earl of Beacons-
field, the Duke of Marlborough, and Earl Cairns;
but death has not laid its hand so heavily on the
leaders on either side in the House of Commons,
the veteran Premier himself, now in his 76th
year, exhibiting but few effects of the wear and
tear of public life, and of the very great responsi-
bilities which must rest upon his shoulders just
now. Amid all these the Prime Minister some-
times seeks the recreation of the drama, and one
evening last week, after the customary catechism
in the House of Commons, he was one of the
spectators of Miss Mary Anderson's performance
at the Lyceum.
The recent beautiful spring weather, with its
accompanying April showers, has changed the
appearance of the parks and of suburban London
as though by magic. Vegetation has burst the
bonds in which it was so long held by the east
wind, and now with stinshine and south-westerly
breezes, it is seen in all its varied shades of
greenery. The verdure is seen just now at its
best. By-and-bye, as Longfellow tells us, the
trees will be "white with dust," a forerunner of
the brown tints of autumn, when the first high
wind strips the branches of their leaves and
scatters them on the earth. The rains have
proved a great blessing to those who supply
London with vegetables, which had become tough
and well nigh tasteless under the long drought
and the parching winds. There is now a very
different flavour on a morning in Covent Garden
as compared with three weeks or a month ago;
for at the early hour at which the consignments
arrive and before the smoke of London has con-
taminated the atmosphere a visit to Covent
Garden supplies a smell of the country of the
most refreshing kind in the very heart of the
capital.
The Royal Academy Exhibition will throw
open its doors to the public on Monday, and on
the same day the Prince of Wales will open the
Inventions Exhibition. Here will be at once
two formidable competitors for the popular
favour, and as the admission to each is only a
shilling, there is no reason why, especially in the
case of country visitors, one should suffer from
the competition of the other. So far as the
Royal Academy is concerned, the people have
the opportunity of seeing the best and freshest
works of the most eminent English artists of the
day. The opening is preceded by a banquet in
the Great Hall of the Academy in Burlington-
gardens on the preceding Saturday night, and
it was at one of these that Mr. Charles Dickens
made the last speech which he ever delivered in
a public assembly. As to the Inventions Exhi-
bition, the recollections of the Fisheries and
what was popularly known as the Healtheries,
are still fresh to their millions of visitors.

Miss Mary Anderson has for the present
bidden farewell to English playgoers, and will
soon start for America, her native land. "Pyg-
malion and Galatea" and "Comedy and
Tragedy" were her last impersonations, and her
efforts were warmly appreciated by a large and
fashionable audience. At the end of the first
piece the fair artist was presented with two
beautiful wreaths, and at the conclusion of the
performance made a short and appropriate
speech, in which she found it rather difficult to
bid her friends good-bye. This gifted American
actress has undoubtedly made a successful debiit
in this country. She has appeared in the "Lady
of Lyons," and Parthenia, in "Ingomar ; " but
her greatest undertaking was that of Juliet,
which she played to the Romeo of Mr. Terriss.
To undertake this part of one of Shakespeare's
greatest productions, the actress requires more
than ordinary histrionic powers. Miss Ander-
son's efforts have been appreciated all along, and
if it should please her to visit England again she
will certainly meet with a hearty welcome. Mr.
Irving now returns to the Lyceum after his long
ahsence in America. The great tragedian com-
mences the season with "Louis X 1.," after which
"Olivia" will be brought out.
If the recent explosion at the Admiralty was
really the work of the dynamite faction, it was
the poorest attempt at damaging a public build-
ing which has yet been made. No one was killed,
the wreckage was cOnfined to a single room, and
only one human being was injured. True, this
was' the Assistant-Secretary, and his wounds
were serious; but the restriction of maiming was
in strong contrast with the experiences of the dyna-
mite:explosions on the Underground Railways.
Looking at the small quantity of deadly matter
employed—not more two pounds, an amount
ludicrously inadequate to blow up a great
Government department, it is not to be wondered
at that private spite has been suggested as the
cause of the explosion. G. R.

The LIFE HISTORY of PARLIAMENTARY
RETURNS.
If we may judge from the utterances of politician
and leading articles in the papers, so many depart-
ments of Parliamentary procedure appear to be in
need of reform that we much fear a shout of derision
in pleading for an improvement of such unconsidered
trifles as Parliamentary returns. A member of
Parliament wants some information or statistics
wherewith to garnish a speech or pamphlet with
which he hopes to electrify society; or some perse_
verina constituent, with a similar end in view, sends
him -a neatly-prepared skeleton form, which the
former would like filled up by a Government de-
partment without further trouble to himself. What
more easy than to move for a return, say, of the
number of potatoes consumed in each canteen of the
several garrisons at home and abroad, thereby en-
lightening the people as to the way in which the
national finances are frittered away, and enhancing
the reputation of the mover of the return as a far-
seeing and energetic.politician, at one and the same
time? The Minister who has the responsibility of
acqiiescing or refusing the proposed return is placed
in the dilemma that if he, knowing it to be perfectly
-useless and misleading, declines to grant it he must
;give reasons for his. refusal, and will almost in-
!fallibly make an enemy of the member whom he
snubs. And so, for tile sake of peace and quietness,
he offers no objection to the return. It is then rele-
gated to some subordinate clerk to prepare, is cora-
viled without any indecent haste, and is in the full-
ness of time laid upOn the table of the House. By
and by it gets printed, and is circulated among the
select class of readers for whom Blue-books have an
attrtetibn. Few people feel the smallest spark of
interest ; fewer still take the trouble to read
it; and the; 'day of its final delivery to the tender
mercies of the butterman is Seldom long delayed.
t
anlcone deny tifaX..tilis is a sufficiently accurate
sketch of the life4aistOry- of the average Par-
liamentary return, and we will- gn chapter and
verse to the contma,, —Sanita itred •

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